Thanks to Greg Hughes for the link: KIROTV.com - Weird Headlines - Oregon McDonald's Calling Drive Thru Orders To North Dakota

In the EventLab at Corante, we had another roundtable on the challenges of podcasting. This time, our guests were Jason Meserve, multimedia editor for Network World Fusion and host for Network World Fusion Radio, an IDC publication, and David Berlind, executive editor at ZDNet.

Big Media On The Challenges of Podcasting: Corante.com/EventLab

Download video... and go get ANT, Mac people.

Tod's Videoblog and his normal home; also A9 yellow pages

A big condenser mic, twin handheld condensers, cables, tripod, headphones and monitors (speakers)... Normally $632.99, now, $299. That's a good deal for getting a bunch of starter hardware for the second generation podcaster. Only thing missing is a mixer/connection kit, but it's a good start for multi-people shows... (watch that compression, yo!) Musician's Friend - Musician's Friend Studio Bonus Bundle C (248149)

Chris was helpful in updating my listing at Podcast Alley. So, if you feel the urge to give me more than 9 votes, go forth and vote! :-)

A pre-release from the Tech Tuesday segment from the show:

Q& with Sr Marketing Manager, Tara Smith and others involved with the Marqui paid-blogging program. Topics include the objectives of the blogosphere program; the view from a PR and marketing perspective; lack of blogging functionality in Marqui's product; the future of paid-to-blog programs; the program's duration; responding to the competition; plus-- weighing in on if we the bloggers might want to work on the project in the future (and not the other way around).


the Eric Rice Show :: Understanding Paid Blogging Projects (Present and Future)

See, when shows are in the Friday night death slot AND THEN you move them to Thursday unexpectedly up against the return of CSI and West Wing AND THEN you wonder why no one tuned in, so you cancel it after four episodes, that's when you realize that there's a problem.

That's what happened to Wonderfalls, a brilliant show that died before it had a chance. It had the best reviews EVER in Fox's history. So they canceled it. I love when that happens.

Well the DVD, after much fanboy pleading, is a reality. The complete season which was finished but never saw the light of broadcast TV. February 1, 2005 it's going to be available, and I've pre-ordered mine. An unlikely show to appeal to my rather wry sense of humor, this is part of the review from Amazon:

Wonderfalls is probably the most hilarious show you've never seen. An hour-long "dramedy" about a young woman who hears the voices of inanimate objects--which instruct her to help out total strangers--the show aired on Fox in early 2004 to critical acclaim and dismal ratings. After airing four times in terrible time slots, the show was quickly canceled, but not before a hue and cry from a small but fervently devoted cadre of fans went up, begging for all 13 episodes to be released on DVD. Thus, the highest-profile DVD release of a canceled show was born, and the nine unaired episodes of Wonderfalls are finally seeing the light of day.

You may be wondering: is it worth it to check out a show that was axed so quickly? The answer is an unqualified yes, as Wonderfalls is quirky without being precious, sardonic without being bitter, and smart without being a show-off about it. Jaye (Caroline Dhavernas) is a graduate of Brown University who's opted not to put her education to work, and instead lives in a trailer and works at a tourist shop in Niagara Falls, to the consternation of her affluent, successful family. All seems to be going well for this self-proclaimed slacker, until one day a small toy lion speaks to her in enigmatic epigrams, commanding her to help people. Loath to deal in any compassionate way with the rest of humanity, Jaye warily obeys, if only to make the voices stop. Soon, though, she finds herself to be an unwilling humanitarian and accidental hero when more inanimate objects start talking to her, and more people turn out to need her help.

Read more: Amazon.com: DVD: Wonderfalls - The Complete Series (2004)

Before I point you toward a killer videoblog aggregator for Mac OS X...

I'm a blogger, and yes, I'm a podcaster. I'm also a videoblogger--and have been for a while--who has been part of a rockin' videoblog community since June '04.

It's come a long way. And the fun thing about video is that it's all over the place. It's artsy. It's newsy. It's random. It's cable access. It's porno. It's conversational.

So, if you're a Mac user, go get ANT (in beta), and subscribe to a buncha feeds.

We're ready. It's podcast PLUS.

I'm trying to segregate some of my content, and that's part of the reason I'm building the group blog Backstaging.com for all the nerdy backstage things I (among others) do here in internet and podcast-land. However, the O'Reilly article by Jacek Artymiak got me a little peeved, so I addressed certain issues on his post "Who's going to make money off podcasting".

