Garrick Talking to MACTA About Podcasting

Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you, in just about 9 hours I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators‘ annual conference.

General Session – IP Enabled Services
“The internet has catapulted a plethora of innovations in communications. It will continue to be an exciting ride both in technology and regulation. This panel will highlight webstreaming, the basics of mesh technology, incident area networking, pod-casting, and the regulation that may be following.”
Speakers: Charles Blanchet, Brian Grogan, Jason Prock, Garrick Van Buren

Should be interesting.

Amazing Race 8 – Episode 5

“I’m so excited we’re getting out of the country.”

Yeah, me too. What fun is the Amazing Race if you’re only touring the east coast (midwest *cough* midwest). Then again, the Amazing Race producers have double the people this season – so much higher airfare costs. But here’s the real reason families haven’t left the US yet:

“Hable inglés?”

“A little”

“Burrito.”

My favorite thing about the Amazing Race is how a multiple-hour lead can evaporate waiting for an airplane or the next destination to open. It keeps things interesting for everyone.

Detour: Rhythm or Coos?
Coos – spying fake birds seems more interesting than running around town collecting instruments. I think I’d find a greater sense of progress with the birds.

Based on the edit we watched, the fake birds in the trees we in the same position as their representation on the sheet-of-birds. Position seemed like at least as effective way to identify the birds as color – though color is probably easiest to communicate to someone else.

How do you dress for a non-elimination round? Let’s have Phil respond,

“Did you know it was illegal in Panama to wear underpants on top of underpants?”

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

  • Lintz – #4

On Weblogs, Product Placement Worth More Than Banner Ads

Yesterday, A List Apart, Signal vs. Noise and Coudal announced a new ad network in the vein of John Grubers’ Daring Fireball sponsorhip model. Limited capacity, reasonable rates, blah, blah.

Yes, all 4 of these blogs are extremely popular, and I can’t say enough good things about Daring Fireball. John is frank, curt, and snide on Apple – and I think it’s fantastic. The point is, I don’t read them for the banner ads – I read them for the posts, the commentary, the stuff I don’t know yet.

I don’t remember the last time I clicked on a banner ad (I’m blind to them, and they don’t come through in feeds), I do remember the last time I used a new product or service because I read about it at SvN (The fantastic CampaignMonitor immediately comes to mind).

So, why are blogs selling banner ads when they should be selling product placement?
An artificial separation between editorial and advertising? Transparency solves that problem.

Watch this space throughout the day there’s more behind this that I don’t have time to write down yet.

If you’re on the Work Better RSS feed, expect this entry to flip back to ‘unread’ throughout the day. Until then, remember RSS is an ad.

UPDATE 29 Oct 2005:
Back in my college speech classes, I’d play an informal product-placement game. Just before my speech, I’d have another student pick an unrelated concept or product to work into the speech.

If non-banner-ad, paid advertising were to work in weblogs, this is how. Counting click-through – not impressions – on links using the NoFollow tag inside posts.

  • The advertiser and author agree on how frequently to link to a specific page.
  • The author retains the rights on link word selection and context.
  • The relationship is fully disclosed on the site.
  • The creative writing might even provide a little joy to the readers.

Why Conferences Should Be Free

Earlier this week, Lori and I were talking about the crazy $500-$1,000+ ticket prices for industry conferences. Considering the you’d have to block the time off your calendar, close up the shop, and book travel, the additional admission cost seems like a good way to artificially prevent people from showing up.

At every professional-related meeting or conference I’ve attended, the best parts were between the formal, scheduled sessions. The hallway conversations, the happy hours, the lunches. The one-on-one with other attendees. Even at the local MIMA Salons, there’s a part of me that curses when the formal session begins.

With the MNteractive Information Architect Coffees and the PodcastMN Meetups, we pick a place, a time, and whoever makes it, makes it. Usually, it’s 80% the same core people and 20% new voices. Then again, there’s usually wireless – so if no one shows up – you can still get some work done.

All this is leading up to an emphatic ‘Damn Straight’ in response to Dave Winer’s Like a BloggerCon post – on the inherent costs of participation:

“Even so, there is a price of admission. To get to the BBQ, or the Homebrew Club, BMUG or BloggerCon, you had to have a ride. To get on the web you have to have a computer and a net connection.”

