Podango Shutters: What’s the Industry Effect?

I’m a bit late to the game on this one due to my blogging and Internet outage, but as you may be aware, well known podcasting network Podango has shuttered the site as of this evening.

Doug Smith, Podango’s President, sent out an email this morning reminding their producers and station directors of the need to back up their work as a result of the shuttering, but provided a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel for fans of the service:

Just last week we found out that a planned investment was delayed putting us in a financial situation where we will need to restructure through various strategic opportunities that are evolving. We expect at some point within the next month or so to relaunch under a different structure and possibly with a new owner.

I’ve actually spent a bit of time on the phone with Lee Gibbons, Podango’s CEO this weekend as well as others in the industry to get more background and information regarding the occurrence.  As it has been reported elsewhere, the closing of the network comes as a result of the tightening economy and the difficulty of content aggregators and producers to find sponsorship.

In speaking with Lee, I was able to clear up a little bit of the picture as to what the company is fated for. As you may remember, back in March, Podango hit the pages of Valleywag for allegedly not being able to pay some of their employees. I had received a similar tip from an ex-employee, who detailed a situation for Podango where they were looking to close an investment round, and as such were not able to pay employees. Gibbons, at the time, told me that the situation was overblown to a certain extent, and while they were looking for additional funding but denied being behind on paying their employees.

Lee also gave me some clues as to the eventual future for Podango.  Doug Smith is currently heading up the acquisition plans, but given the variety of asset types the company has in it’s arsenal, it’s very likely that they’ll be parted out to a number of different new organizations.

Podango Studios, which Pete Cashmore mentioned in October as being in danger of foreclosure due to an illness of the studio’s president, is being sold off for the raw equipment assets. The GigaVox ad serving engine is another asset that will be able to be sold separately or as a part of the integrated podcast serving mechanism they have built on AWS servers.

The ad sales team and the support staff are currently running in skeleton crew mode, but are another asset to the company that may seek other employment independently or could be sold as a unit, depending on how long the sale process drags out.

The bottom line is that Podango will probably not survive under the name Podango, but it’s assets (including the collection of producers and podcasts) will very likely live on under a different banner, though no one at this point is saying where (likely because it’s too early to tell).

What is the Impact on the Business of Podcasting?

My friend Jeffr0 expressed grave concern over Podango’s closure last week, and asked whether or his primary podcasting platform, TalkShoe, might be the next to go. I talked to Dave Nelson, TalkShoe’s CEO, this afternoon to address some of those concerns, which he allayed rather handily.

As I reported back in May, TalkShoe was rumored to have been seeking $5 million in new funding, which they apparently received November 12th (Dave confirmed the funding, not the amount, saying only that it was “substantial”).

Dave also mentioned that the company itself is going “great guns,” having tripled the amount of volume of production and engagement on the site, rising from 4 million minutes of audio produced last year to 12 million this year.

I asked him about his thoughts on Podango, specifically, since they too were big and rapidly growing, though not the biggest by any means, podcast hosting solution.

“I hate to see anyone fall out in this business,” said Nelson. “It is typical in any market, though, to see some fall out with and some go on to be leaders.  What happened here is fairly typical for what is still a new and exciting market.”

I spoke to Rob Walch from LibSyn/The Wizzard Network, who echoed these sentiments. Walch mentioned several other minor players in the business who had gone by the wayside in 2008, and echoed a lot of Dave Nelson’s sentiments.

“It’s a really tough environment,” said Walch. “There are a lot of good companies out there in normal times would make it but aren’t because of the economy and the public markets.”

Personally, I feel a bit of pain at the loss of Podango. They were one of the very early players, and one that I felt really got the business of podcasting, but due to being highly leveraged and running up against a tough economy, weren’t able to outlast the downturn.

