Category Archives: podcasting

the rebirth of radio and music

podcasting, Ramblings

Having Internet like winning the lottery

It must have been a long time ago when in a fit of wild speculation The Portable Consultant wondered what he would do if he won the lottery.

Now, the first response to the Lottery Question should always be “How much?” …because it makes a difference to one’s daydream whether you’re thinking “enough to get something nice”, “enough to pay off the mortgage”, or “enough to live the life of an independently wealthy person (after setting up the charitable foundation, of course).”

Perhaps I had only recently finished university and was remembering the exhilaration you get from having your brain challenged, because my answer came out something like “If I found myself independently wealthy I would like to travel the world, seeking out the most interesting professors, and taking their courses.” Being independently wealthy would also mean I wouldn’t worry about credits, of course. When not auditing courses I would attend conferences on a wide variety of topics. I suppose that put me pretty high up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at that time.

Years later I found myself driving in a rented car to a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was far from being independently wealthy. The Internet bubble had burst and I was just starting out as an independent, not wealthy, consultant – which is what you do when your corner of the economy is in depression. In any case, I couldn’t see the point of being unbillable at home when a relatively inexpensive conference on open source content management systems is only a day’s drive away.

That OSCOM conference proved to be a good conversation point for several subsequent interviews. But the greatest benefit was a better understanding of the implications of open source software for enterprise content management. I had managed to merge my lottery daydream with my work to some extent.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Fast forward to the present where for the past year and a half I’ve been a regular listener to the new medium of podcasts. Early on I found the BBC’s In Our Time series and later came across Doug Kaye’s Conversations Network. So, on my GO Train commutes I not only have Adam Curry’s quintessential Daily Source Code and Dave Slusher’s joyful Evil Genius Chronicles to listen to. I also have…

…Melvyn Bragg speaking with John Edwards, Research Fellow in Spanish at the University of Oxford; Alexander Murray, Emeritus Fellow in History at University College, Oxford; and Michael Alpert, Emeritus Professor in Modern and Contemporary History of Spain at the University of Westminster on the subject of The Spanish Inquisition…

[JARRING CHORD… The cardinals burst in… Ximinez: “NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!”].

Over on The Conversations Network I can listen to an impressive list of podcast interviews and presentations made at a growing number of conference events. Some of my recent favourites have been some Apple nostalgia on Larry Magid’s Larry’s World interview with Lee Felsenstein, who moderated the Homebrew Computer Club where Steve Wozniak unveiled the first Apple, and Dr. Moira Gunn’s Tech Nation interview with Daniel Dennett, who views religion as a natural phenomenon.

…and the Winning Number is 192.168.555.102!
So I now realize that I now have access to the kind of interesting discussions, lectures, and presentations that I had been putting off until I win the lottery. As it turned out, my lucky number is an IP address.

Cheers,
-pmh

ps: yes, that IP address is bogus. Do you know where the ‘555’ comes from? Ok, so you weren’t expecting the Spanish Inquisition. 😉 [Answer]

Emerging, Multimedia, New Paradigms, podcasting

Second Life and Beyond Broadcasting

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I first visited Austin Hall when Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society hosted OSCOM3, a conference on open source content management systems. The building is both historic and beautiful.

Now I am standing outside Austin Hall again. It is sunny and I’m wearing a Podcast Network T-shirt with “Stick it in your ear” on the back. The Beyond Broadcasting conference was held here last weekend.

I picked up the T-shirt from Adam Curry, aka The Podfather (because of his contribution to podcasting). The shirt was a free gift that I found when I jumped off a Sikorsky helicopter hovering nearby and flew over to the rooftop lounge of Curry Castle, a gathering place for podcasters and listeners in the virtual world of Second Life.

Yes, it’s actually my avatar wearing the shirt and it’s a virtual construction of Austin Hall that exists in a world where I can fly, chat with people from around the world, and even attend conferences like Beyond Broadcasting… with a virtual presence, anyway.

When Adam Curry started telling podcast listeners about how he was building a castle and encouraging a virtual podcast community within an online virtual reality “game” I thought it might be interesting.

But when I caught a presentation by Ed Castronova on IT Conversations with an economist was specializing in the virtual economy there (and the real life economy that is linked to it) I knew there was more going on here than an online diversion and I was complelled to visit the place.
I had a great time creating my avatar in an idealized version of my real self and when I found I could fly I was virtually blown away!

