My great significance

Recently I made a list of my pick of the most necessary PC software.  One of the things I mentioned was Weather Watcher, a nifty little freeware program that puts the current temperature on your task bar.  I said I far preferred it to WeatherBug, a similar program.

Someone from WeatherBug actually emailed me to argue for their software, claiming their network of weather stations gives them the most reliable and up-to-the-minute forecasts and that their network is used by many important agencies.

Maybe so.  Weather Watcher just pulls the data from weather.com, and I have no idea if they’re as accurate or not, nor do I much care.  I recall WeatherBug having a clunky, obtrusive interface and it’s ad-supported if you want it for free, so I’ll stick with Weather Watcher; I still remember how thrilled I was when I discovered it and could get rid of the useful but always rather annoying WeatherBug (to be fair, I haven’t used it for years, so maybe it’s better now).

What interests me is not weather WeatherBug is worthwhile but that a PR person bothered to try and convince me it was.  I told her I only got 5 hits the day I posted my software list, but she still insisted on sending me a little map of WeatherBug’s weather network.

This isn’t the only time someone has been interested in the dubious power of my blog.  A while ago Stardock sent me KeepSafe, real-time backup software, not because I occasionally cover technology for the New York Times but because I have a blog.  It’s a kind of odd program, in that you can’t just back up stuff already on your PC, it only backs up new stuff as it’s created and it backs up stuff everywhere, so when I installed a program it, having been set to back up documents, backed up the readme file.  I much prefer Iomega’s software, once called Quicksync and now called Automatic Backup Pro, which will backup your data to wherever you like as you create it.

All of this makes me wonder, how do I get better stuff from my blog.  If I start reviewing movies here instead of on The Internet Movie Database will studios start sending me movie tickets?  What if I review DVDs?  

Probably wouldn’t get me anything.  I have occasionally tossed in reviews of TV shows, but that hasn’t got me any notice at all.  But hey, any PR people who want to get a little extra space on the blogosphere, I’m here for you.