Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to meet with one of the really “out-of-the-box” thinkers in the PR industry, Peter Shankman. He held a happy hour at the Pike Pub and Brewery, located just above Seattle’s Pike Place Market, schmoozing with Seattle PR types.

For those of you who don’t know Peter, he is probably best known for publishing the HARO (Help A Reporter Out) Newsletter three times a day, Monday through Friday. HARO includes dozens of leads for PR/media opportunities from travel to technology, business/finance to health/fitness. With all of the modern day “smoke and mirrors”-type PR, Peter’s approach is quite simple and refreshing… connect reporters and public relations professionals in order to come up with the most compelling stories. I think of the HARO Newsletter somewhat like CraigsList early on -- no adds, just a way to connect people in the most basic way possible.

Now to our happy hour meeting, Peter struck me as extremely humble and RESTED even though his speaking engagements typically take him back and forth across the country at least a few times each week. Despite having a number of people trying to schmooze with him, Peter took the time to briefly discuss his personal and professional life with me and gave me one of his unique business cards that front as a gambling chip (blog to be updated with picture soon). Little known fact, Peter continued to run marathons for years despite having a foot that was broken in numerous spots (unbenounced to him).

Pike Market, Peter Shankman and Public Relations… what an enlightening happy hour.

-posted by Andrew

Nokia, the world’s number one mobile phone maker, recently announced it would begin selling a touch-screen phone that offers free music downloads.

The phone comes with Nokia’s new ‘Comes with Music’ bundle which has signed up all the major record labels (Universal, Sony, Warner Music Group, and EMI) and even many of the independent labels and is said to offer about five million tracks. Nokia’s music will differ from others on the market since you’ll be able to download tracks for free (data and airtime not included… so this could add up).



The phone is called the Nokia 5800 xpressMusic handset. The phone’s 8 GB internal memory can be beefed up with another 16 GB on a micro SD type memory card - which means you can store over 18,000 songs. The company claims it’s able to offer the tracks at no cost because it bundles the cost into what you pay for the phone (an estimated $395). The first such phone offered will be available in the UK, the world’s third-largest music market, on October 16.

No word yet if/when the phone will be offered in the U.S. However, the launch has created a media buzz both favorable and unfavorable. Gizmodo's also got a hold of Nokia's canned video for the 5800. Is this going to be the iPhone killer? You make the call.



-posted by Andrew

Microsoft unveiled a controversial focus group study last week that involved its now year and a half old Windows Vista operating system. The company recently set up a blind study involving a video demonstration of what they were told was the forthcoming “Mojave” operating system. However, the subjects of the study never actually got to demo Mojave AND were actually watching a disguised demo of Windows Vista but were never told this until after the video. Microsoft says it conducted the Mojave experiment over three days in San Francisco before 120 subjects. The company says the subjects, on average, gave Vista a rating of 4.4 out of 10 prior to participating. The average rating jumped to 8.5 after the subjects watched the demo, according to the company. Some journalists claim Microsoft is trying to insinuate there is a big disconnect between the actual performance of Windows Vista and the PERCEIVED performance based on negative media coverage and ads by mainly Apple.

I was part of the general launch of Windows Vista for Microsoft, so I’m glad I could get a peak into their re-launch of Windows Vista.

-posted by Andrew

I am one of those sorry saps who drives a lot. I haven’t always been this way, but since joining VOXUS, I have an almost 100 mile round-trip commute. With the recent spike in gas prices, I constantly find myself shopping around to find the lowest local gas prices on TacomaGasPrices.com. It’s a listing of supposedly the bottom of the barrel gas prices in the Tacoma, WA metro area and I’ve found it works well. The site is an arm of GasBuddy.com. The company is a network of gas price listings sites for various areas and claims it is a grass-roots community effort to lower gas prices. It works by having members post prices in their area to the site.

I just signed up to be a resident reporter/member. The site claims a fringe benefit for members is they are entered into a number of raffles based on the number of points they accumulate (mainly through price postings). The site says these raffles include $250 gas cards.

I’ll let everyone know if I’m pumped up about member perks soon.

