Our hosts don’t think so, but they do think Google is good at a few things and social media isn’t one of them. Google is a great provider of productivity tools, which isn’t surprising for an engineering-driven culture. However, engineers are not the most social people and it’s not surprising that Google has struggled to figure out that business. Our hosts believe the company still has plenty of growth, but it is probably better off sticking to its knitting than trying to become another Facebook.

David and Paul also discuss the striking differences between their Android and iPhone devices and talk about how those contrasts embody the differences between Google and its rival up the road: Apple.

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It’s not that easy, David notes.  It takes time, money and commitment to become a media entity.  Retail businesses don’t have much of any of those things these days.

However, Paul thinks that the times never been better for marketers to become publishers.  Laid-off journalists can be had hired for pennies on the dollar compared to a few years ago and the cost of online publishing is vastly cheaper than the alternatives.

Our hosts agree that the bigger challenge may be cultural: Marketers are simply not brought up to think in terms of long-term customer engagements, which is what publishing requires.  But it’s never too late to change.

Listen now: (10:04)

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One of the most remarkable aspects of Twitter is the number of third-party applications that have sprung up, which range from useful services like polling utilities to one that lets you calculate how much time you waste tweeting.

Rather than trying to list these apps individually, here are two massive collections of Twitter applications:

100 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals

Twitter Fan Wiki

For the record, both our hosts recommend TweetDeck to more efficiently manage the flood of messages. Paul likes Monitter to track hot topics. They also agree that search.twitter.com is a fast and efficient search engine that lets you save results as RSS feeds so you can keep track of what people are saying about you at your own convenience.

(17:35)

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MagCloud creates custom magazines that can be printed, proofed, bound, polybagged and delivered via the US mails to your doorstep, all for a modest per-page fee. The magazines can be as professionally designed and produced as you’d like, using the standard Adobe publishing tools. They can also be highly targeted, like Fit Christian (right). David finds the combination of low and hi-tech appealing and just the ticket for a wide variety of PR and marcom needs.

Kindle, of course, is the versatile book reader that is now in its second incarnation and delivers a very solid user experience. Paul feels the gadget is just the beginning of the paperless era for frequent readers and offers a lot of compelling reasons — although neither of our hosts has actually ponied up their cold cash for the thing.

To listen, click on the player below.

To download, right click here and choose “Save As…”

The event is the New Marketing Summit, and if you sign up with code PAULVIP, you get a $200 discount off the $795 registration. This is special discount for Paul’s guests because, as a co-designer of the program, he gets special treatment!

In addition to keynotes by Paul, David and Don Peppers of 1to1Media, here are a few topics from the program:

• Niches, Microniches, and Social Networks
• Videoblogs, Podcasts, New Media, and the Impact on Marketing
• Search Engine Secrets
• Brands and Reputation in an All Media World
• Unlocking the Puzzle of Marketing Within Games
• Interactive Digital: Beyond Flashy-Shiny-Fast

There are dozens of speakers, many of them successful practitioners who will tell what’s working for them and how you can benefit from their experience.

It’s Oct. 14 and 15 in Foxboro, Mass., about 25 miles south of Boston. If you attend, please look up Paul and say hello!

Michael Goldberg

Do CIOs use the Internet?  Perhaps not the same way mere mortals do, but IT executives have intense information needs of demand a unique focus in perspective.  As managing editor of CIO.com, the online wing of the venerable technology magazine, Michael Goldberg is charged with keeping close to the needs of this highly coveted audience.

Don’t approach Michael with technology pitches.  His audience is focused on solving business problems, and there areas of concern go far beyond the newest iPhone.  Successful PR professionals should define their pitches around a solid business context, with customer citations a plus.

And in the true Web 2.0 spirit, CIO.com is now enabling conversations. Its new new Advice & Opinion section enables experts to contribute their wisdom directly, without having to go through a pitch-and-submit process.

Here are Michael’s guidelines for submitting to Advice & Opinion:

We encourage experts to post their pieces directly at CIO.com’s Advice & Opinion section. Simply register at advice.cio.com and post your piece to our website. We strongly encourage you to register under your name.
Our online community for IT leaders is most interested in best practices and problem-solving information for their work, so please join the conversation. Also please know that we reserve the right to delete pieces
that read like sales and marketing materials. At our discretion, we may also take the best submissions and promote them in our newsletters and/or on the home page of our site.

Here’s a quick rundown.

• Go to cio.com.
• Click on Advice and Opinion section.
• Read the articles we have there by staff and contributors.
• Consider what you want to write. Does it add something to ongoing discussions about something important in IT, management, leadership, careers, technology implementations, value, business. What value do theyadd to the ongoing conversation and why
• Write your article. Make the outline clear, stick to the specific points you want to make. Take out sales and marketing language –we delete such pieces.
• Register at cio.com. Please use your real name to add credibility to your post.
• Post your article. Include the author’s company affiliation at the top.
• See who comments.
• Repeat later.

Below are some recent examples of submitted content:

Data Leakage: How to Avoid Security Risks When Sending Large Files

http://advice.cio.com/yorgen/data_leakage_how_to_avoid_security_risks_when_sending_large_files

Zero Contact Resolution: A Proactive Approach to Improving the Customer Experience

http://advice.cio.com/steve_daines/zero_contact_resolution_a_proactive_approach_to_improving_the_customer_experience

Download the podcast (14:47)

Download and listen to the podcast here.

Eric Schwartzman

If you’re a PR professional, you can’t afford not to listen to On the Record…Online. For the past three years, this podcast has offered a steady stream insight on how journalists, marketers and new media innovators use the Internet to report the news and promote their businesses. Host Eric Schwartzman has anchored all 120 programs and in the process become a media influencer in his own right.

Paul came across On the Record…Online when he was writing The New Influencers and devoured program after program. He later devoted a couple of pages of the book to describing how the show had evolved from a conference promotion to become a staple of Schwartzman’s iPressroom service.

In this interview, Schwartzman talks about how On the Record…Online came into being, the impact it’s had on his business and how public relations is evolving in a world of fragmented media.

Download the podcast (27:39)

This interview was conducted at the New Communications Forum in Santa Rosa, Calif. shortly before Paul’s keynote interview with Nick.

Download the podcast (11:24)

This week, Paul and David talk about how to promote your blogs and other Web content. You have to be more grassroots and deliberate about it, and use a variety of techniques such as mailing lists, keywords, inbound links, and just paying attention to the details of your content. The days of Flash-y pages are over: the way to Google’s search algorithms lies with simple and well-designed textual pages. Google has become our universal home page, and understanding how they will index your site is important in driving traffic to your site.

We also discuss the Times article about how the Tibetan protesters have used new media to coordinate their activities.

You can download the podcast here.