For Immediate Release

Dec 04 2024 50 ep. 31 mins 129

For Immediate Release Podcast artwork

In addition to news items and in-depth discussion of trends and issues, you'll hear the Internet Society's Dan York report on technologies of interest to communicators.

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FIR #438: Google’s AI Overviews Are Upending SEO

Dec 04 2024 15 mins

It doesn’t seem to be a big deal at first glance. A Google AI Overview answers a search query at the top of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Beneath it, all those traditional links and snippets are still there. However, analyses reveal that many people are reading the AI Overview and calling it quits — they never click a link to visit a website. That’s concern

FIR #437: AI Takes Root in the Workplace

Dec 02 2024 91 mins

Research finds that corporations no longer see AI as a novelty; it’s a full-blown business tool, one that is so critical that its development is mostly being done in-house. In the November long-form episode of “For Immediate Release,” Neville and Shel review new research about AI’s place in the business world and among employees. Also in this episode, we tak

FIR #436: Nothin’ But Bluesky (and TikTok and Threads and Instagram and WhatsApp…)

Nov 27 2024 22 mins

Bluesky — the Twitter-esque social network that has suddenly started attracting refugees from Elon Musk’s X — had its start when Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey asked software engineer Jay Graber to introduce federation to Twitter. She told him she couldn’t, but she could create a new social network based on a new federation protocol called AT, a decentralize

FIR #435: Physical Presence is Not a Collaboration Magic Bullet

Nov 20 2024 19 mins

When executives justify their return-to-office mandates, they almost universally cite the collaboration and innovation that result from serendipitous encounters between employees. They also point to the need to boost productivity. The problem with these arguments is that the evidence does not support them. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel look at one financial se

FIR #434: Podcasts Defeat Mainstream Media in 2024 U.S. Election

Nov 13 2024 20 mins

Among the many post-election analyses flooding media channels are reports that mainstream media and social media wielded far less influence than they have in the past. Instead, influencers and podcasts held sway. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel break down the reports and discuss the impact on communicators far beyond the election and politics. Links from this ep

FIR #433: Something Old, Something New

Oct 28 2024 92 mins

Blogs have been with us for 30 years, which qualifies as “something old.” In this long-form episode of FIR for October, we’ll examine the state of the oldest social media category. We’ll also examine the state of generative Artificial Intelligence, which has been around, for all practical purposes, since November 2022, which makes it “something new.

FIR #432: The CEO Authenticity Balancing Act

Oct 18 2024 18 mins

CEOs and other senior executives are increasingly expected to nurture a presence on social media—especially LinkedIn, which has seen a 35-percent increase in C-suite professionals in the U.S. over the last five years. These executives are also expected to be authentic in their online engagements, even sharing some details of their personal lives. Professionals also expect their l

FIR #431: The Evolution of Influence

Oct 02 2024 19 mins

In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel dive into PRWeek’s “The Evolution of Influence” report, exploring the dynamic shifts in how public relations professionals exert influence in today’s fast-changing landscape. We break down the seven key themes revealed by the survey, including the growing challenges of decentralization, the increasing importanc

FIR #430: Influencers, Memes, and AI Boost Marketing Transparency Mandate

Sep 30 2024 82 mins

Much of the content in this monthly long-form episode of FIR spotlights rising trends in marketing, including employee influencers, Gen Z’s rising power as influencers, the role of influencers in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, and AI’s growing presence in the marketing space. All of this is raising alarms about the need for marketers to be transparent and laser-fo

FIR #429: Fake Podcasters Discuss Real Debunkbot

Sep 27 2024 13 mins

Debunkbot was designed to talk people out of their beliefs in conspiracy theories — and it works. To discuss this remarkable chatbot, we turned to PDF2Audio, which creates an audio podcast discussion (or summary or lecture) from any uploaded PDF. It’s not Google’s NotebookLM, which features a similar capability within a more robust note-keeping tool, nor does it r