-posted by Andrew

Seems there are a few gaming geeks roaming the halls of VOXUS. I’ve got news for you all, those of us who use gaming consoles for something other than playing video games have got some good news. Microsoft and Netflix have unveiled a partnership under which Netflix will stream movies directly to you through Microsoft's Internet-based Xbox Live service. Under the deal, customers who have an Xbox 360 console attached to their TVs and who subscribe to Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold service (cost $50/year), and who are also Netflix subscribers, can download Netflix movies at no additional cost. In addition to Netflix, NBC will be adding TV content to the Xbox Live Marketplace and Universal will be contributing movies. I’ve got a secret for you all… I rarely (if ever) use the Xbox for gaming. It’s my media hub to stream pictures and music from my desktop.

Gaming geeks be gone.

-posted by Andrew

I was fortunate enough to recently represent the Authentication and Online Alliance (AOTA) at their annual summit. This year, Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, Michael Barrett, the Chief Security Officer for PayPal, Tim Callan, Vice President of Product Marketing at VeriSign, Peter Cullen, General Manager and Chief Privacy Strategist at Microsoft, Howard Schmidt, the former White House Cyber Security Officer, Rob McKenna, the Washington State Attorney General, and Hemanshu Nigram, Chief Security Officer of MySpace, among others, all spoke at the Summit. You can take a look at the presentations by clicking here.



(Picture of Craig Newmark, Craigslist and David Daniels, Jupiter Research, on stage at the AOTA Summit)

The summit was a two-day event full of lively discussions on how and why we should make online experiences as safe and secure as possible. Key takeaways from the event; there’s no silver bullet to making the Internet a safer place and it takes more than just technology to ensure online safety and security… it takes people power. Seems I wasn’t the only person paying attention to the summit. With at least 25 unique media stories… you may have heard of it outside of the VOXUS blog. Check out some of the links:

· USA Today (http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/)

· Seattle PI (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/365598_cybersecurity04.html)

· Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004458445_brier05.html)

· NPR (http://publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news/content/1294129.html)

· KIRO-AM (http://www.mynorthwest.com/?sid=61414&nid=11)

· Computerworld (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=web_site_management&articleId=9093719&taxonomyId=62&intsrc=kc_top)

· Network World (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/060508-more-laws-collaboration-required-for.html)

· eMarketing and Commerce (http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/blog/just-when-you-thought-you-were-safe)

· DMNews (http://directline.dmnewsblogs.com/2008/06/04/aota-focuses-on-trust-on-heels-of-eec-trust-breach/)




(Poster of Craig Spiezle, AOTA Chairman and Founder)

-posted by Andrew

It takes more than just words to tell a story and VOXUS friend Bellamy Pailthorp, at Seattle NPR affiliate KPLU, has brought a certain event to my attention. Bellamy and a number of other prominent journalists will be taking part in the annual Bellingham Visual Journalism Conference July 18-20 at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. If you’re up for learning about and discussing visual journalism in a beautiful setting, you should check it out.

-posted by Andrew

I have some friends who are addicted to keeping tabs on stars like I’m addicted to watching the weather on the local news (yes, I’m a geek). So, it’s no surprise to me that a Web site recently launched showing what celebrities are wearing and even goes so far to show how you can get your hands on those products. For example below, you can see Paris Hilton spotted wearing Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. The site’s called Coolspotters. You can read their launch press release here. It looks like the way they’ll make money is through click-throughs of basic advertising from the products the trendsetters are wearing on the site or related advertising. The company is an arm of Fantzer, Inc. which is funded by Seattle VC firms Second Avenue Partners and Curious Office Partners. A couple thoughts that I have with this… will the celebs now demand they get endorsements dollars for literally everything they wear and are we really that materialistic?

-posted by Andrew

In what could be a major milestone for gene therapy, for the first time, researchers have used gene therapy to improve vision in blind patients.

Homegrown (for VOXUS) Seattle’s Targeted Genetics conducted part of the study of six patients with an extremely rare form of blindness called Leber's Congenital Amaurosis. According to the study which appears in the New England Journal of Medicine, four of the six people who received gene therapy had some vision restored. If this test is successful on a larger scale, researchers say it could help people with more common types of blindness. Macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness for those under 20 years old in the United States, affects 1.25 million Americans; the number is expected to grow to 3 million by 2020 as the population continues to age.

