Is Jobster the MySpace of job sites?

Jobster is an interesting idea, allowing job searchers to use tags, aggregated job postings, and even allows people to give the inside scoop on what exactly it is like to work at a company, beyond what you can learn from the corporate website.

I love that Jobster seems to have embraced this web 2.0 culture and has given a personality to not only job applicants, but to the companies looking to fill open positions. The personal information that it offers about companies answers many of the typical questions I ask when networking with PR practitioners, and all without finding the closest Starbucks to meet at.

I have been nothing but disappointed by Monster and Career Builder, but have found countless leads and have gotten at least half of a dozen interviews through CraigsList. It seems like the number of applicants is high enough, and the price is low enough, that it may be difficult for employers to make the switch. It doesn't look like a replacement of any of the job sites out there already, but definitely looks like a great new tool to toss into the mix.

I like the idea behind Jobster, but am a little suspicious on it's ability to get enough traffic from both job searchers and employers to take any significant market share from CraigsList. We'll see how their marketing and PR efforts work to build a strong community around what they are offering. Hey, maybe I'll even find my next job (assuming I don't stay around Lois Paul & Partners) on Jobster.


Technorati tags: jobster craigslist monster career builder

Meet me at Podcamp Boston

I'll be at Podcamp Boston Sept 9 and 10. It is a free conference for podcasters and podcast enthusiasts and should be a pretty fun time. I'm excited by the attendee list so far with names like Bryan Person, Steve Garfield, it will definitely be exciting. If you are going to be in the Boston area, join the list and sign up at the site wiki.

Check out the info and keep checking back for a location at the site.

Technorati tags: podcamp boston

Buying Social Media

Last week’s big Web 2.0 story, Jason Calacanis tries to buy the top Digg/Flickr/Del.icio.us users. I may be a little slow to respond, but here are my $0.02.

Ever since I first heart Netscape Executive Calacanis on Episode 57 of TWIT, I wasn’t exactly a huge fan. I’m not sure if it was his voice, what was clearly not made for radio, or the way he seemed more interested in milking money off of the Web 2.0 revolution rather than creating something worthwhile to contribute to the movement, but he clearly didn’t fit in with the rest of the panel.

Not only does the new Netscape site blatantly steal Digg’s design, layout, and structure, but it fails to even bring anything original to the idea of a social news website. Now Calacanis offers to pay off the top Digg users to join his site? I guess it makes sense that Calacanis can’t build a site that will foster web-based social groups when he doesn’t even understand why so many people visit dig each day to post, comment, and of course, digg.

Kevin Rose has called out Calacanis on Diggnation, Leo Laporte has clearly picked sides, and as far as me, I think he is just a douchebag. There are few ways to rectify someone going beyond trying to create productive competition and stealing your intellectual property. At least it is comforting to know that Calacanis can’t even hire someone to get it right.

Calacanis, go back to the magazine business.

Technorati Tags: Calacanis, Digg, Netscape

Best Week Ever

This has been a pretty busy week, hence my rather disappointing posting performance. Sorry about that everyone, but other ventures have taken me away from my laptop for a brief period.

Sunday I completed my first triathlon, check out my flickr page for a few pictures shot by my gracious girlfriend. Monday I received a pretty awesome birthday present of being offered an internship position at Louis Paul & Partners’ life science practice, which I accepted shortly thereafter.

Now I am on an Amtrak train headed from Boston to Hartford to meet up with my big brother for his bachelor party and maybe spend some time with a few hometown friends this weekend.

I am very excited to see the end of my employment drought as well as being able to share my experience as an LPP intern. WOOT WOOT! Expect to hear my first day reactions once I start on August 14.

Will consumer creaded media content increase media literacy? My ramblings...

This Friday's The Show got my gears turning all weekend and I haven’t quite been able to get them to stop. I haven’t quite answered the questions that have come out of this discussion that I’ve been having with myself, but let's see where this takes me...

(rant)

It is undeniable that blogs and internet culture are changing not only in how news is spread, but also in the voice that is used to tell it (not to mention the voices speaking back at the author in story comments).

Paul Grabowitz spoke with Steve Garfield about how consumer created news should be posted on websites right up top along with traditional news content. How easily will the average reader be able to distinguish unbiased, sufficiently researched and balanced news coverage of a story from the subjective ideas communicated through a blog on the same subject? Will blog posts ever be able to be completely integrated into traditional news content without a distinct division that editorial and advertising has requiered?

As the youth Internet culture becomes more and more accustomed to learning about the world around them through My Space and their friend's blogs, will they begin to distrust the traditional media that so distantly resembles the media channels that they are so used to (even more than the rest of society already does)?

My experience conducting journalistic interviews and reporting stories for print publications has certainly changed the way that I interpret news content (as well a fostered a strong distain of 90% of local news programming). Will the Internet culture's access to blogging have any significant affect on they way they interpret news content? (I sure hope that www.nytimes.com never resembles a My Space page... ugh).