The concept of people meeting and creating & promoting virtual businesses in a virtual environment makes my “somethin’s happening in here” sense tingle in much the same way that it did when I first started downloading and listening to podcasts.

In a way I had been waiting to hear about something like Second Life since my daughter started playing in the virtual world of Disney’s Toontown (her big green bunny persona is great at defeating “lawbots” and “headhunters” by throwing pie in their faces!).

I missed Beyond Broadcasting, by the way… got there too late. But I’m sure at least a few of the presentations made the point that a virtual world like Second Life is part of the future of the entertainment industry…

Why watch actors on a screen when you can be one?

Last night I visited a club and caught the tail end of a set by a singer-songwriter. The music was streamed to my computer and I used a new “gesture” I had scripted to clap and shout “Whoo Hoo!”

I’d love to tell you more about it, but there’s a class on building castles that I don’t want to miss… gotta fly!!

HiHo!
-pmh

pmh in front of Austin Hall

Emerging, New Paradigms, podcasting

Satellite Radio model versus Podcasting

The very first post on ThePortableConsultant.com was this one about the competitive landscape in Canada’s 21st. century radio industry.

There was a story on Yahoo! Finance recently that caught my eye and I thought it might be time to update. The AP wire story Sirius Widens 4Q Loss to $311.4 Million blames satellite radio company losses at Sirius and XM to the high cost of acquiring listeners.

Sirius and XM are spending heavily to expand their businesses, which charge about $13 a month for dozens of channels of commercial-free music, as well as talk, news and sports.

Sirius reported that its costs for acquiring new subscribers more than doubled to $145.2 million from $64.9 million in the same period a year ago. Its average cost for adding each subscriber, however, fell to $113 from $124 in the same period a year ago.

I’m only an armchair commentator in this area, but I know the Internet offers a better model for gaining and serving listeners. In fact, while writing this post I came across The Bitter Vat, a personal media blog and a story about Motorola’s “better idea” (Motorola Targets Death Stars in Battle for Drive-time Subscriber Dollar) which, sure enough, aims to use the Internet.

Instead of expensive birds, limited by bandwidth and service life, iRadio uses PC-based Internet caching of radio content, which is synced to the handset over USB. The service is been targeted primarily at the drive-time radio market, where the bulk of radio listening occurs. To cater for this market, in-car audio is supported through a Bluetooth adapter for car stereos, compatible with units from vendors such as Pioneer, Alpine, Sony and Kenwood. The interface is expected to retail for USD150, including installation.

Sounds like the podcasting model to me… but there’s more…

To comply with US webcasting legislation, music channels are deleted as soon as they have been listened to, whilst talk shows can be rewound. As well as radio channels, iRadio also supports MP3 playback. In an interview with The Vat, Motorola’s David Ulmer, Director, Marketing, Media Solutions, explained that MP3 files can be played back on the car stereo track by track, forward and back, just as you would on a CD. Multiple playlists can also be created on separate channels. The song’s title and track info are scrolled on the stereo display, however browsing by artist and album is not supported, as this is a limitation of the navigation features on most car stereo units.

Which shows how far American radio must go to appease the powerful entertainment lobby. Podcasters are currently laughing at restrictions like these and I expect the more commercial podcasting ventures can be expected to defend themselves against them when the time comes.

The developers of this service are studying podcasting very closely, too:

Ulmer also explained that podcasting support for the iRadio PC client is “in the pipeline for first quarter”, with details available at http://www.iradionetwork.com/ upon release. The bookmark function can also be used for in-show hyperlinks, which lets a listener interact while listening by pressing their radio’s button for more info or to enter a contest or to vote or purchase something. That action will appear in their PC’s wish list automatically. In another first, iRadio will show exactly how many times a podcast was actually listened to, not just downloaded.

In my life there have been a few radio shows that I wish I could have kept to replay. Not documentaries, but a particular blend of music and commentary. Even with commercial messages I would have replayed such shows several times over the years in ths same manner as an album. But I’m not sure that tracking such replays mesh with my idea of “fair use”. I would not necessarily allowed my firewall to pass such a report back to the originator, just as I deny Windows Media Player to report back to Microsoft.

As the article points out this is yet another channel for independent radio producers… oh, and of course video is a possibility too.

At the very least development of Internet podcasts and vlogs have acted as a proof-of-concept for media interests. In the end, the Internet model(s) may prove to be more than that. They may prove the most efficient platform and the success of future media ventures may depend on how closely they follow the lessons that the Internet offers.

-pmh of ThePortableConsultant.com