Full: Backstaging.com :: O'Reilly's Jacek Artymiak: At least he's no Dvorak

Also, if you are interested in contributing to Backstaging.com, let me know. It's a new, new thing.

"...in your..."

Derek: Get called "brain dead" by Dave Winer. Consider it as new slogan. Reject idea
Dave: Anyway, I'd love to see the pointer to where I supposedly said he was brain-dead.

Dave 2/16/00: "Your site is the most brain-damaged weblog I've ever seen."

Same thing. In the space of one line, it's okay to paraphrase. Seriously. Have some dip.

(scribbling in my Moleskine...)Productivity...and...leadership. Mental note.

"Put me..."

I'm anticipating high demand for my interview with Peter Chang, the guy who is photographing for 24 hours straight around Iraq on Election Day. Well, that and giving away a Flickr PRO upgrade sort of got people buzzing. Original mp3 is here.

Torrent page for Peter Chang Interview (powered by PRODIGEM)

While everyone is keeping so busy bitching about the ethics, transparency, and disclosure of blogs (give me a damn break already.. credibility for bloggers? That's like asking for credibility in rock-n-roll or hip-hop. But I digress.), I ran across this piece from Jack Shafer of Slate. It's sub-titled, "The danger of hyping a good thing into the ground." It's about Blog Overkill.

Well, I've got news for all you disclosure weenies. I disclose that I agree with a good deal of what Shafer writes.

The HELL you say? Yeah, I know, it's blasphemous, especially when you consider all that I do.

First, I'm finding that I'm using the word blog less in my spoken vocabulary. Why? Because I'm spending more time writing. And while I am responsible for Audioblog.com, am an active podcaster AND videoblogger, I know that the only true strength comes from triple mastery of all of these media.

Aside from playing around in a few tempermental piss matches about how audio is so stupid because you can't index/skim/scan/smell it like text, keep a simple reminder in the back of your mind that I publish in ALL three forms of media, and I'm doing so intentionally.

It's my job and my mission in life to evangelize these things. I don't believe that these things will disrupt the Institutions into oblivion. In fact, these things will do the opposite. They'll contribute. They'll make the variety bigger. Traditionals will get ideas from the Contemporaries and vice versa.

(I'm reminded of that fact every time a blogger points to a mainstream media news article. Oh the irony!)

And so begins the hype of playing both sides against the middle. Getting an idealist who knows how to play the big game is dangerous and productive all at the same time.

I agree that we shouldn't kid ourselves about saving the world by what we're doing. We're enhancing the world (that's the theory anyway) with the content we produce with new technologies.

Just check how the grass looks on the other side. Give an independent publisher, a citizen journalist, or a hot headed opinionist a fraction of the dollars it takes to run a Baghdad news bureau, and I'd be willing to bet some amazing things can happen. It's about resources.

And Big Medias who want to criticize people at home in pajamas can do so---understanding that people at home in pajamas armed with modems have plenty of flexibility and free time... to share ideas, to dream, to create, to uncover truths, or simply to hide, to plot, or to destroy.

It's all how you look at it.

Um. It's time to throw the entire system out and start over.

ASCAP Launches Infringement Actions against Establishments Performing Copyrighted Music without Permission

Back from being sick and no podcasts in a while, I'm proud to present the Eric Rice Show :: Interview: Peter Chang, 24 Hours of Iraqi Election Day Photography. Don't forget to change your links to the show, and the RSS feed.

Bonus: Listen to the whole show to see how to win a Flickr PRO account.

Watch the video... reminds me of the Gorillaz. Great video, clever concept. Enjoy.

Today, I had reason to reflect back on this post from June 2004 where I blogged about a branding session at eBay Live! in New Orleans as prepared by Stan Slap of Slap. I'm a brand and branding junkie.

An excerpt I enjoy: Successful branding comes from how you sell a product as much as what you sell. Every customer's experience must be spectacular, signature, and sustainable. The way to maintain happy customers is to reach out to your employees. That tribe, the ones who deal with your customers and each other on a daily basis, are the people who are your company, like it or not.

More here: Branding Session with Stan Slap

Go to freenode.net, where we were for vloggercon (#vloggercon), and join #videoblogging, so we can chill and lurk all day.

Picking a Platform- Blogging Engines Compared

Blogware, btw, is what I'm using for my podcast platform.