Blubrry.com launched today and podcasting networks for listeners and podcasters, just got all growed up. ;-)

Bucket Podcast... now on episode 7. Great sound and flow. Go listen!

Hipcast (Audioblog.com) turns two years old today. It's been a kickin' two years and a big shout out to all the people who use us for audio and video podcasting and blogging. Our customers inspire us, surprise us, and speak up for features they want, and in turn, has helped us been able to provide the most feature rich and reliable podcasting service in the whole wide world.

It's your party too! Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow at Yahoo Mission College campus is the Silicon Valley Podcast Meetup for valley audio and video podcasters. And get ready for some cake, cuz it's someone's birthday. ;-)

PodcasterWorld is one year old now (I'm a little bit late) and you can have some fun partying with Blymm. Check out Blymm and get his music/talk podcast delivered automatically. It's hip-hop. It's real. And hilarious, bud-dee.

I hereby induct them into the Lords of Podtown.

Great response! So, next Thursday March 9, 2006, 7pm (location TBD, still looking but have a good lead) for the The Silicon Valley Podcasting Meetup Group. This is brand new, so if you wanna join the group, do it soon, so we can get an idea of attendance. Audioblog.com is bringing the food, since it's around the dinner hour. Geeks gotta eat.

Where will it be? Somewhere in or around Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/Cupertino -ish... easy enough to get to from surface streets if the freeways get too jacked.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Audio and Video. Let's just get the job done. Bring gear. Have some fun. :-)

One of the spiffy things we're addding to our show is music. We're not a music show, but we sorta like to rock, so hey. Good enough reason. In the latest installment of our podcast, we chill with Brian from AMP (Association of Music Podcasting), and talk about various things (Podcast Hotel II being one of those things) in our usual slack-ass fashion.

At the end of the show you'll hear a track from KRS ONE (trivia: KRS stands for 'Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone'). "Illegal Business" from his 2004 album, "Keep Right". (Grit Records)

We're doing this to also coincide with the launch of the new podcast on KSSX, Four Deep, a music-only show that hits as many genres as we can muster. Powered by IODA's Promonet, Four Deep will bring you four shows a month, 30 minutes each. (Those of you who hung out in the demo room got to see us start from scratch building the podcast--- we had nothing but the name.)

Four Deep will also include tracks from Rob Base, Kentucky Prophet, Young Buck, and Detroit's Most Wanted. Join us when we launch and put us in your playlist.

In the meantime, check the latest show, and if you like, have it delivered for free in iTunes. (iTunes or RSS)

Feedback welcome at 1-800-978-KSSX or 1-818-237-5533 (studio line, you ain't gettin' a human)

More people taking it to the streets.

A few of us had talked about this, and realistically, it makes sense. See, the Bay Area is pretty darn huge. Eleven million people in an area with about five microclimates and stretching nearly 100 miles.

So why does it always have to be in San Francisco? (Okay, plus, maybe it's a bit wearisome driving 72 miles for some of us). After all, LA has a few meetups. (Orange County, please do not email me for calling you LA. LA = Southern Region that is Not Bay Area and Not Fresno)

So I'm throwing it out there--- for those of us Valley-based, or those who are in the area ranging from Hwy 84 south (Fremont to Redwood City/Palo Alto all the way down to Morgan Hill and San Jose (the *capital* of Silicon Valley uhnn)-- who is interested in having another podcasting meetup (audio and video), somewhat closer to home/work/Krispy Kreme/abundant parking/abundant meeting space/no-winter-parka-required type of place? And, since we have things actually OPEN on the weekends, what about weekend days?

Drop an e-mail or call to the office (408-612-3427) if you're interested (or are interested in hosting coughcoughyahoocoughaolcough) and let's all get the meetup thing happening down here. Choices! Choices!

Dave Dederer from the band that brought us "Peaches" (Presidents of the United States of America, w00t) points out with Sony, the best distribution company in the world, they (Presidents) we able to sell 1000 albums a month of their back catalogue with no promotion. Same situation in iTunes (after getting their rights back), they sell 10,000 tracks and get 70 cents of the 99 cents to buy music.

I'm gonna go buy some Peaches now. Millions of peaches. Peaches for me. ;-)

Others writing about: Podcast Hotel

Here at the Triple Door in Seattle, with a great turnout for the Podcast Hotel. It's day one of the conference and day two of the live shows. Check it out!

Tons of Podcast Hotel photos

So, after almost two years of providing super easy, solid, and flexible (most flexibility of any other service--in some cases, service(s) combined) audio and video publishing services, we have reached the crossroads. Recording by phone (60 minutes), record in the browser, uploading files, automatic posting to YOUR blog software or service.

Number one question I get (and believe me, I *get* the irony), "Audioblog.com does video, too?"

