Welcome

Welcome to another edition of the Prompt Communications newsletter. Newsletters like this one are a powerful tool for creating a valuable, ongoing conversation with your customers, prospects, partners, employees and other stakeholders. At Prompt we produce a wide range of weekly, monthly and quarterly newsletters to help our clients engage with their markets and generate new revenue. We can do the same for you, so why not get in touch today and let us show you how an email newsletter can benefit your business.

For any feedback on our newsletter, or to discuss how we can help you with your technology PR, marketing, social media and blogging consultancy, copywriting or surveys, please email me at hbutters@prompt-communications.com. We are always delighted to hear from you.

Best regards,
Hazel Butters
Prompt Communications

· Read Our Blog · Browse Newsletter Archive · Contact Us

Enterprise Technology News

By Lance Concannon

European think tank urges unbundling of Windows from PCs

A leading European economics think tank, the Globalisation Institute, has urged the European Commission to force PC vendors to sell PCs and operating systems separately in order to, you guessed it, end Microsoft's monopoly. You can get the full story at the Washington Post.

This debate has been running for years, but what does anybody seriously expect such a move to achieve? Let's start with the fact that while Microsoft may have an effective monopoly, the truth is that good quality alternative operating systems are available for people who want them. Some of the best ones are even free but people still prefer to use Windows.

Consumers like being able to buy a computer with a pre-installed OS that just works straight out of the box - it's a fantastic achievement of the computer industry to have got to this situation. Imagine if, as well as choosing a PC, consumers had to figure out which OS to buy, whether it was compatible with their computer and would run their applications. Not to mention the increased cost of applications if developers had to produce separate versions of their software for each of the different operating systems.

Since there are no commercially available alternatives to Windows, vendors would have to give away free copies of Linux, and the only way for them to make any money on that deal would be to offer premium support services for the software, which would be a line of business that many PC vendors are ill suited for. Either way, despite claims that this will be better for consumers, in reality it seems highly unlikely that such a move would do anything other than confuse PC buyers and drive up costs.

Buy One Laptop Per Child, get one free

The One Laptop Per Child project, which aims to provide low cost Linux based laptops to children in the developing world hasn't been quite as successful as the project founders hoped. It seems that a lot of governments which had originally pledged to buy the machines for their schoolchildren simply haven't stumped up the money. While the project is certainly laudable, it's not too hard to see why governments which struggle to provide clean water and basic medicines for their people might not be too concerned about spending money on computers for children.

The charity which runs the project is now hoping to boost its take-up by offering Americans the opportunity to buy one of the machines for approximately $400, which will also cover the cost of donating one to a child in the developing world.

· Read Our Blog · Browse Newsletter Archive · Contact Us

US Media News

By Tarryn Morley

US

The Wall Street Journal is combining its technology and media & marketing bureaus. Rich Turner has been appointed technology and media & marketing editor at the newspaper. He will oversee Martin Peers, who will continue to be news editor, and Peter Grant, who will resume the role of deputy technology editor.

In other changes at the WSJ, Dan Golden is leaving his post as deputy chief of the newspaper's Boston bureau on September 30th. He will be joining Conde Nast's Portfolio in October as a senior editor. Tunku Varadarajan is leaving his post as assistant managing editor at the WSJ on September 30th.

Erick Schonfeld has been appointed co-editor at TechCrunch, a blog for business professionals interested in keeping up to date on technology and the Internet. He began working with current editor Michael Arrington this week. Schonfeld was previously editor at large at Business 2.0 and a contributing editor for Fortune.

PBS/Public Broadcasting Service and Wired magazine are launching Wired Science, a new science and technology series, on October 3. The programme will address 21st century innovation and the ways that technology is changing culture. Wired Science will be produced on multiple platforms, including mobile devices.

UK Media News

By Tarryn Morley

UK

There have been several changes at Incisive Media's Computeractive magazine recently. Tom Royal has been appointed deputy editor at the magazine. He was previously Labs editor at Computer Shopper. Anthony Dhanendran has been promoted from staff writer to reviews editor for both the print and online editions. Tim Smith has been appointed as senior staff writer and is primarily responsible for the Computeractive website.

Computing, another Incisive Media computer title, has also undergone a few editorial staff changes. Dave Friedlos has left his role as a senior reporter at the publication to return home to Australia. Neon Kelly and Janie Davies have joined the magazine as reporters. Kelly is a journalism graduate from City University and worked as a freelance journalist before joining Computing. Davies joined the publication as part of Incisive Media's graduate training programme.

The Evening Standard has launched its own news website at Standard.co.uk. The site features Standard columnists, blogs by its journalists, a City email bulletin and a podcast featuring market commentator Mickey Clark. Users of the new site will also be able to sign up for the recently launched Eros card. The Standard previously shared the site ThisIsLondon.co.uk with the London Lite.