The fact that HTML coding and website design were once powerful skills that separated internet media producers from consumers but now it has even begun to integrate into IM slang to the point where (/rant) may some day be as common as ROFL and WTF, is pretty wild.

Sure Dell's blog sucks, but at least they are communicating in a medium where we can call them out on it publicly. THAT is cool.

The average man’s ability to create his own media content will hopefully increase his media literacy, changing the way the entire internet culture consumes and interprets the news media. And in any case, media literacy is good for everyone. The news media may be the fourth estate, but it is only as powerful as the public's ability to interpret and formulate their own educated opinions based on the content.

(/rant)

I appologize for the completely random chain of ideas, but I was in the mood to publish all ideas that have been fueling my brain for the past few days in more of a mental regurgitation than anything else. I hope I didn't give anyone a headache. I will now return to my regularly scheduled and fully thought out posts.


Technorati Tags: Media Literacy, Ze Frank

Dell's one2one Blog

Dell responded to criticisms from Shel Holtz, Steve Rubel, and Jeff Jarvis about its new blog, one2one. The H&K blog also added it's two cents.

While it is pretty hard to argue on behalf of Dell, I am glad to see that they are at least responding to the comments out there in the blogosphere. I hope that they master the transition between brochure writing and blog writing very soon.

There certainly is endless potential for this blog to help bring Dell out of some pretty mucked-up situations, but if they don't improve their posts it could turn into a big threat. Blogging is an excellent communications tool, as has been proven thousands of times, but only if you know how to do it right. (I surely not perfect, but at least I try and don't blatantly ignore the commonly accepted rules of blogging.)

Technorati Tags: Dell, one2one



Andrew talks about the recent turmoil at Rocketboom UPDATED

Andrew Baron of RocketBoom tells his side of the story. His transparency and honesty definitely takes him out of the "evil business man who killed rocketboom" light.

The audio quality is awful for the first minute, but just grit your teeth and bear it.

I sincerely hope that Andrew is not surprised that he has been painted in such a bad light. If you do your business is vlogging, and you refrain from being completely transparent during a time of crisis, I begin to doubt how thoroughly you understand the medium.

I am not saying that Andrew did anything wrong, or was "the evil business guy who killed RB," only that he should not be surprised by the image that has been given to him. In a time of crisis, the party who is most transparent will almost always appear in a better light. Typical "no comment" syndrome.

I do wish both Amanda and Andrew the best, and hopefully they'll throw all of this behind them, realize how silly this is, and get back to the daily vids.

The brevity/conservativeness of the message that he mentions leaving on the rocketboom website just made him seem sketchy and impersonable in my opinion. I wish he could have done a better job of explaining his position, but I am sure he will take advantage of his opportunity to tell this side of the story on Monday.

National Semiconductor fails to follow through

National Semiconductor can't seem to follow through with it's PRWeek cover story. They gained phenomenal press for "equipping" all of its 8,500 employees with video iPods as a reward for their best financial year ever, but the tables have turned.

Apparently their iPods were not gifts, but were merely company property that they would allow for personal use. When 35 employees at their Arlington plant were fired, National Semiconductor asked for the iPods back.

It is one thing to pull a stunt to show how well your company is doing and show your appreciation to your employees, but it is a whole different ballgame when your initial intentions are not 100% honest and you must knowingly dance around the issue with the language in your press releases.

Amanda Congdon: Unboomed

I was a little concerned with Rocketboom's random field correspondent run last week, but when it failed to return to its regularly scheduled programming on Monday morning, the questions began to fly.

Unfortunately, it looks like Amanda's regular position in front of the map has come to an end. www.rocketboom.com offers one explanation from the show's producer, Andrew Baron, but Amanda offers a much different, and much longer explanation of the split at her blog.

Amanda's transparency clearly makes Andrew look like the bad guy here, despite her relentless compliments of his contributions to RB. This split obviously brings up questions about the figure of video blogging since Rocket Boom was likely the most mainstream of any video blog out there, but I have full faith that Amanda and video blogging will bounce back from this whole incident.

Children's Hospital Boston's Online News Room

I had the opportunity to meet with Anna Gonski, Senior Writer in the Children's Hospital Boston Public Affairs department. Besides offering me some great insight into how she got started with her own career in PR we had an interesting discussion about the Hospital's online newsroom.

Check it out here: http://www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom/Site1339/mainpageS1339P0.html

I was really impressed that the newsroom has everything from an RSS feed, high-res images, embargoed releases, and everything else that an eager reporter could ask for. It is always good to see a PR department filling their newsroom with all this wonderful web-communications technology and creating a newsroom that is actually appealing to reporters, rather than a graveyard for old static press releases.