Gene therapy involves replacing defective genes with normal versions. The research marks a major milestone for gene therapy, a discipline many scientists find promising but so far has failed to produce a marketable product in the U.S.

-posted by Andrew

For the second time in the last month, a Google executive has jumped ship for Facebook. Ethan Beard, the former director of social media at Google, will join the privately held company as director of business development.  Some speculate the move to infiltrate Google's ranks is a direct result of the social-networking company trying to provide some senior support to its 23-year-old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.  They say the momentum started to shift from Google to Facebook much like it moved from Microsoft to Google about a year ago.  That's when ex-Googler and current Facebooker Justin Rosenstein wrote a public email declaring the social network (Facebook) was "the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago.  That company where large numbers of stunningly brilliant people congregate and feed off each other's genius."

Will people begin saying ‚ "Google is so last year"?

-posted by Andrew

Red Herring recently reported that Modu, the Israeli startup that the Guinness Book Of World Records claims has developed the lightest cellphone at 1.41 ounces, has raised $100 million in venture funding.  Not bad for a company that launched its phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year.  The company was founded just a year ago by Dov Moran the founder, chairman and ceo of M-Systems, which invented the USB Flash Drive.  Modu claims its phone can be slipped into a wide variety of Modu jackets and transformed into different electronic devices, from a phone to a digital camera to a music player.



Check out the picture of the phone.  It may remind you of the phone from one of my all-time favorite movies Zoolander.



-posted by Andrew

The other week, I had the privilege of attending the Puget Sound Chapter of The American Marketing Association's monthly luncheon featuring Tillamook Cheese.  For those of you not from the Northwest, Tillamook is one of the iconic brands of the region.  That's right... Microsoft, Boeing, Nordstrom and Tillamook Cheese.

Tillamook's roots in the region span all the way back to 1894 and it has always operated as a farmer owned cooperative.  Jay Allison, Tillamook's Marketing VP, talked about the company's iconic brand, its strategic packaging which includes its recognizable Tillamook repetition on the label and much more.  To summarize... Tillamook's cheese tastes great but its iconic image and highly strategic sales plan may have more to do with its success.

My favorite piece of trivia from the speech... there are more cows than people in Oregon's Tillamook County.  Maybe happy cows come from Oregon and not California?

-posted by Andrew

It's well-documented by print journalists of the death of traditional radio stations.  While radio listening by the traditional mediums of a car stereo or portable radio may be dropping, listening to original stories from those organizations by other mediums (i.e... the internet) are not. 

For example, my client, Dipiti, was just featured on a local Seattle AM radio station called 710 KIRO.  The story (give a listen below) was part of Jason Brooks' CEO Spotlight and not only aired on the radio, but also on their website.  While most people I know didn't hear the story during their morning drive, they did hear it on KIRO's website.

My take on this whole death of traditional media; the way you'll get your news will change, the need for content will not.

Podcast

-posted by Andrew

Used to be going green was associated with either 1) hippies 2) Kermit the Frog.  Not anymore.  Now awards about going green (i.e... environmentally friendly) are as mainstream as "best dressed" or "most likely to succeed."  Case in point, Washington CEO Magazine, that's best known for its "Best Companies To Work For" Awards.  Now the magazine is launching its first ever "Green Washington" Awards.  Submissions are due by March 21st and the magazine says the awards "will recognize companies and organizations whose initiatives and actions shape, educate and provide a catalyst for environmental sustainability -- clean technology, recycling, carbon footprints, and more -- in Washington state."

Apparently, it's easy (and cool) being green these days.

-posted by Andrew

This week, my client Dipiti publicly launched its service.   Dipiti is a human-filtered search service that connects consumers with the online community content (forums and message boards). What separates this company from other human-filtered search services is its emphasis on life matters (health, pets, legal and money) along with its exclusive search of forums  and message boards (tracking about 29 million active conversations).  I think of Dipiti as essentially the company that puts "the human" into the Internet.

