Reflections on a Year of Podcasting

On October 12th, 2004, I sat down with a Jabra Bluetooth headset, some since forgotten audio recording application, and published the first First Crack Podcast.

How I’m doing the show now is far, far different than I did then – if only that I’m not hand-writing RSS. Despite improvements on my end, iTunes adding a Podcast directory, and PodcastMN.com going from 0 to nearly 50 unique podcasts, I still believe in podcasting’s underlying promise (here stated by Rex Hammock):

“Podcasting will lead to things we haven’t even thought about today.”

Traditional broadcasters haven’t figured out the magic formula, nor have the podcast pure-plays. This is a really good thing.

What we do know:

  • A human, personal message is more important than the audio quality.
  • Episode length and publication frequency don’t matter, there just needs to be another one.
  • Each additional subscriber adds bandwidth costs
  • Monetizing might happen through underwriting or commercials. Listener-supported models or podcast-as-marketing-for-something-else are more sustainable.
  • Podcasting will continue to radically transform brodcast radio, television, the recording industry, church, politics, and voicemail.
  • Right now, I have 273 un-listened podcasts (more than 6 days worth) in my iTunes. I need more – have you started yours?

I Might Have to Switch to De-Glazed.

I’m a big fan of the leisurely Sunday morning; reading the paper, drinking good coffee, having a Krispie Kreme or two. Over the weekend, my internal clock was off and I picked up the donuts late Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday, I returned to the home office from an afternoon meeting needing a little something.

I grabbed the box of Krispie Kremes and started on the afternoon to-do list.

5 hours later; everything was checked off the to-do list. Inspired, I; cleaned up the junk pile in the corner of the basement, consolidated the multiple boxes of hand tools, and touched base with my parents. On top of that, the rest of the evening was unusually giggly and joke-filled. Everything seemed just slightly happier and more positive.

I couldn’t quite figure out what was different until Jen asked where the last 4 donuts went.

Treo Replaces iPod for Brush Clearing Listening

Finally had a few moments to clear out the tree damage we had from the late summer thunderstorm I mention eariler.

About halfway through, the battery in my 40gb iPod started flaking out – as it’s so prone to do. With the battery only reliable when it’s plugged in, the usefulness of the iPod is seriously hampered.

Still needing some audio entertainment, I loaded up my Treo 650‘s 1GB SD card with a handful of podcasts and some Brad Sucks and headed back out.

Adding stuff to the SD card was a more manual process and the audio quality isn’t as good as the iPod – but it didn’t die every 5 minutes. Grumble grumble.

Law Firm Hosts Fashion Show, That’s Like Blogging

Tonight Jen and I attended PKR&G‘s Never Out of Fashion show. Yes, in the interest of full disclosure, our invitation was part of our 6 part PKR&G podcast series at the First Crack.

Howard Rubin kicked off the event asking, “Why does a law firm host a fashion show?”

The same reason you’d blog. Here’s the break down;

  1. Give people a reason to talk about you. (your remarkableness)
  2. Highlight the people and places you know. (their remarkableness)
  3. Connect your community of customers to each other. (our remarkableness)

Does it work?

  1. If I need a lawyer and my uncle can’t help me, you know who I’m calling. Hugh says, “25% of conversations in the blogosphere about ‘South African Wine’ are now about Stormhoek”. I only know of one law firm hip to podcasting and fashion, yeah, they’re in Minneapolis.
  2. I only know of one other law firm in Minneapolis. Why would I choose PKR&G over them? PKR&G reinforced our relationship with this fashion show event. That’s it….for now. For me, blogging is the easiest way to answer the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately question.
  3. If you ask me what the hippest hotel in Minneapolis is, it’s Graves 601. Seriously. It is.

How doesn’t it work?

Locally Running Multiple Rails Apps on OS X

There’s a couple of place describing how to support multiple Rails apps locally. They were either unavailable or way more complicated than I’d like (the HowtoDeployMoreThanOneRailsAppOnOneMachine at the RubyonRails wiki was both). Here’s how I was able to get multiple Rails apps running under Apache on OS X 10.4 Tiger.

  1. Created 2 Rails apps; AppOne and AppTwo
  2. In each of the apps’ public/index.html file I changed “Welcome to Ruby on Rails” to “Welcome to AppOne” and “Welcome to AppTwo” respectively. (You don’t need to do this, though it did seem to be the easiest way to see when it works.)
  3. Opened up and unlocked NetInfoManager, duplicated machines > localhost twice, renamed one “appone” and the other “apptwo”.
  4. Opened up Apache’s httpd/httpd.conf file, uncommented NameVirtualHost *:80 and added the VirtualHost blocks.

    NameVirtualHost *:80

    <virtualhost *>
    ServerName AppOne
    DocumentRoot /Users/garrickvanburen/Rails/AppOne/public/
    <directory /Users/garrickvanburen/Rails/AppOne/public/>
    Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride all
    Allow from all
    Order allow,deny
    </virtualhost>


    <virtualhost *>
    ServerName AppTwo
    DocumentRoot /Users/garrickvanburen/Rails/AppTwo/public/
    <directory /Users/garrickvanburen/Rails/AppTwo/public/>
    Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride all
    Allow from all
    Order allow,deny
    </virtualhost>

  5. Restarted Apache > sudo apachectl graceful
  6. Opened up two browers; one to http://appone/ and the other to http://apptwo/
  7. Clapped and victoriously declared “Yea” to an empty room.

As I should have known, this blew up my non-Rails localhosting – specifically phpMyAdmin. Repeating the steps above for phpmyadmin returned access to my database.

Hoegaarden and Tivoli as Storm Provisions.

We picked up a Tivoli iPAL a couple weeks ago. I’m glad we did. Tonight was the first big storm of the summer – without the Tivoli we would have been without a battery-powered radio.

Before the weather went south, I thought a nice Belgian beer would be refreshing in the 80 degree heat.

The wind and rain were so bad, I was sure the paperboard 6-pack holder would completely give out as I unlocked the back door.

It didn’t.

Yes, I was right. Beer is refreshing. No matter the weather. Think the advertisers know?

Anyway, by the time I got home the power was out.

While I listened to the storm roll through the weather reports. Jen “watched” the season premiere of Lost via commercial-break mobile phone conversations.

Afterwards we plugged the laptop into the Tivoli and watched the second season of the Amazing Race.

A seemingly civilized way to spend the evening.

The Second Lesson From Las Vegas

Sam and I checked out the grand opening of the Shoppes at Woodbury Lakes last week. Yes, it is a Shoppes at Arbor Lakes for the east Metro. Same developer.

A couple years back, I did a deep dive into urban planning books and one of the texts Lewis Dijkstra recommended was Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas.

The biggest thing I remember from the book; giant signs, visible from miles away, indicating giant parking lot moats around the building they’re marking.

At Woodbury Lakes (and all other modern shopping lifestyle centers), the exteriors of the buildings are somewhat different and fake. Fake windows on the fake second story. Fake brick veneer on fake pillars. Yet the interiors are identical. Just like in Vegas – the exterior of the casinos fights to be more unique, more interesting and more attractive than the next. Once inside, each casino is an identical warehouse (in a post modern twist Turtle Lake’s St. Croix Casino looks like a warehouse from the outside).

But then again, how else do you go from a vacant lot to bustling shopping village in fewer than 11 months?

I don’t remember if the the different-on-the-outside/same-in-the-inside lesson was in Venturi’s classic book. Should be.