Open The Dialogue

I haven't written as much about ooVoo as I might have wanted to or as much as I intended to. Circumstances dictated that I was only able to do one of the two "ooVoo Day" sessions I had scheduled for last week and I'm not sure what I'll be able to pull off this coming week considering I have some traveling coming up.

But when I did use it it seemed like a very nice software-based video chat tool. The software worked well, without many problems and without any interference in the actual chat experience, which is the key thing. I haven't tried it on my Mac but will probably have the opportunity to do just that while on the road this week.

As I often do with such tools that I try out I try to spend time thinking about how they might be used for clients. It eluded me for a while but then it hit me.

Often we're asked to arrange interviews with "key" bloggers in a niche area of coverage or physical location. That's sometimes hard to do in a way that really fosters a conversation or connection between the interviewer and the interviewee.

But ooVoo could be just that facilitator. If we were able to hook up a client with five or six bloggers for an hour-long virtual roundtable we could almost recreate the idea of the deskside briefing that is pervasive in the traditional press relations media plan for new media execution. The ability to record and grab pictures of the session in progress add instant multimedia assets to whatever the writer then puts up about the interview session.

I think ooVoo is on the right track with what they're doing. There are some upgrades and additional features that need to be added or issues that need to be resolved (from what I've heard and read support for the Mac is iffy at best) but I like what they're trying to do. And if there's some way we can be using it to further the conversation between our clients and the media, be it social or traditional, then it can truly be a valuable tool in our belt.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 03:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, I caught this link flying by on my Twitterrific client, where the New York Times' David Pogue dissects - and smartly - GrandCentral, a phone service that many of us have heard about for some time now but has finally made it to "prime time" - or will now. At the moment, I figured this was definitely one of the articles we'd be hearing about for weeks to come, and I'm honestly surprised at the minimal linkage that it's gotten so far on TechMeme, but not to worry. While this isn't exactly a PR or traditional marketing focused post that Chris or I would put up here, it's something that I thought was worth pointing out to the readership here, and my colleagues. If you haven't already read the article, or know about GrandCentral, you might be able to harken back to "hunt" phone lines, or maybe had one at one point. I, for one, had one a few years ago, two employers ago, and thought it was one of the more helpful things ever. Here's the quick and dirty, and then I'll let you go read what Pogue has to say.

• You subscribe - for $0 if you have one or two phone lines to "hunt," $15/month for more
• You start giving out your GrandCentral number to people
• GrandCentral then sends the calls - according to your preferences - to your mobile phone, your office phone, your home phone, you second mobile phone, your SkypeIn number, whatever
• You screen your calls, you have a centralized voicemail box, you are able to offer different "ringers" to your callers, and can upload your own mp3s for that purpose
• You're now totally reachable - or not - whenever, wherever, without a multitude of telephone lines.

Now sure, this isn't earth-shattering for everyone, but the reason it's tentatively important to everyone is that it's free, if you have two or less numbers you want to have people try and reach you at. It's feature-rich, has a great Web presence, and is something that wasn't rushed to market. I'm very psyched to see that it's finally made its way to the end of a public beta, and the fact that Pogue, even with a few clarifying statements at the end of his column, was so high on it I think is a really good sign. I've already signed up, and will probably end up getting the pay account so I can incorporate my SkypeIn number that I'd love to start using more often, so now all I have to do is print up some more personal business cards, and I'm golden. [update 3/15] Costa Tsiokos disagrees on the value of this, pointing out how 700 area code numbers were created back in the day for pretty much this purpose. While I think that he's right in saying that "if you've got all these numbers, you should be getting rid of some," that doesn't mean that people can't be "stuck" in a position to have a work phone, a mobile phone, and maybe a mobile device from work, too. Even so, I think the service is valuable for those who have two phones, if only for the screening purposes and the ability to get that "hunt" working - but point taken.

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As our friends at Lifehacker point out, the official "launch" of Firefox 2.0 is on Tuesday (what do the think this is, the music industry?), but you can download it now, anyway. So have fun, and don't hurt yourselves, kids.

[update: 2:43pm] Well, it's pretty awesome that FF is now coming with a spell checker on, but I couldn't help but get a kick out of the fact that RSS wasn't included in the dictionary.

Posted by Tom Biro at 01:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Just started running FeedDemon 2.0 on my work machine this morning, and so far, so good. Been having a good time with the pre-releases and betas, so I had a pretty good feel for now the newer features would roll, and this just firms it all up. Congrats to Nick and the whole FeedDemon / NewsGator crew on this version, and looking forward to more great work from y'all.