I really dig this service because it not only addresses my favorite segment of the population (pets), but really does personalize the Internet in a way not many sites can from its human-filtered searches, to its canvassing of forums and message boards to its life matters. 

It's not just me that's hot on Dipiti, check out what the Seattle Times and Seattle PI  are saying.  You can see what you think but I give it two paws up:)

-posted by Andrew

Mobile Phones Take Center Stage

I had the privilege last year to attend 3 GSM (now the Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona.  Despite the crazy hours, I was able to soak in a show with all of the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood premiere.  Only, the stars of this show are the latest and greatest cell phones and all of the cool applications that support them.



This year, I didn't head out to Barcelona (even though we had a number of clients who did).  So... I've been reading up on the show-stoppers there this year.  Seems the hint of a global recession has put a damper on the show despite the record number of attendees.  Regardless of the atmosphere, there's been a ton of hardware unveiled including Sony's first-time venture with Windows Mobile and the coming out for Google's Android, a free mobile  platform.

If you want to read up on this year's happenings, The Industry Standard put together a nice summary article.

Missing Barcelona and the tapas...

-posted by Andrew

Last month, I had the pleasure of being among 500 people checking out Google’s new Seattle digs. The new Seattle office is in the Fremont neighborhood which is best known for being the “center of the universe.” It’s very fitting that the company known for its shall you say, “creative” work environment has landed itself in this very eccentric part of this very eccentric city.

From charactertures to massages to free booze to gourmet cupcakes topped off with Google’s Seattle logo, I had no problem flying solo and filling my time. A big shout out goes to my neighbor Melissa for leading my tour of the office. She just so happens to work in HR at Google.



So… here’s my big takeaway from my visit… while the work environment is very different from your run of the mill office… I wonder how long Google can retain its character before turning into yet another “churn and burn” large high-tech company (if you live in the Seattle area, you may know who I’m referring to). I’ll be closely monitoring the Googleites along the Fremont cut but until then, keep the cupcakes coming!




-posted by Andrew

This week, Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, came out with his top 10 quotes for 2007.

Number 1 on the list wasn’t George Bush, Britney Spears or even a little known scholar… rather a senior at the University of Florida. His quote now heard around the world was “Don’t Tase Me Bro” while being hauled away by campus police during a speech by Senator John Kerry.

Two things struck me with this quote… the first was the use of the word “bro”. No way would anyone have cared about this quote unless the student hadn’t used the word “bro”. The second… how a little known person became so famous. In this age of information where a couple words can make you instantly known around the world thanks to the web and YouTube, this student has a claim to fame that should be reserved for heads of state and such.

Keep in mind… this is the most quoted person of 2007… ahead of such outspoken people like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Makes you wonder who'll be the most quoted person of 2008…

-posted by Andrew

So I just started working at Voxus and have the unenviable or enviable task (depending on how you look at it) of migrating from a PC to a Mac.



Let me just preface with the fact that prior to Voxus, I worked for one of Microsoft’s PR agencies and in fact was in New York City for the launch of Windows Vista. I’ve got everyone breathing down my neck saying, “what do you think about the Mac?” From a mom in education whose worked on a Mac for years to a dad in high tech that’s lived with a PC for years. As for me… we had a Mac in our house when I was really young, but like the rest of the world migrated to a PC in the early 90’s. In absolute delight that her son is becoming a Mac user, my mom has sent me article after article explaining why a Mac is so much better than a PC. Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle most of my life, I’ve heard it all… “Microsoft is big brother”, “Microsoft gives you so many more options”, “Apples are for creative types”, “Windows makes it easier to do what you want, when you want”, blah blah blah.

Honestly… after a few days… I can’t tell much of a difference. Sure, an apple is “cooler looking” with their super-sleekness and all. But when it comes down to it for us business types I just need a computer that turns on, allows me to use Word, Excel and Power Point, has an email application and lets me surf the net. My point is, and this is quite anti-climatic, it’s all about preference. I’ll keep you posted on how my experience is down the road, but until then…

“Hello, I’m a Mac user and I’m a PC user”.

-posted by Andrew