Have had quite a intensely busy week, despite it being short for NZ’s ANZAC Day, and have very little intellectual horsepower left. So instead of writing a post today I am going to point to some interesting links from during the week I have come across.

First, Dell’s New Media Communication strategy as presented at the Society for New Communications Research’s New Comms Forum.

Dell receives thousands of messages a day via post boards, and categorise all as either:
1. Urgently requiring a reply 2. Something to watch 3. Not awaiting a reply.
Stats are cited here that previous to their blog outreach strategy “online conversational stats” were about 49% negative. They are now 21% negative. Dell are quoted here as being not the only one moving from an e-commerce site to a social/e-commerce blend.

Richard Bilhammer of Dell said that by catching issues in the blogosphere they can get a 2-3 lead time before it hits mainstream media. This is really interesting, I wonder how long that will remain the case. I agree that 2-3 weeks cannot be a standard lead time, especially as mainstream media adopt some of these new media tools themselves and use them standalone or in conjunction with other content channels. Read Full post from Maggie Fox on this topic here: http://socialmediagroup.ca/2008/04/23/dells-blogosphere-strategy-sncr-new-comm-forum/

On the topic of the SNCR New Comm Forum here is a video clip of Jim Long addressing journalism and social media. Watch the video here: http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/weblog/a_taste_of_new_communication_forum/

Something else I came across that removed my guilt that I hadn’t written a blog post since Saturday was an article from Social Media Today covering the negative effects of daily blog posts. Effects listed were that your readers will think you don’t invest much time in writing it as it means posts are lower quality. This leads to fewer subscribers, time pressures on you… etc. BUT Don’t underestimate the power of daily posts. Confused? Read the full post here: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/32032

I liked this post on the Wired How to Wiki on “How to make Money online with a $20 budget”. It covers running a niche content blog, buying and selling domain names, freelance writing and blogging. I am currently working on a piece to submit to the Wired How to Wiki so will write a post when I submit it. Read the full Wired Wiki entry here: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/How_to_Make_Money_Online_with_a_Twenty_Dollar_Budget

This just seemed kinda crazy… “By our guesstimate, Larry and Sergey are spending at least $72,288,000 per year to fill their workers’ pie-holes.” Check it out here:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/googles_ginormous_food_budget_7530_per_googler

I have been listening to Wall Street conference calls recently as since completing my valuation course I have a much clearer understanding of what the numbers mean and what the story is that sits behind the numbers.

If you are interested in understanding more about understanding the valuation and financials of individual companies I think a good start is to start reading press (or social media..) releases, listening to conference calls and reading analyst research of companies whose business you not only understand but are interested in and excited by. An example? See below for Q1 Financial result press release and conference call for Google:

Press Release
http://googleinvestors.blogspot.com

Conference Call Audio
http://download-fp5.rbn.com/shareholder/shareholder/download/30361google.mp3