Consumer Technology News

By Dave Wilby

Halo 3 hits Europe (in the wallet)

At midnight on Tuesday, one of the most hotly anticipated and heavily marketed games of all time, Halo 3, finally landed in Europe. More than a thousand shops opened to cash in on the early rush, according to the BBC. At £40 ($80) a pop, Microsoft hoped first day sales of Halo 3 would top £70m ($140m), more than the opening takings of any movie in history.

The company spent a reported $10m (£5m) on promoting the title and desperately needed high volumes to boost sales of its Xbox 360. By midweek, Microsoft claimed it had actually earned more than £84m ($170m) in its first 24 hours, topping figures set by film Spiderman 3. More than 1.4 million people have played online so far. Be warned though – if you’re a fan, don’t whatever you do click here and ruin the ending for yourself completely, like many other impatient fans.

And the nominees for this year’s BAFTA Video Games awards are…

The British Academy Video Games Awards 2007 will take place at Battersea Evolution in London on 23rd October. Last year’s awards were attended by 700 publishers, developers and other professionals providing products and services to the booming industry. Nominees for the prestigious ‘Best Game’ category include Bioshock, Crysis, Gears of War, Guitar Hero II, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men and Wii Sports. Check BAFTA for the full rundown of nominees.

Search giant trials photo-realistic 'Second Life' rival

Google has begun testing an online virtual universe to compete with Second Life, based upon the satellite imagery software that powers Google Earth. Or has it? Arizona State University students might be testing a new immersive world that might be made publicly available later this year. It’s all pretty much guesswork at this stage.

The university already has ties with Google, and admits its current project is developed by a “major internet company” and hints that it includes features related to 3D-modelling and video gaming. Hmmm, do you feel a bit cheated by the headline now? We did too. The Times claims the speculation was fuelled by a blog post from Michael Eisenberg, of technology-focused venture capitalist Benchmark Group, who said he had heard “through the PhD grapevine ... Google is working on turning Google Earth into a virtual world a la Second Life.”

· Read Our Blog · Browse Newsletter Archive · Contact Us

Web 2.0 Watch

By Lance Concannon

The cutting edge of web development is no place for a mild mannered PR agency

I was giving a presentation to some of my colleagues recently, going over the basics of what Web 2.0 and social means for us as a PR agency, and one of them asked the following question: “There are so many new sites and platforms coming along every year, how do we know which ones we’re supposed to pay attention to?”

It’s a valid question, but the answer is simple: You can’t, so don’t bother trying. The internet is full of Bandwagoneers and Me-Too Merchants, if you tried to track every single start-up and predict which ones would be successful and, moreover, useful from a PR perspective, you’d go mental.

The good news is that there’s practically no advantage to being on the bleeding edge of Web 2.0 development. If you want to impress the client/boss with your encyclopaedic knowledge of the very latest social media platforms, that’s all well and good, but there’s no point pretending that any of them have much to offer until they’ve reached some sort of critical mass in terms of user volume.

There’s a lot of pressure in the tech industry to constantly be on the leading edge, and that’s no bad thing because it’s always a good idea to know what’s coming over the horizon. But as far as PR is concerned, where’s the advantage? If that hot new start-up you read about really is the next Facebook, then it’s not going to be very useful to you until everybody else agrees with that assessment, and it’s still going to be around in six months time.

Venture capitalists may have to break a sweat trying to figure out who tomorrow’s winners are going to be, but in the PR business it’s our job to figure out how we can put these platforms to work for our clients, only after the markets have chosen the winners.

You can comment on this article at www.business-blogging.co.uk, where Lance writes about blogging, web 2.0, social media and online PR

· Read Our Blog · Browse Newsletter Archive · Contact Us

Website of the Week

By Fiona Blamey

Polyvore

Have you ever thought you could easily have been the art editor of Vogue or Elle Decoration, if only you'd managed to get the hang of Photoshop? Are you nostalgic for childhood pastimes like making clothes and roomsets for your dolls, or scrapbook collages of pictures you found in magazines? Or perhaps you're thinking of buying a new outfit and want to see how that dress will work with those shoes.

If any of these scenarios strike a chord, then Polyvore is for you.

Polyvore lets you create really quite lovely fashion-mag-style page layouts (or 'sets') out of pictures and patterns uploaded by users, including product shots from online retailers, royalty-free stock photos, Flickr images and more.

It's also all Web 2.0'd up, so you can comment and vote on other people's sets, embed sets in your own blog, tag images and sets, make new friends in the Polyvore community, and import your Polyvore sets into your Facebook profile.

'Ooh' and 'aaah' at other users' sets here, and start creating your own masterworks here.

· Read Our Blog · Browse Newsletter Archive · Contact Us