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Over at Lifehacker, they're pointing out a really cool way to use basic tagging concepts within the enterprise. Right now, tagging and folksonomy as a whole isn't exactly the most popular thing within businesses and professional organization, but that's just because the jacket doesn't fit yet across the board. And it most certainly isn't stopping people from trying to figure out what size it needs to be.

Heading over to Michael Sippey's site, he's got an .oft file for download, but he's not explaining so much how to use it. I gave this a whirl this morning, and think it's actually pretty slick - so here's a short rundown on how to import this form for your use within Outlook.

First off, make sure that you've got all the necessary Outlook / Microsoft updates that you should. It's not so smart to go using random forms and other Office / Outlook files without the proper security and virus scanning, so make sure you have all that down pat. (No offense, Mike!) As with anything else software or Microsoft-related, be aware that you're adding a new form that might not react so well with your particular install, so don't take any steps you're not comfortable with. Enough with the disclaimers, let's get down to brass tacks.

First off, scan and save that .oft file from Sippey's blog. The way to figure out where it should go is to open up Outlook's tasks function, and go to Tools > Forms > Choose Form. When you get the dialog box, go to "User Templates in File System." (as seen below)

After choosing that option, the directory on your computer where your new task template should be placed will be shown - save the file there.

Now you've got the file on your computer, but how to use it? If you don't want to have to go through the "Choose Form" option every single time you want the taggable tasks, you can easily add a button to your menu. Right click anywhere on the menu that contains the "New," print, and "Find" options, and click "Customize." On the following menu (seen below), drag and drop the "Task" option somewhere on your menu bar above, perhaps off to the right side.

Before closing the "Customize" menu, right click on the new "Task" option, and select "Change Button Image." Select something you like, then go to where it says "Task" and edit that text. I've called mine "TagTask." Finally, right click again and go to the last option in the menu, "Edit Hyperlink," and choose "Open." This should open up a dialog box that will allow you to browse to the file you previously saved on your computer. Select the file, then click "OK." Click on your "TagTask" button, or whatever you've called it. You should see a form like the one below:

Enter a task - you'll notice that this form doesn't contain any other variables, such as Due Date, or Outlook's pre-set categories. If you edit the form, you'll find you can add pretty much anything you want, but not all users will have the desire (or time) to do so. This is a basic way to use tagging within the enterprise, and perhaps a first step in a taggable way for more people to categorize email folders. Much like many people have been pulled into the cult of Gmail, people may begin to tag things across the board - or at least want to.

You'll notice I've tagged my latest Task, "Press my Easy Button," with the tags 'staples' 'press' 'easybutton' and 'meredithtopalanchik' - if these seem basic to you, then there's a reason for it. The point of tagging is that you're not limited or worried about putting things in the wrong "place." I can tag it 50 ways under the Sun, so anytime I'm looking for anything related to the tags I gave it, this task will come up. I don't have to overthink which email folder I'm going to put it in to find it most commonly - it's just "out there," and the tags lead me back to it. Advanced Find is a great function, but tagging allows me a little more freeform than I'd have otherwise.

If you've got questions, feel free to contact me via email, tbiro (at) mww.com, or via AIM/Yahoo! IM at "themediadrop" - otherwise, Cheers!

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone else psyched to get their hands on FeedDemon 2.0? Sounds like some folks are enjoying the private beta so far.

[update 1/11] And it looks like NewsGator Online is going to have some nifty updates as well, sez Brad Feld. I don't know about you, but the ability to sync up my feeds so I can have some at home, some at work, all on the 'net, and whatever inbetween is pretty awesome.

Posted by Tom Biro at 02:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nick Bradbury notes one of the newest features in the latest version of FeedDemon [v 1.6 RC1], Reports. Right now, you can keep track of which feeds you visit the most, least, and even those that haven't published much at all - "Dinosaurs," as they're called. I'm a big FeedDemon user, and have upgraded to this version on one of the machines I use every day so far. At this point, no issues, and I've been following along as the Beta releases have been coming out. The whole acquisition by NewsGator has been nothing but helpful for me, as I never feel like I'm duplicating efforts or having to sort through feeds or posts I've already read - the one advantage that the Web-only-based services like Bloglines could previously hold over the head of the client-side software packages.

Posted by Tom Biro at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)