I’ve met and worked with just about everyone on staff at Podango, from the developers on up to the executives, and I can personally attest to their solid business practices and generally amicable demeanor. It’s a shame that they’re going through such a tough time, but from one person suffering through unemployment to another, I say to them what has been said to me a few dozen times: “You guys are rockstars, you’ll all land on your feet.”

Regime Change at BlogTV

BlogTV, another of the many companies competing in the live streaming web video space with the likes of Mogulus, UStream and Stickam, has had a change of management.  CEO Guy Eliav has moved on from the company after having worked at the parent company Tapuz Group for nine years, according to a report from Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee.

If you read Hebrew, you can find Eliav’s farewell blog post here, which is a retrospective on his time at Tapuz Group, a gig that extended far past the originally planned three months.

He cites his move to work as CEO of Israeli TV web portal nana10 as simply the “right thing for me.”

CEO regime changes at live video startups are not uncommon.  Valleywag has chronicled the many CEOs at UStream. Similarly, when I was at SummerMash in Austin this year, in speaking with Aaron Novak, running things over at Stickam was no picnic either, though being owned outright and highly funded, they have a bit more degree of stability.

At any rate, while the spin NewTeeVee puts on the story, it makes it sound a lot like it’s related to economic pressures, but the impression I get from what I’m reading is that it was more about a change of scenery after a long stint at the same company.

Twitter Adds the Much-Needed Name Search

I really oughta be working on packing up the house right now, but a lot of interesting news tidbits keep dragging me back to the blogging window to post about them.  This one comes from Twitter’s Evan Williams:

We just launched a wacky new feature. You can now find people:http://twitter.com/search/u... Searches name field only. Rank by followers [number].

This isn’t, as with most Twitter features, an earth-shatteringly huge feature on the face of it. It is, however, something Twitter users have been looking for a long time.

It’s incredibly annoying to need to periodically import my GMail contact database to connect up with new friends on Twitter rather than as I think of it simply search up their name and click follow. This solves that issue.

FeedBurner Furthers Assimilates Into the Google Collective

Feedburner made their final post to their “Burning Questions” company blog today, and announced that all further updates will be made to the “Adsense for Feeds” blog. This signals an end of an era for FeedBurner, as they stop working as much on improved RSS functionality, and more on monetizing RSS feeds.

It’s also a bit ironic that this comes on the heels of discussion about the obsolescence of RSS as a technology, as it’s no longer “now” enough. A couple of days ago, Robert Scoble posted on the topic as he once again evangelized Twitter and FriendFeed as the real-time web and bemoaned how out of touch he’d be if he relied on RSS for the mainstay of his news delivery.

It’s also worthy of note that they’re just, as of recent, getting around to properly monetizing RSS feeds at Google as the technology is decades old in Internet years.

FunnyOrDie Funding Bumps Up Another $3 Million

FunnyOrDie, the comedy niche streaming video website that was made popular by Will Ferrell’s video “The Landlord,” and then made relevant again by Paris Hilton’s political commentary, has been reported on Reuter’s wire to have raised another $3 Million.

The funding round is their Series B, and comes from an “undisclosed investor,” and brings their total funding amount up to $18 million.

Neither Sequoia Capital, the leader of the $15 million Series A round, nor FunnyOrDie are making comments right now, so speculation as to what this $3 million actually is is running rampant.  Some reports are even saying that the $3M represents the 10% stake sold to HBO over the summer.

I’m sure we’ll hear more clarification in about six months – FunnyOrDie has a pretty consistent history of letting news leak and then finally clearing up the confusion about a half a year later.

ThePlanet and EdgeCast Partner Up

ThePlanet, a datacenter and leased server provider based here out of Dallas, has decided to go with well known CDN Edge Networks. The partnership was solidified so that ThePlanet could get into the CDN business – most of ThePlanet’s servers are in the Dallas area, and EdgeCast has presences worldwide.

I’ve actually known a lot of folks who worked for ThePlanet, and it’s an impressive facility (there’s a picture here of the entry to one of their datacenters).

