MartinHofmann.net

Just came across pr-toolbar.de, a free PR Toolbar created by a German agency. The download offering for German PR professionals includes 380 PR links, a PR glossary, RSS feeds with PR news as well as gadgets like cookie cleaner, unified email notification and a chat function. I haven’t downloaded it but it looks like it also includes a couple features that are supposed to generate leads for this agency.

I am not a huge toolbar fan in general because it further diminishes the little screen space I have on my laptop and the new IE7 Beta browser (just like Firefox) has an integrated search box anyway. But it is still a nice marketing and community-building idea.

pr-toolbar.de was developed based on a free toolbar creation service from Conduit, so it would probably be easy to create a Canadian PR toolbar.

Not sure if anybody would be interested. But, just for the sake of an exercise, here’s a quick brainstorm of what could be included.

Sean over at Buzz Canuck has just created “The Power 50“, a list of Canadian marketing bloggers. Not all of them are PR blogs but it would be a good starting point for community links and/or RSS news. And why not cross over into other marketing territory for some of the links?
Third Tuesday, Third Monday and CaseCamp and other PR events
Inside PR for podcasting
Since it is not just about blogging but about PR in general, we should throw in links to CPRS and IABC for good measure
prmeasurement.ca on the resources side of things, of course, and links to vendor partners like CNW, CCN Matthews, NewsCanada, Bacons, Vocus etc.
And I am sure for additional resource links we could also take a look south of 49

Yes, there’s plenty more to be found in Canada. But it’s time for dinner. Other ideas anyone?

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Information: September 18th, 2006; 11 Responses

Feeds and Links: Comment Feed; From This Author; Del.icio.us; Digg; Technorati

Categories: Toolbar; Public Relations; Blogs

Other Posts: Daily Mail: Big brother is not only watching you - now he is barkinging orders too; From Wikipedia to Citizendium

Reader Comments

Comment Number:: 1
Written by:: sean moffitt
Posted on:: September 18, 2006 at 11:42 pm

Not that I’m stopped in PR but how ’bout an easy shorthand search tool of the 20 Canadian dailies and top 1000 blogs with tagged articles from the last day about your client’s brands

cheers, sean

Comment Number:: 2
Written by:: Martin
Posted on:: September 19, 2006 at 12:28 am

Good idea! Thanks Sean. I didn’t even think of that because we use PR software to track our client coverage. But it would be convenient to also have the most important articles at your fingertips through the toolbar.

Comment Number:: 3
Written by:: David Jones
Posted on:: September 19, 2006 at 9:17 am

I like this idea a lot. It would be a great tool to customize for clients as well. Provide them with a toolbar of relevant things to scan on a daily basis…maybe even link to a technorati and news search on their company and relevant key words. We could even set up a del.icio.us page that they could have a link to as well

Comment Number:: 4
Written by:: Martin
Posted on:: September 19, 2006 at 4:37 pm

Great point, David. I had approached it more as a tool for the Canadian PR community. But it could be a valuable tool for selected clients, too. Thanks!

Comment Number:: 5
Written by:: Ed Lee
Posted on:: September 19, 2006 at 5:07 pm

great idea martin - and one i’ll be trying to steal very soon!

Comment Number:: 6
Written by:: PR Works » Canuck 3 Stars - Sept. 20: Good ideas need time to grow into great ideas; Social media monitoring in a box; Podcasting is where it’s at
Posted on:: September 20, 2006 at 7:31 am

[…] High Road’s Martin Hofmann is pondering the creation of a Canadian PR Toolbaron his blog. There’s a good discussion in the comments about why and how to use it. I think it would be a great tool to supply to clients pre-populated with del.icio.us links, feeds, technorati searches, news searches and so on. A tool like this could provide you with social media monitoring in a box…all through the wonders of RSS. 3. Podcasting is the new black. And I thought brown was the new black. […]

Comment Number:: 7
Written by:: ‘A strange way, Miles,’ she said, biting her red lips to restrain a - Bvfoe
Posted on:: September 20, 2006 at 3:05 pm

[…] What would a Canadian PR Toolbar look like? - Martin Hoffman […]

Comment Number:: 8
Written by:: Leona
Posted on:: September 20, 2006 at 4:25 pm

Such a great idea Martin. It sounds like a very cool mashup project.

Comment Number:: 9
Written by:: Terry Fallis
Posted on:: September 20, 2006 at 4:45 pm

Hey Martin, I love this idea. More ammunition in PR’s bid to own social media. Onwards…

Comment Number:: 10
Written by:: Martin
Posted on:: September 20, 2006 at 11:19 pm

Thanks for your feedback, Ed, Leoan and Terry! I am hoping to find some time on one of the next weekends to explore the options with Conduit’s free toolbar creation service. Stay tuned.

Comment Number:: 11
Written by:: martinhofmann.net » Get the new Canuck PR Toolbar - version 1.0
Posted on:: October 3, 2006 at 12:06 am

[…] As promised a couple weeks ago, here is a first version of a Canadian PR toolbar. Download it at http://canuckpr.communitytoolbars.com/. […]

What would a Canadian PR Toolbar look like?

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