Get the new Canuck PR Toolbar - version 1.0

    Posted by martin on October 3, 2006

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

The toolbar is based on a very cool, free service by Conduit. I am looking for a few people who are willing to test it and provide feedback. I hope this will be a community effort.

It is now called Canuck PR Toolbar because somebody else must have already reserved the term ”Canadian PR Toolbar” (Ed?) on the Conduit site. Anyway, the Canuck PR toolbar includes:

SEARCH BOX

Google.ca is set as default but once you download the toolbar, you can change it to other search engines. I’ve added Technorati, MSN, Yahoo!, MSN News, Yahoo! News, Google News and Wikipedia. Other wishes?

It also comes with a “highlight pen”. If you put in words in the search box and click on the highlight button, it highlights those words on the current site in your browser.

PR BLOGS

The current list of Canadian PR blogs is just a start, it has nothing to do with a ranking or a “top list”. If you have or know of a Canadian PR blog that is missing, leave a comment and I will add it. Don’t be shy (you are in PR, remember). Nominate yourself and others. It makes it easier for me. 

The cool thing about this toolbar is that once you have it installed, your toolbar will be automatically updated whenever I update the list on my end. So it doesn’t matter if your blog isn’t on the initial list; everybody who has the toolbar will still get to see it once I’ve updated the list.

Question: do we want other related blogs (marketing, news, U.S. PR bloggers etc)? Let me know your opinion. I can include submenus to differentiate between different blog types.

PR RESOURCES

This is a list of links that includes events, associations, podcasts, publications and services. It will serve as a directory of PR resources. Again, just a start. If you have an idea for additional links, please leave a comment.

PR BLOG NEWS TICKER

The news ticker provides the latest headlines from Canadian PR blogs. Right now, everybody included in the blogs list is also included in the news ticker (except for one of the blogs where, ahem, I couldn’t find an RSS feed). Also included are two del.icio.us feeds with PR headlines from Constantin Basturea (Daily PR Digest - okay, let’s call it an honourary Canadian feed) and David Jones to broaden the scope a little bit.

I will try to include all new blogs that I am adding to the blog list in the news ticker, too. Since this toolbar is based on a free web service, there may be restrictions for the number of RSS feeds that can be added. It doesn’t say so but I am still trying to figure out the whole system, so I will add Canadian PR blog feeds for as long as possible.

OTHER FUNCTIONS

The toolbar also comes with the option of adding a few other features including weather forecast (you can input the city), a pop-up blocker tool, an email notifier (works with Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail) and buttons to open Windows programs such as Word, Media Player or a calculator. With the exception of the search box, all items can be activated/deactivated. 

Again, according to the instructions by Conduit, it is not necessary to download new versions of the toolbar to receive updates to the installed features such as the blog list, the resource list or the blog newsticker. A new download would only be necessary for a major change. So if you send me suggestions for Canadian PR blogs and sites, I can add them in (just give me a bit of time, I do have a day job).

So much for now. It was a fun project putting a first version together. Please go ahead and try it out if you are interested. And let me know if you like it or think it is a waste of time. Feedback welcome. 

[Please note that I have only tried the toolbar with IE7 Beta. There is a Firefox version for download, too. But I have not tested it]

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October 3rd, 2006
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
David Jones
Posted on:
October 3, 2006 at 9:50 am

Great work on this, I’ve installed it and I like it a lot. Ed Lee and Neil Johnson were messing around with a toolbar a few weeks ago, but I can’t remember if they registered the Canadian PR Toolbar name.

I still like the idea of creating a purpose-built toolbar for clients as a service that will allow them to easily follow the current RSS activity on their companies, issues and topics of interest.

Thanks for doing this, I’ll be playing with it.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
PR Works » Martin Hofmann debuts the new Canuck PR Toolbar
Posted on:
October 3, 2006 at 10:10 am

[…] High Road’s Martin Hofmann has cooked up the Canuck PR Toolbar that installs in seconds in your browser. He’s populated it with some blogs, del.icio.us feeds, links to events and other resources. It’s a very neat little tool…and, of course, free! […]

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
David Jones
Posted on:
October 3, 2006 at 10:12 am

The Firefox extension works fine by the way.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Chris Clarke
Posted on:
October 3, 2006 at 3:52 pm

Martin, I just wanted to say thanks. Great toolbar!

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Canuckflack / Another toolbar for your PR arsenal
Posted on:
October 4, 2006 at 5:18 pm

[…] Pick up your Canuck PR Toolbar, courtesy of Martin Hofmann. Search, Canuck PR blog shortcuts, and other PR resources, all in one place. […]

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Leona
Posted on:
October 5, 2006 at 8:33 am

Me likey. Thanks Martin. I’ll give this a test-drive and let you know if I’ve got any feedback.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Hugh
Posted on:
October 5, 2006 at 1:40 pm

S-M-R-T, you are so smart. Thanks Martin - I’ve just started fiddling around with it.

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Ryan Anderson
Posted on:
October 6, 2006 at 11:33 am

Martin - great idea. Too bad it doesn’t work in Safari. I’ll install it on my Windows machine after it’s done being fixed.

I’m sure you’ve seen this, but this is an excellent starting point for some Canadian PR blogs: http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/2006/09/sharing_updated.html

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
Martin
Posted on:
October 6, 2006 at 1:36 pm

Thanks Ryan. I hope that Conduit (the service provider) makes the toolbars available for more browsers.