EdgeCast also powers the CDN behind Mashable as well as dozens of other Web 2.0 and web based applications you read about in your daily tech news, as well as most of the news video you watch on sites like CNet and CBS.

The Roku Player Now Does Netflix in HD

This was on my list of things to get my wife for Christmas before finances got tight: the Roku player.

My wife is a Netflix addict.  She watches really bad horror movies constantly with their streaming service. Between the content on Netflix and the content on Hulu, there’s been very little reason for her to turn on the TV much this season.

Word comes now that the player is releasing support for HD resolution come first quarter of 2009.

With all the new content showing up there, this $100 investment is getting harder and harder not to make.

Showtime and HBO Posting Content Online

My old boss Adam noted today that Showtime is putting online full-length episodes on their website Join Showtime:

“…featuring full-length episodes and bonus footage from its shows, community features, and a “personality quiz” to determine which of its series you might enjoy.”

The show selection is pretty much the same as what’s available on the main Showtime site, most of which is also available on Netflix’s streaming selection, incidentally. It does add a fair amount of social features not presently available there, though, which for extreme fans of the shows could be fun.

If you’re more of an HBO person, like me, you may enjoy that HBO’s shows are now showing up more places online.  Joost announced earlier today that HBO is offering sneak peeks of the second season of Flight of the Conchords on the video streaming service.

If we can just get Adult Swim to sign on with the idea of offering their content online somewhere, I might can just cancel my cable connection entirely.

Here’s hoping.

Baconlicious: Make Any Website Better

You may have noticed the somewhat spartan layout here at my website.  I was clicking around this morning with an eye out for ways to improve the appearance of what I’ve got when I found a discovery Mike Elgan over at The Raw Feed made: Baconlicious!

I could go on – but really, does this need much of an explanation?

Simply preface any website with http://bacolicio.us/ – and you’ve got a website that’s instantly better.

UPDATE: The site was reported down earlier today – it now seems to be functioning again.

HuffPo’s Grubby Syndication Practices

The Huffington Post, a liberal web publication I’ve taken to task a number of times in the past, has once again come under fire for what is being described by some as “grubby” and “gray”.

Here’s what’s happening: You know how large publications like BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times frequently have syndication agreements in place with beat bloggers, and will run their content with a small amount of branding?

Huffington Post has been doing essentially the same thing, though without any permission.

If you want a great summary of some other folks commentary and details on this, the Duncan Riley at the Inquisitr has the deets, but I’ve described the general idea of what’s going on.

Here’s my thoughts: in this day and age, I’m not surprised nor am I particularly offended by HuffPo’s practice, here.  Not only are they essentially doing what’s been done for ages in the blogosphere, but they’re also doing what we’ve let aggregators of our content do for a very long time.

I won’t go trot out my usual argument about the imaginary lines between a web based app and a web publication we define by how the bits arrive at our screens (though it’s a very valid argument, just one that doesn’t seem to get me anywhere, usually).

Instead I’ll point at two examples of where this is presently happening, and we really don’t seem to care all that much:

Nick Halstead’s Fav.or.it: We’ve all talked about Fav.or.it a lot, and for many of us it’s a nice little piñata to trot out every once in a while whenever the purists like to complain about content being used without permission. I’ve done it. I’ll go into how my opinions have changed on that in a bit, but the bottom line is that but for a little bit of protest here and there, nobody really seems to have tried to do anything about it.

To the best of my knowledge, no lawsuits have been filed against Nick et. al. Likewise, no one’s tried to DMCA their content back down.  They’re not rip-roaring along on an endless growth pattern, according to the metrics I look at, but they’re not exactly hurting either.

Point being, apparently having your content out there syndicated in part or in whole acts as source of some kind of advertising.  Who knew?

My Link Blog: This is something I can talk about with a bit more authority than Nick’s project.

