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Hazel Butters
Prompt Communications

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Technology Update

By Sean McManus

Jimmy Carr to play gig in Second Life

Stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr has announced a stand-up gig that will take place in Second Life. While he performs to an audience of 50 competition winners in the real world, his movements will be mimicked by avatar puppeteers in Second Life. It's sure to be a lorra laughs, even though the concept is in itself not as funny as last year's attempts to set up news agencies and PR agencies in Second Life. The show takes place February 3^rd. He'll probably need that long to finish opening his Christmas cards. According to MySpace, Jimmy Carr has 16,426 friends.

Online stores report bumper Christmas

Now the trees are tidied away and the tinsel's been boxed up again, online retailers are reporting a bumper Christmas. Amazon took orders for over four million items on a single day, John Lewis saw sales rise by 60% in December and Tesco's sales in the four weeks leading up to Christmas were up by 30% on last year. IMRG, an industry body for online retailers, estimates that online shopping accounted for 10% of all Christmas shopping and was up by 40% on 2005.

Microsoft laptop PR stunt backfires

Microsoft's in trouble again, this time for giving away laptops to bloggers. The laptops were Ferrari-branded and pre-loaded with the forthcoming Vista operating system, providing a risk-free way for influential bloggers to try out the new platform. But many in the blogosphere are accusing Microsoft of attempting to bribe the online diarists.

While it is usual practice for hardware reviewed by magazines to be returned to the vendor or PR agency after review, dealing with bloggers requires different rules. Nobody pays them and it's not their job to review your product. Microsoft's statement that the bloggers were free to return, keep or dispose of the laptops seems to have been interpreted as an attempt to buy their souls. It's more likely to have been canny recognition that the bloggers owe Microsoft nothing. If bloggers want to have a strop about an operating system they haven't even tried, it seems there's nothing at all the world's most powerful business can do about it.

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Marketing Update

By Elissa Fry, Sally Forge and Lisa Facinelli

Microsoft gives advertisers their global dream

All advertisers want to be able to communicate through any form of media as quickly as possible. Less time spent setting up is good news for global advertisers who need to maximise product awareness as effectively as possible. It seems that with Microsoft unveiling its global digital advertising website, advertisers will be put in full flow regarding online communication. Revolution reports that the site will feature core information about audience data, as well as tools and ad format information, enabling advertisers to use the site as a searchable research resource as well as an advertising network.

After all, Cake was a made-up drug

Marketing by association - i.e. celebrities endorsing a campaign - like pouring money into sponsorship, is a quick, easy, mutually beneficial and effective method of conveying a message. But scientists concerned with 'real facts' are now worried the trend for showing concern about a range of health and environmental factors may have gone too far, the BBC says.

Charity 'Sense About Science' has set up a telephone helpline and campaign, backed by illusionist Derren Brown, to encourage celebrities to check facts before becoming vocal about issues. The charity has published a pamphlet about the campaign, listing statements by a variety of well-known but otherwise unqualified people, on topics ranging from MMR to organic food, which it considers could be misleading. This includes a statement by Madonna, reported in The Guardian, claiming efforts are being made to neutralise radiation. The pamphlet is being distributed in restaurants and VIP clubs in the UK.

Cars become the new Wi-Fi hotspot

At the Consumer Electronics Show next week, Autonet Mobile plans to reveal its portable device that will give cars a high speed internet connection. The $399 box will have the ability to plug into a car's cigarette lighter (or wall outlet) and will also require a $49 monthly fee. It is said that the device will work on 95 percent of the roadways in the US.

However, many express concerns about what this means for road safety. Autonet moved to quell concerns by reiterating that the internet connection is for use of passengers in the car only. However, business travellers are the primary target with family usage coming in as a secondary target, could this be a conflict of interest or the first step in creating the "connected car".

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US Media Report

By Heather Lynch

In the past year of falling print news readership, and the 38^th US President Ford passing, according to the New York Times there is at least one reader of the print papers - President Bush. After stating a few years ago to much comical chagrin that he did not read the papers, he now is making a point of stating that he does read the paper, as in a news conference last week.

After we reported last month that the WSJ is cutting down its size along with less news content beginning in January, the WSJ now is announcing its plans and new features in more detail. The Journal will yield increased analysis and interpretation of the news, along with new features such as Today's Agenda and an Informed Reader section offering outside insight.

Judith Regan, the editor at Harper Collins who signed the book planned by OJ Simpson, which was recalled in an executive decision by Rupert Murdoch, was fired last week by the publisher. She is reported to have made anti-Semitic remarks in a heated accusation of not being supported last month during the outcry over the Simpson book, "If I Did It."

The US edition of FHM Magazine is being shut down by U.K. owner Emap Consumer Media. In the US, it is second to the leading male-targeted title Maxim. Emap was to use FHM to pave the way Stateside for other U.K. titles such as the music mag Q, but now is pulling out of the States completely.

UK Media Report

By Annie Kasmai

VNU has agreed to sell nearly all of its computer and economy titles to the financial investment company 3i. The publications being sold currently belong to the Business Media Group and are published in the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Dominic Ponsford is the new editor of Press Gazette. Dominic joined the publication in 2003 as a news editor, prior to the Gazette been taken over by Wilmington Media.

Best of the 'Net

By Sean McManus

Dailylit

If you think you don't have time to read books, think again. Dailylit carves up literature classics into chunks you can read in five minutes and sends them to you by email. It's the modern equivalent of those partwork magazines that disappear from newsagents by February, only this time without the free binder and castle turret.

There are over two hundred works on offer, from the pens of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw among others. If you can't wait for tomorrow's instalment, you can click to read it immediately, which will enable you to get through the book more quickly. That might be a smart idea: while you can get through some of the books in a couple of weeks, others have hundreds of parts. If anyone gets to part 675 of War and Peace, let us know.