Jeremy Messersmith CD Release Party @ Acadia – Sept 2nd

This Saturday – Sept 2nd, Jeremy Messersmith is having a CD release party at the Acadia Cafe.

Jeremy and I sat down for a podcast a couple weeks back talking about his new “The Alcatrez Kid CD” ($13 Paypal). Unfortunately, life got in the way of me getting it up earlier this week.

Crap. I’m sorry. It’s coming. Watch this space.

The Benefits of Screencasting in Software Development

Yes, I’ve been too busy working on the FeedSeeder project to write up too much about it. That said, I’ve been privately documenting it’s development with screencasts.

At the end of each development day, I start at the beginning of the app, load up iShowU and walk through all the functionality as if I’m presenting it to someone new.

Sometimes things still don’t work – or don’t work as expected (‘Huh?’). Sometimes they do (‘Yeah!’).

Either way, I’ve found the benefits huge;

  • I see what’s broken, and have a record of how it happened
  • I get practice walking through the app
  • I have a list of things to work on tomorrow
  • I can share it’s status with the small group of very excited people – and guarantee their experience with this early-stage, in-development app.

Also, yes, I’m still on track to present it at MinneDemo next Tuesday and it should be in real good shape in time for the Podcast and Portable Media Expo.

Finally, Dave Winer‘s current work on the River of News has helped frame quite a bit of thinking around this app.

iTunes Podcast Directory Strategy – Divert and Distract

Based on the “Promote Your Podcast and Make Money on iTunes” email I just received from the iTunes Podcasting team, Apple’s podcast directory revenue-generation strategy is two-fold:

  1. Divert: Apple wants podcasters to point listeners to the iTunes Podcast directory listing of their podcast – rather then the one controlled by the podcaster. From Apple’s perspective, this increases usage of the iTunes Music Store. From the podcaster’s perspective, you’re handing over full control of your podcast to someone else – that’s suicide. Though, you might get to be listed in the Top Podcasts as a consolation (then again, you might otherwise).
  2. Distract: Once iTunes has your listeners, anything they purchase within 24 hours the directing podcaster receives a 5% commission on (4.95 cents here, 4.95 cents there, soon we’re talking ad money). As should be obvious, this distracts the listener from the entire reason they came to iTunes (the podcast).

As with the iTunes Podcast Directory thus far, the big loser is the podcaster. The smaller loser is the listener.

Real Wages Up, Not Down – Economists Fight

A biased New York Times article on wages being down gets a fisking:

“What keeps my wages high (and yours) is our alternatives…What sets workers wages are the wages of those alternatives…Workers are better educated than ever. That is why I believe that compensation, properly measured, is higher than it was five or ten or twenty or thirty years ago.” – Russel Roberts

Thanks to Tyler @ Marginal Revolution for the pointer.

Star Tribune on Muni WiFi: FUD or Just Wrong?

The Strib’s Steve Alexander is on a Muni-WiFi bashing kick. In Sunday’s Slowdown in the Fast Lane, the angle was how the forthcoming Minneapolis muni-WiFi will make the current cable and DSL offerings look paltry and non-competitive. Oh – and we don’t get the maximum bandwidth out of our current pipes anyway. Really? Muni-WiFi isn’t going to change that.

In fact, I’m not planning to drop my existing offering for the $20/mn muni plan anytime soon. WiFi transfer rates don’t scale well. If anything, the muni plan is a cheap insurance policy – something we can check email on while the main line is uploading podcasts or the weekly backup.

Then today there’s this gem in the sidebar;

“A special wireless modem needed to gain access…”

But that’s it. No information on what “special” means. If it means 802.11b or 802.11g (i.e. what you already have) then yes Bill, that’s just bad reporting.

I expect so much from our dailies. Maybe I’d be happier if I started thinking of them like soap operas – quantity over quality.

A Recording in Any Medium Still Isn’t Buttermilk Pie

Rex Hammock doesn’t declare downloading music and video is the same as being there, but a PDF of a magazine is akin to a photograph of Buttermilk pie.

All recordings are “photographs of buttermilk pie”. A pale, pale substitute for being there. It continues to baffle me how digital artifacts are treated differently – images verses photographs verses text verses audio verses video.

Like the example I’ve used before, iPhoto can read from any number of cameras – but iTunes won’t allow the same library on multiple iPods. Makes no sense.

The All Commercial Television Channel is Nearly Here

A decade ago, I had this vision of a television channel – MTV for commercials. Above is the logo I drew up for it. Commercials would be presented in a structured way – by theme, brand history, actor, etc. In other words, the ads themselves would be the program.

Fast-forward to today, and I think we’re nearly there. Sure, there’s no Ad-J navigating us through the ads, but the volume of commercial advertisements on over-the-air TV, radio, even cable stations is there. The regularly scheduled program is arguably the theme tying the commercials together for 30 or 60 minute intervals.

Next step is to drop the program all together. All ads – continuously 24/7.

In fact, that’s where I see over-the-air broadcasts going in 5 years after today’s broadcasters deem their FCC licenses worthless and migrate distribution 100% online.

Flipping through the channels, you’ll see no big brands, all small, local businesses; used car dealers, family-owned restaurants, nail salons, etc. Just like those weird direct-mail coupon books.

LATER: 30 January 2007
It’s telling that the most stable, high-def segments picked up by our over-the-air HD TV antenna are the commercials.

ELSEWHERE:
16 April 2007

“What I think would be a great feature would be a dedicated part of TiVo’s menu (under ‘Now playing’?) that’s just ads. TiVo has a recommendation engine – let me rate the ads” – Rick Klau

Pinger + Podcast = Common Sense Mobile Podcasting

A while back, I had this idea for mobile podcasting, along the lines of my ‘podcasting as mass voicemail’ mantra. Even picked up a domain name.

Thing is, I don’t know enough about how the mobile phone industry works to make it a go. No problem, looks like Pinger.com is on it.

If I, as a Pinger account holder could request an RSS feed to be pointed at my mobile phone number – Bingo, common sense mobile podcast receiving.

Yeah, rather than having my home pc download mp3 files, I could receive the podcast as a voicemail. Sure, this puts a time limit on the podcast – not a bad thing.

BTW – Pinger is funded by, Kliner Perkins, the same people funding PodShow, Tellme, Audible, Friendster, and Segway. So, hopefully, they’ll see this “synergy” as well.