I’ve seen Sean’s list. I haven’t captured everyone on it yet but it is a great resource. For starters, I have taken your blog from the list, and added it to the PR toolbar. :-)

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Sean Moffitt
Posted on:
December 1, 2006 at 7:27 pm

Love the toolbar Martin…now I’m thinking selfishly how to create another one for Word of Mouth and other apps until my full 17 inch screen will be full with toolbars…high praise for a tool’s usefulness when it now takes up 2% of my screen. I’m also about to do a deployment of the top 100 canadian marketing bloggers broken down by type of tribe - PR, web 2.0/social media, online/technology, marketing, culture -maybe I should flash you my beta list and we’ll launch a revised toolbar in Second Life, we’ll call it Crayon, damn that’s been taken too..

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
Dave Forde
Posted on:
December 3, 2006 at 2:17 am

How long before a MAC version?

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
Martin Hofmann
Posted on:
December 3, 2006 at 12:35 pm

Sean, I m looking forward to your new Top 100 marketing bloggers list!

Dave, let me email Conduit support and ask about a Mac version. Not sure if that’s in their plans but I will find out and get back to you. Thanks!
– Martin

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
IW
Posted on:
December 22, 2006 at 4:38 pm

Hey.
I’d like to hear your opinion on another Canadian toolbar I’ve created recently using Conduit. it includes live radio stations from all over Canada, news feeds, search box and several other useful tools.
please let me know what you think.
More info here:
http://www.broadca.com

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
collin
Posted on:
December 29, 2006 at 6:45 pm

Hey there
In a shameless self promotion, You may be interested in my blog for your tool bar. www.radicaltrust.ca

I blog on Marketing Trends, Social Media, Corporate transparency and online communities. I am based in the Toronto area.

Thanks for putting this toolbar together. Very cool.
collin

Comment Number:
15
Written by:
Martin Hofmann
Posted on:
December 29, 2006 at 11:50 pm

Dave - My apologies, Conduit support came back with an answer to your Mac question right away. But I forgot to post the reply.

Here it is: “Although the toolbar can run under FireFox on MacOs, there are some known incompatibility issues with some main features of the toolbar like the Radio Player… The problem is that Windows Media Player streams cannot be played on MacOS.”

I haven’t included the Radio Player function in the Canuck PR toolbar, so maybe it is compatible with a Mac. I don’t have a Mac, so unfortunately I can’t try it out. But if you do and are also using Firefox on your Mac, please let me know if it works.

Comment Number:
16
Written by:
Martin Hofmann
Posted on:
December 29, 2006 at 11:57 pm

Collin - Thank you for letting me know about your blog. It is now included in the toolbar under Marketing (The blog directory is divided into PR Bloggers, Journalists, Marketing and Other).

I’m looking forward to reading your posts.

– Martin

Comment Number:
17
Written by:
Tamera Kremer
Posted on:
January 4, 2007 at 5:30 pm

Hi Martin, as Colin said, shameless plug here for my blog to be included as well… I found out through Mr. Jones that you have marketing bloggers included, not just the PR folks — love it, a true mash up! :)

Comment Number:
18
Written by:
Martin Hofmann
Posted on:
January 4, 2007 at 11:36 pm

Thanks, Tamera! Your blog is already included in the directory under Marketing. I added you, Michael Seaton, Mitch Joel and Dave Forde in my last round of updates in December.

While I am mostly trying to maintain an overview of Canadian PR bloggers with this toolbar, I do think it is important that we read and learn from other bloggers in marketing, advertising, interactive etc.

Comment Number:
19
Written by:
Tamera Kremer
Posted on:
January 6, 2007 at 12:54 am

Cool, thanks Martin… I need to get caught up on my feeds after the holidays!

Cheers,
tamera

Comment Number:
20
Written by:
Naomi Smart
Posted on:
May 2, 2007 at 10:19 am

Hi,

I have been using the PR bar for a week but now I’d like to remove it as it is affecting vital functions on my computer, the time between query and results is never been so long.

I am using firefox, maybe not the most compatible version. I will try to install it again on my desktop.

In any case, my question is how can I remove the canuk bar form my laptop?

Thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of the day,

Naomi Smart

Comment Number:
21
Written by:
Martin Hofmann
Posted on:
May 2, 2007 at 11:04 am

Hi Naomi,

I am very sorry to hear that the toolbar is causing problems on your computer. To uninstall the toolbar in Firefox, click on “Tools” in your browser, then on “Add-ons”. You will see the Canuck PR Toolbar under extensions, and there is a button called “Uninstall”. Click it.

At the end of the uninstall process, you will likely get to a screen where Conduit (the company behind the free toolbar service) is asking you why you chose to uninstall the toolbar. It would be great if you could tell them about the issues you have experienced, so they can improve the toolbar technology based on your feedback.

It is the first time that anybody has told me about technical issues with the toolbar, and I know a number of my PR colleagues in the industry are using it with Firefox, too.

If anybody else has problems with the Firefox version, please let me know and I will contact Conduit support.

Naomi, once again, I am sorry the toolbar has caused trouble for you. I am hoping that a newer Firefox sometime soon will work better for you, and that you will consider using the toolbar again in the future.