As I described it when it first launched, I’m syndicating all the items from my Google Reader Shared Items feed on a limited basis here at Rizzn.com. When I looked around at the number of reputable organizations that syndicated without permission the full text of others’ feeds, I took the advice of one of my readers:

You're a fool to pay for content AS LONG AS you can get it for free with no repercussions. At the present time, it looks like not only can you, you can do it and dance a happy jig while people shower you in golden wreaths.

When I launched it, I almost hoped it would garner a little bit of controversy, particularly given my previously loudly shouted positions to the contrary on it, if not a bit of community discussion.

So far, it hasn’t done much of either. Turns out, most people come to my site to read what I have to say, not others (imagine that). In fact, most people that come through to my site to read an article written and syndicated on my linkblog, they generally (according to my stats package), click through to the original site to leave a comment, in lieu of commenting here.

In Other Words, I Have Nothing Bad To Say About HuffPo

And those of you who know me know I’d love to nail them to the wall, if at all possible.

But the way I see it, they’re doing these other sites a favor.  Being linked prominently on a site like that which has as much traffic as HuffPo means having a lot of traffic. I know, I can personally attest to how much traffic being linked to by both highly popular political sites as well as sites in general around the popularity level of HuffPo is.

It’s generally a good thing, and in the end a mutually beneficial relationship between both the linkee and the linker.

Pixel Heads Network Snapped Up by ProMAX Systems

If you want proof that advertising on podcasts works, you need look no further than this particular story. Pixel Heads Network isn’t one of the most well known podcast networks – it doesn’t have a flashy Internet-celebrity like Kevin Rose in it’s founders list. 

It does, however, have a lot of well known and highly downloaded podcasts in it’s arsenal of shows: Mac 411, Meet the Experts, Digital Media Quick Tips amongst others.

In a long narrative detailing the history of Pixel Heads, founder Marcelo Lewin discloses that the entire network has been sold to ProMAX Systems, a former sponsor of the network, for an undisclosed sum. Marcelo will continue on at ProMAX with the title of Director of Interactive Media.

I was very impressed [with ProMAX Systems] and decided that I should approach them after the seminar to see if they were interested in being a sponsor. As the night progressed and the panel was done speaking, one of the guys from ProMAX approached me and said they were interested in perhaps sponsoring some of our shows.

As he and I continued speaking, we both started to realize there was something more to this then just a sponsorship deal. We decided to hook up later on that week to talk about Pixel Heads Network and ProMAX and how we could work closer together, since both of our customers are really the same, digital media creators.

So, as they say, the rest is history. The deal was signed and closed on December 16, 2008 and I am now happy to be part of the ProMAX family.

ProMAX Systems is a solutions provider for the areas of video editing, audio, and digital storage located in Irvine, California. It isn’t the type of exit that will garner the same sort of attention as, say, CBS buying CNet.  It is an exit, though, and one that is perhaps even more meaningful of a guidepost for New Media watchers.

In addition to ProMAX and their realization of the effectiveness of podcast and video advertising to targeted media consumers, it shows a degree of savvy the company is taking in the programs post-acquisition:

Pixel Heads Network will continue to be completely independent editorially. Yes, we are owned by and I’m an employee of ProMAX, however; we will never be driven to produce shows or cover topics or interview certain people only because ProMAX carries their products. This is a promise both from myself and from Jess Hartmann, the CEO of ProMAX. He believes deeply, as I do, in keeping the editorial content from Pixel Heads Network completely separate from the products and services ProMAX offers.

Congratulations to Marcello and his team. As for the rest of us – it’s a reminder that savvy purchases can still be made in a down market if they’re proven to increase the bottom line, and this is one such example.

SplitTweet: For the Truly Twitter-Addicted

Do you, somehow, have a job that entails 24/7 monitoring of your multiple Twitter accounts? Perhaps you’re an (*ahem*) out of work, Web 2.0 savvy chatterbox? Maybe you do intensive social media brand monitoring for your clients?

