Morgan McLintic on PR and Performance

Under the Radar

Just came back from the Under the Radar event where 31 consumer tech companies presented in front of an audience of VCs, peers and the media. It was a great event, lots of interesting presentations.

PubSub won its track against stiff competition from 5Across, Rojo and Audioblog. I caught up with Richard Treadway, its VP of Marketing after the presentation - although PubSub has established its credibility in blog tracking, its matching technology can be applied to many other commercial aims such as monitoring online purchase criteria, event-specific details such as flight delays (already live), even earthquakes. The reason they've started with blogs is to demonstrate the power of its matching engine, which the founder claims took twenty years to develop (and he certainly seems to have many of the bases covered).

Nice to bump into Matthew Podboy, founder of Voce too. We swapped notes about the current market, with the mood being generally good, lots of technical innovation and new companies emerging, with recruitment coming back onto the agenda as a challenge. Good to see the independents thriving.

Well done to the IBDNetwork team for organizing the event, congrats to the other winners Peerflix (way to go Billy), FatLens and GoTV Networks - everyone I met felt this was a unique event, a good chance to network, to meet the media and to learn about new technologies. But then again, I'm probably a bit biased...

Walkabout

I'm off to Seattle tomorrow to work with a new client in the mobile and security space (woo - but can't say who yet), then exploring Vancouver and Vancouver Island for a few days. Back next week for the Under the Radar event in Mountain View, so apologies if posting is light for a few days.

Bay Area Blogger Bash

KRON-TV is organizing a bloggerfest on June 11 in San Francisco. Here's a copy of an email I received this morning. Let me know if you'd like an invite since they want to track numbers. Looks like over 40 people have confirmed at the moment, with another 300 or so invited. Could be interesting.

From: KRON-TV
Location: KRON-TV 1001 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
When: Saturday, June 11, 12:00pm

KRON4 television is hosting a meet-up of Bay Area bloggers at noon on Saturday, June 11, 2005. Snacks will be served and we'll have a little memento for attendees. There's no agenda other than helping facilitate this meet-up. We recognize the significance of the personal media revolution, and we want to listen to what you're saying. We think this is a good way to start.

All Bay Area bloggers are invited to attend, so help us spread the word. We've come up with 278 e-mail addresses so far, but many bloggers don't make theirs publicly available. Feel free to add e-mail addresses to the invitation list.

We want this to be an informal and intimate get-together, so come prepared to meet and make new friends. Use the RSVP function of Evite to let us know if you can make it. We want to make sure we have enough snacks for everybody.

Technorati Tags: KRON

ecto

I'm experimenting with some dedicated blogging software called ecto. This blog is run using Typepad which has a browser interface for posting and formatting the site. ecto is a dedicated application, which enables you to draft posts even when offline e.g. on a plane. It also seems to have some more granular control over inserting Technorati tags, like the ones just below.

Plus is has some pretty impressive looking integration with iPhoto, iTunes and Amazon, which I'm yet to test out. ecto runs on a Mac (and Windows) and also integrates into NetNewsWire, so you can blog items direct from the reader. I had tried Rachero Software's own blogging engine MarsEdit, but found it a bit limiting. One of the advantages of ecto for me is that you can easily cross post entries to different blogs which isn't simple with a browser interface.

It's interesting to see how dedicated blogging and RSS software is becoming more sophisticated and more integrated. I expect podcasting and video blogging functionality will go the same way so you have a full communications dashboard for receiving and broadcasting information.

UPDATE - ecto has problems with inserting links. It seems to insert my blog's URL in front of the link address. I had this trouble with Dennis' Bazaarz link, and again just now with a couple of the links in this post.

Technorati Tags: ecto, tag

Team night out

652986225203_0_ALB
Originally uploaded by Morgan McLintic.

Thanks to Rachel Euretig for this shot, which I'm posting through the magic of Flickr.

Under the Radar event blog launched

The team at IBDNetwork have also launched a blog for the Under the Radar events. The blog profiles the presenting companies and will feature contributed articles from IBDNetwork's connections in the VC community, with corporate development teams and among entrepreneurs.

This is the first in a series of planned blogs for the company which also organizes Strategy Series and Dealmaker events. The aim is to distill some of the content discussed at each event into editorial output for all to see. Good for speakers, good for readers and a good way to get IBDN's name more widely known.

Again the site is still under development, but as more guest authors come onstream, I think there will be some interesting perspectives here about what is happening at a grassroots level in the Valley.

Disclosure - my firm handles the PR for IBDN and I've discussed the blog launch, but am not directly involved at present.

Dennis Howlett launches Bazaarz blog

My old journalist mentor, Dennis Howlett, has launched a European tech blog called Bazaarz. For those that don't know him, Dennis is a crusty old hack veteran journalist who has written for Accountancy Age, InformationWeek, Unix/NT News and VNU Newswire. He's already lined up a good stable of authors including Geoff Nairn of the Financial Times, Liz Fletcher (who I don't know but is a former PR pro it seems), and Paul Quigley, editor of Accounting and Finance 365.

The site is still in beta as Dennis develops the direction and fleshes out the features, but he aims it to be the first professional tech blog to deal specifically with pan-European issues. Customer support was one he mentioned to me. And given Den's background, we'll also see plenty of enterprise application news and features (especially ERP, BI and accounting systems).

Meantime, he's filling in by interviewing me about evangelizing blogging, and some less than complimentary comments about my cub flack days when I used to make the tea. Sad to say that I still do - and damn good at it I am too.

Informal economic indicator #11b

Here's another informal indicator that the good times are coming back. The back page of BusinessWeek (May 27, 2005) has a full-page color ad for the Dassault Falcon 7X corporate jet. This comes hard on the back of the news that Ferrari has opened a dealership in Silicon Valley.

Those interested might like to know that the Falcon 7X has a range of 5,700 nautical miles, and is capable of carrying eight passengers from Paris to LA in 'library-quiet' luxury. No details on pricing beyond the assurance that 'it's a business decision that will prove its wisdom for decades to come.' Of course it is.

Technorati Tags: jets, economy

Under the Radar - discount tickets

Speaking of Under the Radar, the Consumer technology showcase at the end of this month in Mountain View, CA, I can offer my readers discount tickets. If you are interested, email me here.

Blogging means you are on the record - all the time

My firm is promoting the upcoming Under the Radar event at the end of May. At the pre-event mixer on Wednesday, a colleague of mine described the event as 'American Idol for Venture Capital' during one of our conversations with Eric Rice. It was an off-the-cuff remark, and actually quite a good analogy. One which Eric picked up on and then blogged.

That's fine since Eric is a well-known blogger (and founder of Audioblog, one of the shortlisted companies), and the event is quite like that. But it's not always that transparent. Bloggers don't always wear their blogs on their t-shirt. From a PR perspective, this is awkward since effectively it means that all company staff should consider the potential for anything they say being blogged and entering the general consciousness.

Effectively, you could be on the record, all the time with anyone you talk to.

And unless you are listening, you won't even know it.