A fun look here at advertisements for old personal computers and laptops: PC ads that will blow your processor.
Facttactic’s Blog
online communities becoming a female world
More young women are embracing online communities while fewer men feel their online communities are as important as their offline equivalents, according to a new study.
This is apparently a sharp reversal in attitudes and has taken place over just a couple of years.
Researchers at the University of Southern California say 67 per cent of women under 40 feel as strongly about their internet communities as their offline ones, while only 38 per cent of men said the same. In 2007, the numbers were just the reverse, with 69 per cent of the men and 35 per cent of the women feeling that way.
If the numbers turn out to be accurate, it could be a pointer to a rethink by us PR hacks over how we plan online campaigns.
to text or not to text
Last week, I received a text message from the man about to start building a retaining wall at the front of my house. (Yes, he’s building it now; a great wall and I would recommend him). This was the first time I had ever received a text message in a business context, and on top of that I had not received any communication from him before, so his text was his first response to my phone call asking him to do the job.
His message took me by surprise, as texting has — for me — been pretty much limited to two types of message: 1) Arranging social events (times and places). 2) Sending brief frivolous/humorous comments about random activities in my life to people in a small circle of friends who are understanding (if not always appreciative!) of the humour.
So now I’m wondering if texting is a legitimate new form of business communication (and if there are protocols for it); or if a text is simply the new email, which for me is my default mode of communication for all clients, including sending invoices and often making first contacts.
Emails can include links and attachments to make the communication richer. They can be formal or casual. The time it takes to type a text limits its length, context and overall value but they do reach people where-ever they happen to be at any given time, I guess.
They say that for kids email is already over the hill and texting is all that matters and, yes, true, the surprise of receiving a text message from my wall guy has now receded and texting has become our main way of sorting out working issues.
But whether I’ll now disregard texting as simply a way to arrange a beer or send a one-liner, I’m not so sure.
signed, sealed, delivered … in pictures
Here’s a very nifty postal gimmick … great for customising envelopes: the Google Map Envelope.
Simply enter a location in the box and get back an envelope ready to print with a Google map picture of the location you chose. Nice!
search engines that reach places others can’t
It is said that Google reaches about 167 terabytes of information on the open web but there are another 91,000 terabytes sitting in the ‘deep web’ that Google, Bing, Yahoo and other mainstream search engines can’t reach. Here’s an interesting article on 10 search engines, such as Infomine, DeepWebTech and Scirus, that can search the deep web to find those hidden libraries of knowledge you never knew existed.
telling the world about it
A huge sign on a hill shouting out Wellington’s high-standing in the movie industry seems a good idea but the slang word chosen — ‘Wellywood’ — has long been a slightly juvenile, throw-away and ironic term that has somehow crept into the mainstream.
And as a PR opportunity for the capital’s undoubted world-class skills and success in international move-making, the Miramar hill is a great site for incoming tourist flights, but Wellywood is an opportunity wasted. It may be familiar and humorous to some ‘in the know’ but I’m siding with the growing number of voices calling it tacky.
But at Facttactic we’re not in the business of criticising things without offering positive solutions so it was great to see the guys at online-design outfit Skull and Bones with their interactive Wellywood Sign Generator. Type in your own word or phrase and see what it looks like on the side of the hill!