commbasics

As we are getting ready to put Vitalcom's remains to rest, I'm entering into a technical world where I have never got before.  Just to keep you apprised, I have a BUNCH of URLs I use for various things.  The one's you may be familiar with are this one (commbasics.typepad.com) the Vitalcom one (vitalcompr.com) and Footwasher Media (footwashermedia.com which has nothing on it right now) My technical challenge is moving all the content from this site to the footwashermedia.com url, as well as the pertinent information about VitalCom so people who look for me there won't wonder what happened.  How this is all done I have no idea, but someone does and soon I will have that knowledge...as soon as I find them. All suggestions are welcome.  Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Plaxo, and here are all available to contact me.  Let the grand adventure begin!

Last year I wrote that I'm totally committed to the concept of social media  especially as it relates to technology startups.  I said then that I had not taken a traditional PR client in a year and could not recommend anyone hire anyone else to do traditional PR anymore.  Some readers gave me a thumbs up and others asked if I was feverish.  It is a significant step forward for a former traditional journalist turned PR pro to take, especially one who can smell the social security checks coming over the hill, but I meant it. Sometimes you have to be careful what you say because you will often be asked to back it up at some point. That happened to me and my little PR firm, VitalCom, this week.  As of 4:30 p.m. Pacific time, VitalCom's vital signs ceased after a lengthy illness.  One client has changed it's commitment to traditional PR and is considering a social media platform at a significantly lower cost, and the one client we had that was ...

A big problem the VC community has right now is that they don't know what they don't know.  The VComm Venture Faire was developed, using a large dose of social media, to give them a little bit more information they didn't have.  Like what? Conventional wisdom:  With the media dying, the best way for them to find potential companies is to go to the venture meat-market events with dozens of companies presenting information that the VCs know is useless and presented poorly.  Why do they believe that?  Because everyone believes that.  It's not the greatest process, but it's the only one we got.  Right? What they don't know:   There is always another way to get the job done.   Someone just has to do it.  Doing the job like everyone else doesn't make it any better.  Going another way may not make it better, but there's a chance it might. VComm didn't bring a ton of companies in front of the ...

Brian says now is the time . John says everything is changing not dying. My two cents...they are both right.  Call me if you need help figuring it out.

The cornerstone of the VComm program was the understanding that most companies looking for VC financing really have no idea what a VC wants to hear.   Two years ago I sat with a group of investors at a major conference and listened to them complain about the quality of the material and, in the end, how useless it was. Understand this:   There are, at any given time according to Dow Jones, 5000 tech startups in the US alone that are seeking funding.   But less than half of those companies have any credible research into their technology market.   The press covering those markets has shrunk almost to the point of non-existence.   The VC's are flying blind nowadays, which explains why so many are having poor returns.   What they need is real information about market potential. But most companies pitching VC's spend 90 percent of their time in front of them explaining how great their technology is.   Get a clue!   They know you are do...

One of the companies that presented at VComm last week was ICEPhone, who bill themselves with the unimaginative descriptor of "the Swiss Army Knife" of mobile phones.  It is really a neat gadget--a cross between a microlaptop, mobile phone, and portable game console.  I want this phone even though it runs Microsoft CE (and anyone who knows me knows that is a BIG admission). Among the benefits of being in VComm was getting a New Tech Press video interview and ICEPhone was the big winner in views on the New Tech Press site--more than 200 in the first couple of days after posting. "Only 200?!?" I hear you exclaim.  Ah, but who was among that 200?  The answer demonstrates the power of the internet, sponsored content, and highly targeted audiences. The guy running PR for ICEPhone in the UK is a young college student who has been playing around with viral internet applications.  He took that NTP video and sent it to a few key media people. ...

Vindication. I've been writing and posting for a long time that media and marketing as we know it will come to and end for a LOOOONG time.  Like about 10 years.  Bit by bit more and more people have come to agree that what I predicted has come to pass.  The big question was: What are we going to do about it? I've proposed a lot of ideas but the ideas -- including sponsored content, highly targeted audience, abandoning traditional public relations and advertising for an organized social media approach -- received about as much early support as my predictions. Wednesday, however, everything talked about in this blog was justified with the conclusion of the VComm Venture Faire.  A project 2 years in the making last only 8 hours, but brought together a dozen established and newly funded investment firms with nine innovative technology companies out of Scotland.   You can see some of the reaction to the event here, but the reaction does not indicate ful...

It's been a while since I did a podcast ... at least on this site.  Been doing a ton of video for New Tech Press the past couple of months.  But this is one I've been waiting to get done for some time. Paul Miller at TechInsights sat down with me just before the Christmas break and talked frankly about the state of B2B media, where it's going, how it's going to affect his own company and EE Times specifically, and endorsing the use of content from sponsored-media sites like New Tech Press in its website and maybe even pages.  For those wondering when media was going to come back to the way it used to be, get ready for disappointment.   But according to Paul, the future is getting clearer and brighter. 

Brian Fuller did an interesting post Wednesday about his favorite subject, vendor as publisher , but also got into a discussion on press releases and their relative value... which he and I agree is pretty low right now. What got me started on this post was a call I got from a small publication publisher who was thinking about offering a news release writing service for companies, cutting out the PR professional from the mix.   I did my best to dissuade him from the idea, simply because press releases are just a huge waste of time and money for the most part.  Companies big and small put hours and hours of time and money into these documents because they think it is giving them "visibility" on the web.  They never stop to think that almost every release reads exactly the same, whether it's a plain old vanilla release or a fancy schmancy social media release with a bunch of bold words and links.  Most release provide no real information and are ...

Back in my salad days, journalism students were required to read Marshall McLuhan's the Medium is the Message, and understand the difference between hot and cold media. Today, I can't find a single communicator under the age of 50 who knows what I am talking about.   I find that mildly amusing because that understanding is crucial to being able to "get" social media.   Especially if you are between the age of 30 and 50 and are trying to figure out what social media is "for." Let me explain:   A cool medium is something that requires an action on your part.   Print is a cool medium because you have to physically pick it up and put your brain into gear to absorb the information.   A hot medium is something that allows you to sit, disengage your brain and let the medium fill your head.   Movies are hot.   TV is hot.   Radio is kinda lukewarm because at least you have to imagine what is going on.   Podcasting,...

One of the things that really irk traditional journalists bout social media is the protection from libel and slander that many in the blogosphere enjoy.  Since bloggers and posters can maintain anonymity, and because US law protects social media sites against libel posted by individual posters, people can say pretty much what they like. But a story today in the SF Chron shows that protection may be showing a few cracks.  A Foster City dentist is suing both Yelp, an online reviewing site, and a poster that gave a negative review that the dentist says in untrue in large part and libelous. That's good news to me.  As I said, up to now, bloggers and commenters did not have to be responsible in their postings except according the the limits of their own consciences.  Journalists, on the other hand, can be dragged into court unless they can prove their content.  But once our law system starts holding the blogosphere responsible for what is reported, we will ...

I got a little flack for the past month about all the bad news coming through this blog about media and the tech industry.  But here's some good news.  A major player in real estate development has thrown financial support to a small investment event called VComm Venture Faire for the simple reason that promoting the investment in technology is just good for everyone.  The interview can be seen at New Tech Press. So there you go.  Happy new year.