The best part of Winer’s post is (emphasis mine):

“My experience with these shows is that if you trust the universe, it will take good care of you.”

Elsewhere: 17 April 2007
“How much do conferences cost?” – Eric Rice

Web 2.0 is a Second Chance At Fulfilling the Web’s Promise

The promise of the web has always been frictionless communication, ease, speed, and joy.

Yes, the term “Web 2.0” is “a big, vague, nebulous cloud of pure architectural nothingness”. The lack of it’s specificity is a problem.

I’ve also heard the cynical:

“Web 2.0 is Javascript.”

Five years ago web developers failed at fulfilling the web’s promise. It’s taken us 5 years to get over it – and develop technologies mature enough to try again.

“Web 2.0” has very little to do with technology and far more to do with a New Found Optimism. Something we needed – desperately.

That said, saying you’re a Web 2.0 company is like telling the cool kids you’re cool. It’s one of the easiest way to get stuffed in a ball bag.

This Blog Isn’t Paying My Mortgage…Yet

We didn’t win the lottery last night. Thankfully, Tim from Winecast sent over the How Much is Your Blog Worth calculator based on the AOL-Weblogs, Inc deal.

Looks like I’m well on my way to easy street…as long as I keep typing…..must keep typing….fingers burn…must keep typing…

  • $57,018.54 – GarrickVanBuren.com
  • $ 6,774.48 – FirstCrackPodcast.com – the podcast really lives at firstcrackpodcast.com so I’m sure the “real” number is somewhere in between 😉
  • $27,662.46 – Working Pathways’ Work Better Weblog
  • $16,371.66 – MNteractive.com (then it’d have to split it a dozen ways)
  • $564.54 – Podumentary (this one’s split 3 ways)

Grand Total: $ 93,007.96.

A friend of mine has the Chicago Cubs World Series Retirement Plan – he sets aside funds each year to see the cubbies play the series. Then, when they don’t it goes into a retirement fund.

Welcome to my fully-diversified, fully-tongue-in-cheek Weblog Retirement Plan.

Podcasting the MIMA Summit 2005

Next Wednesday, October 26th, Working Pathways will be podcasting the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association 2005 Summit.

As always, I expect it to be one of the best interactive conferences of the year. Lots of great, practical, conversations; including Laurie Blum from Best Buy and Shar Vanboskrik from Forrester. If you’re there, stop by and introduce yourself – I’ll be the one with all the audio gear.

On a related note, I checked out the Video iPod while at the Apple Store picking up some gear. Yes, I would watch TV on the 2 1/2-inch screen.

UPDATE: So, now I have about 12 hours of raw audio. Time to grab the headphones and fire up Audacity.

UPDATE 2: The MIMA Summit audio is now available.

Lori’s 17-inch Laptop Diaper Bag Coolest Messenger Bag Yet

If you follow the First Crack Podcast, you know I have a couple of laptop bags, both with their strengths and weaknesses. Neither bag is perfect, and there aren’t that many bags available for a 17″ Powerbook.

This summer, Jen and I were on a similar quest for a stylish diaper bag. Best we could find was the Skip Hop Duo.

That was until last night when good friend and information architect Lori Baker presented us with this fantastic Laptop bag / diaper bag combo – that she made from scratch. Yeah, I know. My jaw dropped too.

A couple inches shorter than the Targus, it’s got a wide padded strap like the Timbuk2, 2 separate compartments (1 for baby, 1 for laptop), bottle pocket on the side, and pockets, pockets, and more pockets.

Oh, and the best part – Not Sold in Stores.

Thanks Lori.

Transplants Not Unlike GWAR

Take Blink 182’s drummer, Rancid’s lead, a roadie, a weekend of b-grade end-of-the-world horror flicks, and mix with a case of cheap beer – like Grain Belt non-Premium.

I know, I know, that’s almost the same recipe for GWAR. But this time, you end up with Transplants’ Haunted Cities. I picked it up a while back based on a quick listen to Apocalypse Now in iTunes.

All the songs rock – hard, in a “Where’s the mosh pit?” kinda way (yes, also similar to GWAR). The difference between GWAR and the Transplants is the difference between Rocky Horror Picture Show and Frailty. GWAR and Rocky Horror is fun, Transplants and Frailty still creeps you out days later.

Oh, Cadillac Tramps’ Tombstone Radio also provides the same driving beats, with a bit more sunshine.