If so, you’re probably interested in the best way to keep an eye on what’s being said about your brand (or alternatively, topics you’re interested in) on Twitter. 

Your solution is SplitTweet. This service has been online since the end of November but it’s been slowly gaining steam amongst the heavily Twitter-addicted.

I took a look at it, and it definitely lives up to it’s promises (a whole lot better, in my opinion, than PeopleBrowser for nearly the same purpose), and it beats going the Zappos route and begging Twitter for an always on live-feed.

For what I do, it’s a better proposition to simply monitor your desired keywords with search.twitter.com, sticking the RSS feeds in your favorite reader, and keeping an eye on them there.  It isn’t always the quickest solution (since there’s usually a 15 minute delay at least in Google Reader), so for those that require real time results, that won’t do.

Worth checking out, if you’re in the business of constant brand-watching.

NPR Obsoletes the Affiliate Station

Of those of you who are NPR listeners (and by that I mean listeners to your local PBS or NPR affiliate radio station – not necessarily the podcasts), how many of you listen to the entire broadcast day?  Probably not many.

At this point, the only value an affiliate station has over the podcasts that exist for virtually every NPR program in existence is their ability to program the clockwheel of a station in a unique way so as to keep you coming back. 

The decision as to what comes at the fives of the news hour, which cultural and arts roundups are used – you could theoretically download all of those yourself, but as I’ve discussed again and again, the ability to automatically create a podcast playlist is severely lacking in almost all podcast players.

That ends now, and along with it might be the end of the affiliate station. I just picked this up from Lost Remote:

NPR has an API that allows you to mix up your own podcast using their content.

With today’s launch, however, the API now allows users to slice through the NPR.org archive to create custom podcast feeds based on virtually any aggregation (or combination of aggregations) in the API. To learn more about this, go to the NPR Podcast Directory.

Essentially, the last remaining role for affiliate stations would be the content production studio, since much of what is on the NPR network is produced at the local station level and syndicated out to the rest of the network.

The role of program direction, though, might be grinding to a halt.

OpenID Picks a Good Time for Board Elections

A particularly topical event is coming up, considering how much ado is being made over the MySpace, Facebook and Google ID systems right now; The OpenID Foundation is having an election of their “community board members,” according to John McCrea:

The OpenID Foundation is having its first-ever election of “community board members”. Seven seats are up for grabs, and there is an impressive slate of 17 candidates in the running. Voting closes on December 24, so if you want the Open Stack to win in 2009, you might consider joining the OpenID Foundation (cost $25) so that you can help determine its governance by casting your vote.

By joining as a foundation member, you can cast up to seven votes, and according to McCrea, there are a lot of “really qualified candidates.”

For me, I know this thing really isn’t my bag.  I love listening to Chris Saad and John McCrea talk about it because they’re really passionate about the idea – but for me personally, it’s hard for me to get riled up about a login box.

Still, this is the most multi-lateral organization, and given how the space is really heating up with three semi-walled gardens grabbing up real estate, now’s the time to get interested in it.

No, Conferences and Tradeshows are Still Valuable

Robert Scoble apparently started a meme last night on FriendFeed asking the pointed question: “Are bloggers & social networks killing the big shows?”

Wilson Rothman over at Gizmodo asked a similar question earlier today: “Will Trade Shows Survive?”

Rothman puts the question in a more pointed context, that of the declining value to Apple of the MacWorld expo:

“I don't think anyone really considers Macworld a "trade show" like CES, CEDIA or IFA. It's a show, sure, but it's one where Stevie J is the main attraction.”

The Scobleizer, on the other hand, thinks that the incredible reach of launching products from one’s garage utilizing “Stickam, Ustream, Qik, Kyte, YouTube, Flixwagon, Viddler, Vimeo, SmugMug, etc and blogs” completely kills the need for people to gather in meatspace for an event.

