The Good, The Bad, The Spin

• As much as I find Google’s technologies valuable, my fawning should be kept in check. The company has faced PR issues lately particularly for user privacy fears in regards to Google’s marketing tactics and its Street View feature. Media Post’s Search Insider details the most recent concern over Google’s practices. (Disclosure of the obvious: I use Google’s Adsense.)
• I’ve withheld comment on the Tim Ferriss manifesto, The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, for one reason. As much as I enjoyed his book, and gained much from his ideas and recommendations, I think in the long run the general thrust of his thesis–to reduce your workload to merely four hours a week–is impractical for most people. Nevertheless, his marketing of the book is top-notch. Tim posted about it today on his blog. His philosophy and enthusiasm are infectious, and his guerrilla PR practices rival the best, from research to viral marketing to blogging about the entire process.

A while back I touted the virtues of Gmail for public relations uses. To recap, Gmail offers the ability to tag (label) messages with multiple tags. This, as opposed to MS Outlook which uses folders, allows PR pros to apply multiple labels to their emails. In short, the ability to store and retrieve messages by keywords allows us to better manage our online conversations. Also, other email accounts can be forwarded to Gmail without others knowing you’re using Gmail as your primary email interface.

Google offers far more than just Gmail. There are four other important features Google offers that give us increased potential to enhance our effectiveness for public relations. (more…)

I recently converted to Gmail and it wasn’t exactly painless. It was a move based on principle. SBC Yahoo announced, in a somewhat Draconian manner, that it was going to be displaying ads on the Yahoo Mail interface. I was never keen on the Yahoo interface and used this news as a springboard to switch to Gmail. I had two Gmail accounts already and figured that since Gmail is free (with its text advertisements) and Yahoo’s DSL email, which I pay for, displays full graphic ads, it was time for change. Plus I needed to better separate business and personal email accounts. (more…)