Content summary: Two new FIR Interviews posted; Global PR Blog Week 3 is coming soon; vote for FIR at Podcast Alley; Dan York reports from VON Boston with help from Martyn Davies and Bryan Person; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; discussion: dealing with emailed PR pitches – would you react like Chris Anderson?; twitterquake; US political blogger booted out of Facebook; David Phillips reports on Facebook’s $14 billion price tag, and more; listeners’ comments discussion including the future for…

In July 2006, computer systems company Dell launched Direct2Dell (initially called ‘one2one’), its first public blog designed to be an extension of Dell’s direct business model where the company “learns and improves by listening to customers.” During the 18 months since its launch, Direct2Dell has helped Dell credibly engage with customers, fans and critics around the globe. Now, Dell is turning its attention to the role a blog can play in engaging with shareholders and the financial community. In this…

Forrester Research recently released a case study chronicling the implementation of blogs as an enterprise communication tool at 150-year-old financial services company Northwestern Mutual. The blogs, intended to drive a change to the organization’s culture, instead resulted in increased productivity as most of the employees starting blogs focused them on project management. The social media platform Northwestern Mutual implemented is from Awareness Networks (formerly iUpload), one of the companies competing in the enterprise social media space. In this FIR Interview,…