BlogHighEd: new higher ed blog aggregator

A couple of my favorite higher ed bloggers — Brad Ward and Matt Herzberger — have been working feverishly these past few weeks on a new aggregator of higher ed blogs. Today, they unveiled the beta version of their site, BlogHighEd.org.

bloghighed.gifBlogHighEd pulls feeds from higher ed blogs and presents them in a nice, clean webpage format. Currently the site is drawing from 19 feeds, with more certain to be added in the coming days. Many of my favorites are included, but some are not — yet. If you’re a higher ed blogger and are interested in joining the BlogHighEd site, go ahead and submit an application.

A clever way to handle irrelevant PR pitches

Via The Bad Pitch Blog comes The Pitch Blog. It’s Jeremy Pepper‘s clever solution to handling the irrelevant PR pitches he receives. It’s the final resting place for “all the pitches I receive for my blog – hey, they want blog coverage, they got blog coverage.”

Nice.

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Now playing: Malcolm Holcombe – Gamblin’ House
via FoxyTunes

PR Changes examines social media and PR

Three journalism and communications faculty members at Auburn University (academic home of social media guy Robert French) have launched PR Changes, a blog designed to explore how social media is affecting the PR business. In their inaugural post, the profs pose two questions for PR practitioners:

Do social media relationships really have an impact on an organization’s image and reputation?

Do these relationship impact the bottom line?

Why not drop by PR Changes and share your thoughts? I’m sure they’d appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks to Robert for the Tweet.

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Now playing: The Whigs – Right Hand on My Heart
via FoxyTunes

Friday Five: sick day edition

Second sick day in a row. Bleh. But lucky for you, dear reader, for I’m blogging like a feverish, cranky, congested, Sudafed-popping, Vicks Vap-o-Rub-slathered mad man.

(Okay, maybe that Vap-o-Rub reference was TMI for y’all. Let’s move on.)

  1. Karine Joly celebrates three years of writing for University Business with her latest column about how colleges and universities are developing Facebook applications to better connect with students, alumni, prospective students, etc. On her College Web Editor blog, Karine is compiling a list of higher ed FB apps. If you’ve got one to add to the mix, get in touch with her.
  2. Twitterpacks is a cool way to meet fellow twits tweeters based on interest, communities of practice, or geography. It’s a wiki and simple to join. Discovered via Karine’s Friday list-o-links. Karine found it via Seth Meranda‘s post. If you tweet, you should sign up and run with the pack(s) of your choosing. (I always assumed Twitter users would be in flocks, but that would make too much sense.)
  3. DW offers a refreshing reminder that sometimes we learn the most from the students we work with. Thanks for that.
  4. 10 social media presentations — all posted on Slideshare and yours for the viewing. Looks like a good resource for social networking data. Via .edu Guru‘s Links of the Week (from last Friday).
  5. Phoenix rising. The University of Phoenix doesn’t even have a football team — or any sports team. But it does own the name on the football stadium where the New England Patriots and New York Giants will square off on Sunday for Super Bowl XLII. U of P spent $154 million in 2006 for the naming rights to the stadium. They hope to cash in on Sunday with a bevy of inquiries and the kind of national media exposure that money can’t buy only $154 million (plus a couple of Super Bowl ad spots) can buy. A drop in the bucket for the university’s owner, Apollo Group Inc., which generates annual revenues of nearly $3 billion. (Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education. A Chronicle staffer actually pitched this idea to me and suggested that “other colleges without athletics programs can apply the same strategy of advertising at major sports events to their advantage.” Somehow I doubt that many colleges without athletics programs invest as much in branding as Phoenix. But the story’s still worth a link.)

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Now playing: Spoon – You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
via FoxyTunes