Yup. Upload almost any video format and bing! It's converted to Quicktime, ready for the iPod. Post it to your blog in flash format, post it to your podcast feed, or for all you lucky feedburner users, post flash video to your blog AND video file to your feedburner feed. All this, and audio podcast, with new unmetered bandwidth plans.

But enough of all that.

The question is..... will Audioblog's new name have the word 'pod' in it? Hmmm.

Oh man alive, we're up here early for the conference this weekend in Seattle... it's going. to. be. uncaged.

New buzzwords for 2006, the Eric Rice edition: uncaged. unfuckwithable. web 7.0.

Podcast Hotel; keywords/tags for your favorite web sites: podcasthotel, tripledoor, podcasthotelseattle

I wonder what will be announced... you know, that under-the-radar like stuff that steers clear of the empty hype bubbles.

ROWRA. /pacino

In the big dance hall of podcasting, there's an elephant. And its name is bandwidth. And he causes problems. Especially if everyone wants to dance with it.

It's time to ask that pachyderm to step outside. ;-)

At Audioblog.com, we've added four levels of pricing, starting at $9.95, which offer the ability to do the things you've always been able to do: audio and video recording in the web browser, podcasting by phone, on-the-fly file conversion to iPod video format, weblog flash player, creation of unlimited podcasts, unlimited blog configs, iTunes extensions, etc.

Now you can do that with unmetered bandwidth on top of it.

Dang, that was a heavy elephant.

So here's the deal. Four new plans, all with varying levels of storage (and abundant storage at that), starting at $9.95 and currently topping at $49.95 per month. So, whether you're just podcasting for friends and family, or podcasting to the world, we think you'll be able to do the things that you've always wanted to do.

Check out the details of the unmetered podcast bandwidth plans and sign up today for a free trial. :-)

I had to send off a list of our hardware and software to someone today, so here it is for your enjoyment.

Aside from a periodically used TASCAM USB-122 and the pocket sized iRiver 899 (never use external mic) the primary gear we use to do a show (most of which is what we've been using for four years now--- shout out to Damages, Josh, and Franks) is:

Mackie 1402 VLZ Pro
dbx 166a dual compressor
dbx166xl dual compressor (hardware compression r00lz)
Gentner GT700 (phone interface)
(there's a random headphone amp in there someplace)
Dual AudioTechnica AT2025 on swing arms
And yes the rockstar mic is the Shure 55s
Sony Headphones are used, as are various Audio Technica vocal mics

Software used:
Garageband, Audioblog.com, iTunes, Nicecast, Shoutcast (we are starting to do our show live now, concurrent with recording it)

This gear is a whole lot cheaper now than it was back in the day. Luckily, you can find good deals on eBay, just make sure it explicitly states it came from a smoke-free studio.

Testing... お気に入りの音声や映像コンテンツをiPodなどのポータブル・オーディオ・プレイヤーで、「いつでも、どこでも、簡単に」楽しめる仕組みです。

please ignore...

Recently I was prodded to call on hot-shit analyst du-jour, Mike Arrington of TechCrunch about Audioblog.com's new features. I complained that it would be too weird. I know they guy, and even scored him a Scoble-signed copy of the Naked Conversations manuscript.

But somehow, as much as my personal and diabolical ego-publicity machine cranks out some mean media, it just seems odd to seemingly beg for attention over software.

Maybe it's because I've got this dualist view that we should be thinking about Web 7.0 right now, while sticking to good old fashioned values of making exceptionally world-class, solid software and services.

I haven't completely thrown out the playbooks yet, though. I do realize there's a game to be played. Like PR for one... PR ain't dead, not even close. It just has to adapt and be simultaneously old school/new school all at once.

So yeah, uh, Mike. I guess I'm pinging you in public. Which is weird. But we sorta got a little thing going on over here. At the moment, it's called Audioblog.com. And I like to think that our company makes the best audio and video podcast creation and publishing service in the world.

Check it out if you like. I've got to get back to work.

Of the recent kick-ass features we've added to Audioblog lately, I thought I should note that when publishing to your audio/video podcast feed, you can point to a remote media file that resides on another server, whether it's your own web server or hosted on another service.

Check the notes on the flickr pics for just a few of the changes--- including converting any video to a format that can play on your iPod video. You can also choose to block iTunes, set a future release date, and publish a post as visible or hidden.

At 7pm PST on February 10th, Lance from the Digital Experience podcast is doing a live show with musician Whitney Steele.

Lance will do great... live shows can be a little nerve wracking, especially doing both live stream and podcast recording simultaneously. But ah, the result is most excellent. :-)

The tentative schedule is posted of sessions and speakers at the Podcast Hotel. It's shapin' up to be a party.

FYI: KSSX is a platinum sponsor and will be the official podcast station for the jams, particulary, our newest show: The Gig, the live music podcast. w00t!