This completely overlooks the need for real-world networking, not to mention the insatiable need for bloggers and content producers for new content. 

There are Major Economic Advantages to Content Producers for MeatSpace Conferences

Certainly, in the web world, there is a diminished need for a meatspace meeting.  I’m living proof of that. Save for a couple of company-funded excursions over the last fifteen months, I’ve lived in the thriving metropolis of Tyler, TX (population 185,000 or so) and tapped out upwards of 1000 words a day on the goings on in the Web 2.0 and social media world.

Still, one of my few regrets was not traveling more.  On my trip to Washington DC last year, I was able to produce enough video content in four days to power the podcast for another month.  The SummerMash tour produced enough interviews to last another four months.  The OWA event in 2007 produced enough video content in one night to keep me posting video interviews for two months.

Those are just web-only events.  Think about gadget bloggers and folks in the consumer electronics blogging world.

They’re catering to a much larger market in terms of audience, and they produce content at a much more fevered pitch.  Their hunger for new devices knows no bounds, and for CE companies to send each blogger one of their devices can get very pricey in a hurry.

I don’t think that it’s particularly noteworthy to acknowledge the obvious economics of this situation – instead of sending out tons of gadgets to the hordes of bloggers and socnet influencers, invite them out to a show and let them play with them on your terms.

Of Course, I Haven’t Run an Event Since 1995

I’m not familiar with the modern economics of running a conference. I know prices are astronomical for some of the mega-conferences, and I know first hand how expensive a conference can be when it busts.

But to say that there is eminent obsolescence coming for the tradeshow and the conference? Maybe for some segments of the conference-going public, but definitely not for most, particularly in an age where everyone is a content producer of some magnitude.

Chegg Grabbs $20 Million Green Ones

Chegg, the company who runs Textbookflix, has hauled down a massive $20 million in Series C funding to help grow the company, and likely keep the company chugging along during the coming economic lean times.

The economic lean-ness may be part of the secret to their success, however.  The service is a textbook rental company that allows college students to save cash by borrowing books on a model similar to the one employed by Netflix.

In addition, Chegg is also launching (in conjunction with the funding announcement) a new green initiative – for every book rented, bought, sold or donated, they have pledged to plant a tree.

According to their company info, they’ve already planted over 25 city blocks worth of trees in Malawi, Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan and the U.S., a move that is certain to please all the tree hugging hippies in America’s Liberal Elite colleges (not a bad marketing move, eh?).

Who Knew? Dodging a Shoe Overtakes YouTube!

One of the benefits of starting over here at my personal site and re-building my audience up from zero is that I can shorthand a lot of stuff. You guys know me, and you know my opinions on almost everything, from my politics to my opinions on sponsored posts to my takes on all the different social media sites. 

You’ve been following me for a long time, and I don’t hafta go into laborious detail on everything like I sometimes had to do on my longer posts where I used to work.

Take for instance this little tidbit I just picked up from the LA Times Technology blog:

Hunter Walk reports that 62 of the top 100 most viewed videos on popular video-sharing site YouTube today involve our President and his Sole Mate, the shoe-hurling Iraqi journalist Muntather Zaidi.

So basically, I don’t hafta go into great detail on how dumb I think it is that after the greatest Democratic Party victory in my lifetime, all these people are still stuck in Bush Derangement Syndrome and feel the need to put out even more Bush-bashing material.

I don’t hafta say that some of it is alright, and funny, but most of it is the same stuff that was annoying the crap out of me for the last eight years.

I don’t hafta re-iterate how much of a fan I’m not of President Bush.  I probably don’t even need to go into exactly how members of the Bush cabinet screwed me on a business deal back in the 90s.

You guys know me, so all I hafta say is: “Bush ducked a shoe.  It was sorta funny and sorta poignant.  Can we move on?”

Google/Facebook War at Twitter? Hardly.

