Neville and Shel got together for the September edition of The Hobson & Holtz Report to talk about the self-inflicted downfall of the UK PR agency, Bell Pottinger (and kudos to the PRCA for putting teeth in its ethics code); how various fields will be affected by speech recognition (including PR and communications); itch Joel’s plea to the advertising industry to not mess up ads for voice; the proliferation of fake scientific journals (and what it means for the PR industry); Pew research that identifies five “types” of people who search for facts and information, with implications for content marketing; and the killing of British English by Americanisms (and whether it matters). In his Tech Report, Dan York explains why “Gutenberg,” the WordPress editor, may take longer than expected to appear. Dan also talks about the launch of the new Internet Society website.
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The post FIR #105: Center Stage for Credible Sources appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Employee communication thought leaders Paul Barton and Sean Williams joined host Shel Holtz to talk about whether companies have improved their crisis and emergency communications since 9/11; why change communication should be part of the employee communication effort United Technologies will engage in as a result of its acquisition of Rockwell Collins; the heavily criticized crisis communication from Equifax in the wake of their recent data breach; the gap between HR and executives’ perception of corporate culture; and why communicators need to stop looking at collaboration tools as communication tools.
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The post FIR #104: Two Versions of Three H’s appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Marshall Kirkpatrick and Augie Ray joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about the hashtag, which just celebrated its 10th birthday; a study that found people who get business communication featuring emojis don’t think positive things about the person who sent it; Microsoft-based VR headsets that are about to hit the market at lower price points than the competition, potentially propelling Virtual Reality into the mainstream…or not; Facebook Page reach has declined 20% in 2017; and why influencer marketing may be an oversold magic bullet. Dan York’s Tech Report covers the impending change of the WordPress editor to a new “block-style” editor called “Gutenberg”.
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The post FIR #103: #Happy #Birthday, #Hashtag appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Scott Monty and Laura Pevehouse joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about the uses to which social media’s is being put by victims of flooding from Hurricane Harvey, candy companies are trying to find ways to make up for lost impulse sales as the number of cash registers declines; we’ve heard it before, but eMarketer insists it’s for real this time: Teens are abandoning Facebook for Snapchat and Instagram (and maybe iMessage); Sonos, the Internet-of-Things speaker company, says existing customers won’t get the option to opt out of a new privacy policy — if you don’t agree, your sound systems could stop working; we’re visual creatures, so audio search may not take off the way some think it will; are all those differences between generations just so much nonsense (and is there really any such thing as a “digital native”)? Dan York reports on  a creepy side of Facebook, a concerning case where the US Dept of Justice is requesting significant user info from Dreamhost, a website hosting provider, in China, anonymity is basically dead as of October 1, and efforts underway from Mozilla and Google to build open datasets of voice samples that can be used to develop new voice applications.
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The post FIR #102: Does VR Candy Taste As Good? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Nora Ganim Barnes and Michael Harry Klein joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about how one brand mishandled responding to a consumer’s observation on Facebook; business was front-and-center in last week’s political news; how Twitter manages to keep surviving; Amazon has launched a shoppable social network with limited availability; and Instagram got gamed, leading two companies to pay fees and give product to fake accounts. Dan York reports on the latest evolution of the Facebook News Feed, recording podcasts using Wire, the end of typing, and the ethics of CloudFlare kicking a white supremacist website off the Internet.
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The post FIR #101: Is Amazon Spark the Missing Social Media Link? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The August Hobson & Holtz Report (and episode 100 of FIR) features conversation about a SNCR initiative to address fake news, an AI bot that detects plagiarism, a little-known Twitter feature that’s helping Trump supporters amplify their messages, a new crop of agencies targeted Generation Z, and a Buffalo hotel adding Amazon Echoes to every room. Dan York’s Tech Report covers Soundcloud and new features in Instagram and Facebook.
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The post FIR #100: Locked and Loaded appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.