Instant Messaging

Items dealing with the use and growth of IM as a workplace communication tool

Saturday, April 07, 2007

FIR finds a new use for Twitter

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As Neville and I began recording episode #229 of the Hobson and Holtz Report last Thursday, Neville put out a tweet on the FIR Twitter account: “About to start recording FIR #229. Do you have a comment for today’s show? Twitter it!”

Among the nearly 60 people who follow the FIR tweets, three took us up on the offer, providing real-time contributions to the podcast as we recorded it.

There’s nothing new about real-time audience involvement in an asynchronous podcast. Michael Butler of The Rock ‘n Roll Geek Show, for example, has a chat room where people can participate live. I understand Chris Pirillo does the same for his show. For these to work, listeners need to know when the show will be recorded so they can be standing by to participate. With Twitter, however, anybody who happend sto be following tweets—via the Twitter interface, with text messages on their phones, or through an IM client like AIM—will learn that we’re recording whenever that might be (and it’s not always the same time) and be able to jump right in.

It’s an experiment, but an easy one to run. It continues to be interesting to see the various uses to which Twitter is put.

Monday, January 22, 2007

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #208: January 22, 2007

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Content summary: Two new FIR podcasts posted; marketers upset about changes to Outlook; track website analytics with RSS feeds; online newspaper blog traffic grows 210%; blogger, not splog, hijacks blog content; increasing criticism of Celebrity Big Brother and the UK’s Channel 4 as advertisers pull out: what does this TV show say about society?; David Phillips reports on social media on steroids; the social media press release kerfuffle; listener’s comment discussion; reminder about the New Communications Forum in March; the music; and more.

[Messages from our sponsors: Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir. Online meetings made easy with GoToMeeting: try it free for 45 days - use promo code “Podcast”.]

Show notes for January 22, 2007

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 56-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Download the file here (MP3, 26MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

Listen to this podcast now:

In This Edition:

• #208 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the home page for info.

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com; or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America) or +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe); or Skype: fircomments. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

So, until Thursday January 25…

Thursday, April 20, 2006

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #130: April 20, 2006

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Content summary: FIR listener survey update; GM launches new blog; International Podcasting Expo starts April 21; the growth of podcasting: FeedBurner report; the PR agency social media billing puzzle; Dan York reports; David Phillips reports; listeners’ comments discussion; next show an FIR/ATS mashup; the music, and more.

Show notes for April 20, 2006

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 75-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Download the file here (MP3, 30MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

Listen to this podcast now:

In This Edition:

• Detailed show notes to come.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the home page for info. If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com, or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

So, until Monday, April 24…

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Business IM use up to 85%

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A study from Radicati Group reinforces the notion that IM has evolved from a means for people to engage in idle chatter to a vital business communication tool. Eighty-five percent of North American businesses use IM, according to the study, and 44% of those businesses that have adopted IM sought to improve internal communication. Thirty-three percent are saving long-distance phone charges by encouraging employees to use IM. In a C|Net story on the study, Cantor Fitzgerald trader Sal Morreale is quoted: “If you don’t have IM in this business, you’re not there. I tend to have 10 or 11 IM windows open at a time.”

The study, “Messaging and Collaboration Corporate Survey, 2005 - 2006,” is $2,500 from Radicati. I’d advise you just read the C|Net story.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Arrested for spimming

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I’ve been getting a ton of spim lately. Spim is spam that targets your instant messager (IM) rather than your e-mail. At least twice a day, my IM client pops up with an invitation to visit a Web site created and maintained entirely by women. I get more irritated every time I have to put a block on the ad which comes from a different source every time it appears.

So I cheered when I read that 18-year-old Anthony Greco was arrested last Wednesday for sending 1.5 million spim messages advertising everything from mortages to porn. All Greco’s spims reportedly were sent to subscribers to the MySpace.com IM service, so he wasn’t responsible for any of the unwanted messages I got. But with luck, his arrest will send a message to others that spimming won’t be tolerated.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Formality the first victim of online communication

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Instant and test messaging—IM and SMS—are growing at mind-boggling rates. In direct proportion to that growth, civility, grammar, and spelling seem to be going out the window. That’s the conclusion of a study of 1,000 online Australians conducted by ninemsn. Almost half of those surveyed regularly use IM at work, and 90% of them don’t think spelling and grammar are important in their online communication.

An article in The Advertiser quotes ninemsn consumer services director Dominic Finnegan: “Formality is the first casualty of online communication.” The article includes five key guidelines of SMS and IM communication.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Instant Messaging: The sleeping giant

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Gartner has called Instant Messaging “the sleeping giant of the Internet.” The tech analysis company expects 70% of employees will use IM for personal communication this year. Already, business communications account for one-third of the 1 billion instant messages sent daily. What will spur the growth of IM, though, is the introduction of new technologies that transform the technology for a simple communication tool to a front end for business applications.

India’s Express Computer magazine reports that more mobile devices will be able to access IM and a host of business applications are ready for unveiling. It’s not so much instant messaging any more; now it’s “instant collaboration, “which

refers to the ability to escalate a single IM-session into a multi-party conferencing environment. In addition to conferencing, users can also execute web collaboration applications including web presentations, white-boarding, application or desktop-sharing among others. Given the power of real time communication, some believe that IM may even replace e-mail.

The article offers a thorough rundown of many new offerings due to hit the marketplace this year, including IM tools with built-in customer relationship management software and IM tools that can handle internal form completion.