Twitter put out a post yesterday evening on the corporate blog clarifying the message that seems to have propagated across the eager-beaver blogosphere this weekend.

Everyone was hot to trot on the apparent move by Google Friend Connect to align with Twitter, and how that both signalled a war-like move against Facebook by Google and a slap in the face by Twitter against MySpace.

Without going too far into the dramatic backstory (most of which you likely already know), Facebook and Google both came out with ID systems that are exportable out to third party websites on the same day (Facebook’s is Facebook Connect). Twitter, about six months ago or so announced that they’d be integrating with the as of yet debuted MySpace ID system.

That should bring you up to speed – Twitter this evening, they clarified that the relationship they’re in with Google is anything but exclusive, and the plans to move forward with MySpace and Facebook are very much still in the works.

Notwithstanding the fact that plans change from day to day over there at Twitter, I think it dramatically de-emphasizes the media narrative that there’s a heated up war between Facebook and Google today.  Most producers and content aggregators are still fence sitting until they can figure out which one is going to provide tangible benefits to their bottom line in terms of traffic.

NowPublic Releases the Top 10 Moments in UGC

NowPublic, one of my favorite crowd-sourced and crowd-aggregated news solutions, has put out a post that highlights the last year’s news by order of importance. There are certainly a lot of stories here that I and my Mashable co-workers covered, when they crossed over into Social Media and became process stories.

1. Mumbai Attacks

2. Natural disasters: Sharing Emergency Information

3. Olympic Torch Relay Protests in San Francisco

4. Obama and “Bittergate”

5. Republican Convention Protests Change Tack

6. Ushahidi: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information in Africa

7. CNN’s News Wire Plans

8. Mob Rule: Mark Zuckerberg’s SXSW Interview

9. Twitter Gets US Student Out of Egyptian Jail

10. False Report About Steve Jobs Heart Attack

I spoke to CMO Mike Tippett last year on the old podcast, and hopefully I’ll get to chat with him or CEO Leonard Brody later this week. These year end chats are always fun since we get to cover the most interesting topics of the previous year.

More Evidence of DRM-Free iTunes

About a week ago, I posted over at Mashable on the rumor circulating that iTunes was planning a move December 9th to “remove DRM from tracks published by Sony, Universal and Warner on December 9th.”

The date has obviously come and gone with little fanfare, but Apple eagle eye MG Siegler over at VentureBeat has some screenshots that may show something happening in this arena.  As he said earlier today:

The latest of these reports shows a screenshot from the French version of iTunes with previously protected music, now being sold as “iTunes Plus,” the name of iTunes’ unprotected offering, Epiccenter reports.

Well, either the record labels have some kind of new deal with Apple based on what country they are in, or Apple is testing the waters for an upcoming DRM-free push. Speculation on various sites (including this one) wonders if Apple could unveil a completely DRM-free version of iTunes at Macworld Expo in a few weeks?

Here’s the screenshot in question:

The rumors he report certainly back up everything I’ve heard over the last several weeks, and definitely jives with industry moves, when you take a step back and look at the last year. The major labels are desperate to stay alive. This years end-fiscal-year reports will show a number of them on the brink of bankruptcy with the realization that their decade long war on their customers is a failing proposition.

Who Throws a Shoe? I Mean, Really…

I’m sure at this point you’ve already watched the video of President Bush getting almost pegged with a shoe.

According to Liz Shannon Miller over at NewTeeVee, it’s the skyrocketing viral video from this weekend. She cites measurement from Matt Fiorentino at Visible Measures, who says that “as of today at 11 am EST there were over 550 copies of the video online with more than 3.7 million views and 38,000 comments. It appears to be growing at a rate of more than 100 thousand views per hour.”

My favorite take on the matter has been the following two exhibits from Web oldtimer JWZ:

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

TwitOrFit: It’s Hot or Not for Twitter

TwitOrFit.  It’s a long awaited mashup from the folks who brought you fav.or.it and huddle, and it’s one of those super-simple sites to explain: Hot or Not for Twitter.

