Our Podcasting partners Podcast Production have launched a new Podcast called Podcasting for business. The first episode is a brief (or should I say "shock") introduction to business Podcasting from an excited Hugh Broom.

Their Podcast promises to keep listeners up to date with Podcasting tips for high quality production and (where it gets interesting) how to use Podcasts effectively for business marcomms. I wait with baited breath !

The words "Edit this page." will be familiar to many search engine users - search for just about anythign you can put in a box and you will find it on Wikipedia.org, the online encyclopedi that invites you and I to become the editor. I, for example regularly plug wiki on Space Blog whether for the definition of a Planet or the mission andf history of the Hubble Telescope.

Jimmy Wales, founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is planning to build an online commercial search engine that would compete with Google and Yahoo.

Information Week reported that the search engine, code-named Wikiasari, would combine open source technology and human intervention to deliver more relevant results, "Human intelligence is still the best thing we have, so let's let humans do what they do best, and computers do what they do best commented Wales. "Wikiasari combines the Hawaiian word for quick, "wiki," with the Japanese word "asari," which means "rummaging search."

At a time when a recent survey has suggested that more than 60% of Scots regularly surf or 'Wilf' (which stands for 'What was I looking for?') perhaps this is just what is needed. The internet is becoming increasingly big business, with online publishing and more to the point advertising (take YouTube as an example) being taken seriously this venture is not surprise.

However - as those of you on the bleeding edge of technologoy will be aware - all the major search engines are introducing elements of "social" or interactive web searches into their offerings as part of a move towards "web 2.0". Take, for example the advent of social bookmarking, RSS tagging and customised micro-search engines as a few examples. You can try a few "social bookmarks" by clicking on the link below and play your part in the web:

Podcasting is nothing short of a communications revolution, it’s a revolution that is sweeping the globe and one which you and is worth serious consideration as part of a wide range of marcomms plans.

OK, but what is a Podcast? Well, put simply it’s an audio or video file that is delivered straight to any computer and then on to an MP3 player. In fact, you can now even send a Podcast directly to a mobile phone. Users subscribe to a Podcast so subsequent Podcast “editions” are delivered automatically using specially designed software such as iTunes. If a listener has an iPod, they can plug in their iPod or alternative mp3 player and the most recent episode is automatically downloaded to the player for playback "on the road".


Build up Podcast marketing regular episodes

The thing that sets a Podcast apart from a single mp3 download is the subscription mechanism, once a listener has subscribed to a Podcast they will automatically receive each episode of a Podcast series. This means that a well thought out and sustained Podcast programme will generate an increasing listener captive base which is great news for marketing and PR professionals.

Podcasting as a communications channel

Now, what really differentiates the Podcast as a superb communication channel is that it’s personal. It’s an engaging one-to-one conversation with the listener. So, Podcasts are a great way to motivate staff, inform shareholders of company performance, enthusiastically communicate new products and services to customers and provide news updates to journalists and financial analysts. What’s more, Podcasts can be produced in any language and distributed quickly and efficiently, all at a fraction of the cost associated with conventional media such as printed newsletters.

Richard Frais works for Podcast Production, a professional and media experienced team with the Podcast production, scripting, recording and experience to support your communications plan.

XML on it's own doesn't rewrite the internet and put your website on top. The whole internet has gone xml mad, in some cases placing the importance of XML over human-friendly html!

In addition to our favourite topic, RSS, which is used to share data with other websites, blogs and users (yes, real people), XML is a standard for sharing structured data. It can be likened to a comma separated variable (CSV) file or an Excel (or other) spreadsheet. Like these formats, an XML file could contain data - analagous to the number entered in a cell - which could be contained within a hierachy of tags - comparable to rows, columns, worksheets.

Just as you can't import one company's custom accounting sheet into another's at the click of a button, you cannot import one xml file into another without using a common format. As such, sub-standards such as RSS 2.0, RSS 0.91 used for content syndication and ROR used to catalogue websites for search engines, are required.

One advantage of XML is that the structure and labels of the data are described within the data itself. This means that even if the data is not instantly understood, it may be simpler to work out how to map XML data into your program than a "bare bones" data file.

Also, unike a CSV file, XML is not read blindly, but parsed by element. In English, this means that if certain fields are not included in the XML file they can be safely ignored and the data that is present is read. This again links back to the fact that each element is labelled.

It makes great sense for RSS feeds to be added to news search engines and blog directories so that individual articles or blogs are indexed within the search. Another reason why RSS works so well is that it contains a data about when the content is published, thereby keeping websites current.

Google have recently started (yet) another new service called Google Base, that allows webmasters to submit pretty much any structured data. Is this too open ended and mindblowing? Well, it isn't too dissimilar to what the ROR movement are doing - and the format that they put the data into at Google isn't too much different either - see official ROR blog

More about XML and Search engines using XML soon.

Google News is still in an experimental, or what you might call "beta" state. If you are lucky enough to get news on a site which is a Google News source such as www.ballard.co.uk, then you might find it gets listed under an appopriate category - in our line of work this is invariably "technology".

One of the problems with RSS, both for editors and for information consumers, is that there are lots of RSS feeds to subscribe to on any topic from Intimidating Technology to Automation or "my mate's Psychic Development blog" (we have no affiliation to this blog!).

No matter what the topic, a Google News style grouping or "clustering" algorthim could be very useful indeed. It seems that the PR blog, Micropersuasion has discoved such a system in development from Yahoo! This would, of course be tricky for personal blogs which by their very nature can cover a wide range of topic from UK space to what spin doctors do in their spare time.

The world awaits super-clever coding from (or at least bought out by) the likes of Yahoo! and Google to solve this riddle! In the meanwhile, we'll keep you posted on the developments.

The IT world has been talking about RSS and XML until they are blue in the face, but the broader community has been slower to catch on. In particular IT publishers and bloggers use RSS extensively. As a technically proficient communications agency, we have harnessed the technology for the purpose of news distribution and syndication. General purpose newswires such as PR Web have since independently recognised the potential of RSS for use by the press.

Recognise these?



An "XML" or "RSS" icon is there to advertise the fact that a feed is available to subscribe to, the BBC Telegraph and IT Analysis all have great feeds to subscribe to. Note that these aren't supposed to look good in a web browser but to be viewed using a special reader or aggregator (more about these later).

Since World War 2, public relations in Europe has developed from a “public information” approach adopted by governments where press releases are the sole point of contact with the media to a more interactive relationship. This push of information is still common, but the inquisitive journalist will seek the information they require. With the RSS aggregators [readers] available today, they can search recent news headlines and open up the information that they require.

The internet has revolutionised communications, new media re-writing the rules for public relations. For the first time, anyone with an internet connection can actively seek information on a topic. For us, RSS the natural evolution from an information push to the provision of timely and relevant news.

When I upload PR to our BCM virtual press office, it is automatically pushed onto the relevant RSS feed for clients or editors to view.

Clients love RSS, because they can keep their distributors and their own internal marketing team updated just by getting them to subscribe to the relevant RSS feeds. They can also add up to date news to their website without wasting valuable time maintaining their own press room. I have used our test website Engineering News to demonstrate this. Ugly, but neat I would say.

RSS feeds complete our system, now the news that is sent to editors also pops up on the first page of search engines like Google during the same week. What use is a press room if your “news” is only updated every 6 weeks like typical web pages?

More about this and podcasts later...