InsidEPR

(Cool) Tool of the month: Down for everyone, or just me?

By Frank Bauch

In lieu of bringing back the immensely popular “Tool of the Month” blog, we’ve decided to switch to a different column theme with the same name. As the media world becomes increasingly complicated, a number of excellent tools are popping up all over the place – both online and offline – to help you navigate the digital landscape. We hope to offer you one or more tools per month that will truly help you out.

Here’s our inaugural inductee: Down for everyone, or just me?

Have you recently had difficulty loading a website that you need to access? Of course! Everyone has.

But most of the time, you’ll spend a few minutes waiting to see if the page will load, and you are left to wonder which problem you are facing? Could it be…

A. The internet has just gone down in your office
B. You are having trouble accessing that specific website
C. The website is down
D. All of the above….?

When you find yourself in this situation, check out downforeveryoneorjustforme.com
It’s a simple website that will tell you whether that website is loading for others or whether the problem is on your end. Definitely will save you some time on those frequent occasions when twitter shuts down for an hour.

In the new media revolution…what keeps reporters up at night?

By Stephanie Look

PRSA Silicon Valley recently hosted a panel discussion on the struggles traditional media have recently faced in efforts to reinvent their business models in order to continue distributing authentic, newsworthy content.  Moderated by Sam Whitmore, the panel members included:

• John Raess, Bureau Chief, Associated Press
• Quentin Hardy, National Editor, Forbes
• Owen Thomas, Online Editorial Director, NBC Bay Area
• Kevin A. Yen, Director of Strategic Partnerships, YouTube
• Lisa Stone, Co-Founder, BlogHer
• Louis Freedberg, Director of California Watch

I think everyone in the room could agree that the panelists sparked lively debate with one another, each providing their perspective on what the future of media will look like.  The controversy in the room was very indicative that modern day media still remains undefined.

 

Can we enjoy some good news for a minute?

By Megan Atiyeh

Good news from an article in the Washington Post Sunday titled, Bubble or Bounce, Tech is Soaring by Jonathan Starkey. According to Starkey, tech stocks are hot, the Nasdaq composite index is up 26.8 percent for the year, and several other key financial indicators are trending in a positive direction.  Great.

Add to that, several bellwether companies are reporting strong sales.  Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s (RIMs) Blackberry sales have grown more than 80 percent this year despite the recession and weak consumer spending. Even better.

Starkey goes on to report that for Cisco, the world’s largest infrastructure vendor and a competitor to many of our clients, shares have risen 31 percent since the beginning of the year but the company’s 4Q profits are down 46 percent.  Despite mixed results, CEO John Chambers was quoted as saying, "if we continue to see these positive order trends for the next one to two quarters, we believe there is a good chance we will look back and see that the tipping point occurred in our business in the fourth quarter.” Fantastic. Companies are beginning to loosen up the purse strings again, so what’s the problem?

I’m not convinced there is one.  However, Chambers has been catching a lot of flack lately for “questionable management practices” and purported market share declines against rivals HP and 3Com.  When you’re at the top of the heap, there’s always going to be folks chipping away at you.  Cisco is no innocent victim. We all know that.   But Chambers is very smart and the driving force behind one of the most successful technology company’s in history, so can’t we just enjoy his optimism for a moment and hope he’s right?

A day in Sin City

By Frank Bauch

My recent trip to Interop Las Vegas 2009 was certainly far from a standard day in the office. Interop is a business and technology conference for IT and corporate decision-makers and buyers to meet and learn about new IT solutions and products.

My mission was to meet the buyers and speak with them on the show floor. With one day to interview 25 IT managers and discuss specific network problems and what trends they attribute them to, I had a lot to do in 12 hours. 

This was also my first tech tradeshow, and I approached the event with little sense of how big the conference would actually be. I expected the convention floor at Mandalay Bay to be little more than a glorified middle school science fair. Thus, when I saw double-decker booths, a $10,000 give away, and golf carts roaming around the floor, I realized this was serious business...