Nick pinged me on it early this morning:

The project is a collaboration between fav.or.it and huddle.net - in a Twitter conversation between myself + @huddlesuz I mentioned that we needed 'hot or not for twitter', and that is how it all started. Andy from Huddle (@bandrew) came up with the domain name + logo - and we have done the development (all in PHP).

The site operates pretty simply as well. You can only vote for yourself if you sign up to be voted on, and the picture is automatically taken from your Twitter profile. If your profile picture changes, you’re eligible to be voted on again by the users, but generally you’re only going to be rated once.

There are some viral aspects – if you don’t want your twitter list to know you’re on the site for whatever reason, you can opt out of the announcement being sent out automatically. Alternatively, if you’re proud of your rating there, you can grab a badge from the system to put on your site or other social media profiles.

It’s an idea who’s time has come as Twitter enters the mainstream. This will undoubtedly become the next big Twitter meme.

Go check it out. It’s good clean fun.

Twitter/Facebook Connection Broken

Geof Fox over at Appscout has made note of some things in the Twitter Facebook application that are broken.  He says that the ability for Twitter to update Facebook status messages is non-functional, and he’s unable to find any past Twitter updates in his public newsfeed (so no telling how long it’s been broke).

I noticed this last week – around Thursday – but figured it was a different problem altogether, perhaps one on my end. I had attempted to install the Facebook Twitter app on my profile, and got stuck in an infinite loop.

Twitter, you were on such a roll there for a while!  Are we back to the Fail Whale days of yore?

Podcasting is Now Officially a Word

I’ve been using the word for some time now, but now my gibberish has been validated. According to Grammar Girl aka Mignon Fogarty, the word “podcasting” is now in the Oxford English Dictionary.

I’m not the first to use the word. The invention of the term is generally credited to Adam Curry, but as Alex Nesbitt notes this afternoon, the proper credit goes to Dannie Gregoire in Yahoo group ipodder-dev:

I guess one could argue that this is simply an rss/server side issue, and that
the “podcaster” (yes, I like making up new words) should be responsible enough
to offer a page of seperate feeds of old sodes by month/year/season/etc.
However, if you have a site with many thousands of sodes this could be very
time consuming and awkward means of getting older content, with no standard
means of organization between different sites.

What about the Oxford definition?  Not sure.  It’s behind a paywall (people pay for dictionary access?). The notes from the OED blog are a bit self-referential, but they seem to have the relative gist of what the word means:

The current OED quarterly release also includes other members of the same family: podcast as a noun and a verb, podcaster, and even the somewhat ungainly adjective podcasted.

Pretty cool.  Sorta makes me feel like a part of history.

How Can These Puppies Be So Popular?

My buddy Mazy sent me a link last night to a Brian Williams clip off MSNBC talking about the runaway success that is that silly Shiba Inu Puppy Cam. I have no clue what makes this thing so damn popular; it makes about as much sense to me as Fred does.

In a blog post from another of my other UStream friends, founder Brad Hunstable, according to SFGate, the UStream channel is the most viral live video of all time.

Nuts.

Can someone please explain this phenom to me?  Even a little?

Kickbee: Your Baby on Twitter

I’ve covered all manner of bizarre automated device connected to Twitter (and other social networks) in the past, but this one takes the cake.

MAKE magazine has featured on their blog a device that does everything I wish I had thought of to do when my wife was pregnant. The device sends all manner of updates to Twitter (which you can follow here).

Gizmodo summarized the function neatly:

Piezo sensors detect the baby's movement and transmit electrical charges to an Arduino Mini microcontroller, which in turn transmits the data to a Java application via Bluetooth. This Java app deciphers the meaning of the signals, and posts on Twitter when it determines the baby has kicked.

Clever use of technology and Twitter, and more useful than a blogging plant.