Holtz Communications + Technology

Don’t bet on it.

America Online is getting ready to announce a voice-over-Internet service that runs over its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Part of the deal: AIM users will get free local phone numbers so people without AIM can reach them through a conventional phone line. Apparently, some are predicting the the lure of a free phone number may kick of a…

Just as vultures can detect the faint scent of freshly dead meat from miles away, spammers can sniff out new channels through which they can spew their garbage. Creative people are coming up with innovative new ways to allow people to tap into the social computing space. We can rely on spammers to turn whatever they come up with into…

I dream of a world without prejudice. Wars will be a distant memory. No child will go to bed hungry. And organizations will trust their employees enough to let them subscribe to RSS feeds.

In case you hadn’t heard about it, some companies have begun blocking RSS feeds at the firewall. The rationale for this short-sighted, counterproductive bit of paranoid stupidity ranges from…

I’m just back from Steve Rubel‘s geek dinner in San Francisco. Yesterday, I was Skype messaging with Jeremy Pepper, suggesting he drop by since he now works here. “Maybe I will,” he mused. And, indeed, he did. And, as God as my witness, Steve and Jeremy chatted like old friends. Then, together, they approached me and told me they were giving me the scoop. Me Just…

Courtesy of The Gaping Void, per Hugh’s Creative Commons license.

What risk do you run when you’re snarky to a colleague? In the case of Ragan Communications’ David Murray, the answer is subtle ridicule. What’s more, the target of the snarkiness isn’t the source of the ridicule. Instead, it’s being driven by the PR blogging community at large. Here’s the story:

In the current issue of Ragan’s Journal of Employee Communications Management (JECM), Murray questions the…