Fourth speaker?
by Josh Kimball
Fourth Speaker – though it’s been up and running longer than the ListeNerd – is a new-to-me blog that covers the convergence of music and cell phones. (Great timing, considering the much-anticipated roll out of a certain holy and unnameable product!)
One of the bloggers appears to be Steve Safran, a stalwart from one of my favorite video platform-hopping blogs, Lost Remote. What’s interesting: while Lost Remote felt very much like an organic community built up around ideas about the future of television (and please note that I’m NOT that versed in the site’s origins), the feel of Fourth Speaker seems a lot more linked to the “CelleCast Team,” of which Safran is a member. Nothing wrong with being both a corporate citizen and a blogger, but the differences in one user’s perceptions of two websites that address similar subject matter seems notable.
I found some really useful info about ad-supported music and cell phones at the Ad-Supported Music Blog. Look for yourself, maybe a good reference for your blogs: http://ad-supported-music.blogspot.com/
Josh:
Thanks for taking note. I’m all about transparency, as you’ve noticed at Lost Remote. The Fourth Speaker blog is, indeed, part of the CelleCast company’s family. In fact, I encouraged them to start a blog as a way of helping to start a conversation about mobile with their audience and – of course – potential customers.
I am a consultant, as is pointed out often at LR, and CelleCast is a client of mine. What I am hoping to do with clients like CelleCast and others is to get the artificial walls between companies and customers to come down. I hope people will go to company blogs and write their thoughts about the space that companies are in and their thoughts – good, bad and otherwise – on the new company offerings.
You write:
“Nothing wrong with being both a corporate citizen and a blogger, but the differences in one user’s perceptions of two websites that address similar subject matter seems notable.”
And I note that, accordingly. The way I see it, I am helping CelleCast (as I always have with media outlets) to have two-way conversations with the audience. I hope this doesn’t hurt my cred – and I think that as long as I am transparent with the audience, it shouldn’t.
Best,
Steve Safran
Hey, dude. First; you’ve made a grave error by not using my preferred mode of address, “The ListeNerd.” But I can get beyond it. Second; not sure who the final arbiter of cred is (last I heard google and technorati were duking it out for the title), but I’m sure you’ll be fine.
As I said, I have nothing against corporate blogs (though we might quibble as to the circumstances under which they’re best deployed). In fact, Inspired Protagonist (from Seventh Generation) is one of my favorite blogs, corporate or no. Best of luck in your future endeavors.