The Podcast Awards are coming up again. But apparently the entries are lacking a few basics, reflecting the poor understanding about RSS, show notes, and the various elements that go with a podcast.

Insomnia Radio recaps Todd Cochrane's lament in culling through the nominations for this year's Podcast Awards. What they found:

* 78% of the submissions had invalid feeds, according to FeedValidator.org.
* Of the remaining feeds, 96% had glaring errors.
* 42% did not have an RSS feed button on their home page. (gulp)
* 26% did not have a link to the file in their show notes.
* 21% had less than 2 lines of show notes.
* Some feeds were huge, as big as 500K and 367 entries.
* Only 49% of the submissions provide a way to contact the podcaster.
* 200 of the submissions that called themselves podcasts had no podcast feeds.

People understand the recording part. They get the idea behind making a show. They could be better web marketers.

More so, the findings reflect that RSS is still foreign to most people. It is still the magic part of the mix.

Odeo has lauched twttr, a texting service. Why? Leads to questions over at TechCrunch. How about the core product? Will it become something besides a simple recorder? They recently showed how they are making it easier to create personal lists, using OPML. They now have a video recorder, too. Seems like there is something in line between opening up an Odeo inbox for all to hear and a texting strategy where you are opeining up your text messages for all to read.

Wiith twttr, we have people leaving text messages for anyone to see at a public web site. Cool. People will love it. Show your photos, share your inner feelings in a podcast or blog and now open up your personal messaging from your phone. People like to see and be seen.

These dudes must have some pretty mellow investors. It's either that or they are seeing that podcast publishing and directory tools just don't get returns and it's better for investors to ok focus elsewhere, on the mobile specifically, where text messaging rules the day.

And there is a fiit between texting and podcasting, especially as the mobile becomes the dominant tool for publishing audio. How the two cross is the question. What's the fit between Odeo and twttr?

Sources close to Podshow say that the company will launch its new service next week that from all reports, looks like a media network for creatng and sharing shows. It's clear that they are looking for talent to fill the service they call Podshow+, according to the web site. The black and white video on the Podshow web site asks: "Are you popular?" That's a prett clear sign of their intentions. They want to attract popular shows, following the premise that if these shows can attract millions of people to their netwok then the laws of the long tail will attract Madison Avenue advertisers to their media properties. The news about Podshow is pretty well known to most folks in the business. But it's worth noting if not to underscore the talent search underway as demand for original work increases and networks race to sign new advertisers wanting to reach the communities who are downloading millions of shows.

Other talent searches are getting started. Todd Cochrane launched Blubrry here at Gnomedex yesterday. It's an open community service, too, a space for creating your own shows and connecting with listeners. Leveraging the pool of shows on the network, Cochrane says they will place advertising with the podcaster getting right of refusal, giving show producers some control about the advertising on their show. Podshow's service is looking to leverage this community, too.

Doug Kaye also launched a new media company yesterday but his service, Gigavox Media, is related more to the business approach from Podtech, which recently hired Robert Scoble. Podtech is building a network of produced shows that they receive from partners and the work they produce themselves.

I interviewed Doug last night for the Chris Pirillo show. Gigavox Media is directly associated with the Conversation Network, the non-profit he started. Gigavox will provide a technology license to the Conversaton Network, which will continue to develop material on topics related to matters such as government and the environment. Gigavox will iinclude Doug's IT Conversations, one of the original podcast networks. Gigavox principles will remain the same as those established by IT Conversations, with high attention being paid to the quality of the programming, both in terms of the topics it addresses and the excellence of the audio recordings. He is looking for talent. Doug, btw, helped me get my start in podcasting at Gnomedex 4.0, in South Lake Tahoe, when we teamed to record and podcast the keynotes and discussions from the event. It's good to see him here at Gnomedex.

These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how a major talent search is starting for people producing audio and video. The answers why are in the numbers. In two separate conversatons yesterday, i spoke with podcasting industry people who say they have each been on a tear in signing new advertisers. These are advertisers looking for shows that reach the increasing numbers of people who are looking for indie produced works. They're searching the social networks for news, entertainment and as a way to share their work and meet people who they connect with on a personal level. Those viewers are valuable for advertisers. And the money they are investing shows the considerable monetary value that these shows command.

The demand for shows will only increase over the next year as more advertisers seek to reach these larger audiences. And that's the race the new media companies are facing. It's a race to find the next star.

The talent search has begun.

I love the stories about DIY gear for podcasts.

I ran across this description of a podcaster's wind screen in a post by Jake Ludington :

I'm a big fan of DIY gear for shooting video or recording audio when your budget is holding back your ability to produce an otherwise great creative endeavor. You can save a ton of money in many cases and you get the satisfaction of creating something useful along the way. Case in point, the DIY microphone zeppelin windscreen from Joel Greenberg of Joel and Karen. Zeppelins are those fuzzy things you see covering microphones on long boom arms and help to greatly reduce wind noise when recording with a shotgun style microphone. Using some PVC, leaf guard, fur from the fabric store, and a hot glue gun, Joel built a very functional zeppelin to help cut down on wind noise when recording audio in windy outdoor environments in Texas. He details all the steps and provides a before and after audio recording sample to demonstrate the sound difference. As a bonus he also shows how to build a microphone shock mount using PVC too.

I met someone in San Francisco last week who I urged to make a show, based on the use of a high definition camera mounted to his battery powered helicopter. He has constraints. He can't afford to trash a high def camera nor a battery powerted helicopter. He has to define his shots, plan them and make sure the helicopter is not in the air for more than a few minutes. What results are pictures that are unique to his own perspective. The art is constraint based.

What's distinctive about these examples is how the constraints make the productions more creative. That seems to be the key aspect of why DIY media is becoming so popular. Shows become popular because they have a unique style or perspective which in some part is defined by the constraints of the people producing the show.

I'll be looking for more examples of DIY gear for podcasts over the coming months and how the constraints of the producer serves as the basis for their creative works. Know of a good example?

In the meantime, here's MAKE magazine's DIY Podcast Shower Radio.

Goes to show that DIY is not just for the developer but the user, too. :-).

Time to get this blog back in gear. And what a better time to do it than with the landmark announcement over the weekend that
Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft to work for Podtech Update: Maryam is joining Podtech, too. She'll be announcing it soon. Congrats to the both of them.

Robert changed the blogosphere. His engaging style, insights and jovial personality combined as a potent force that he used artfully.. He's a master of the medium. He does great work.

Will Robert have the same effect on podcasting?

Podcasting is a world of its own. Personalities abound but no one, I think you could argue, has transcended the podcasting medium the way Robert has done in the blogosphere. Adam Curry, Chris Pirillo and folks like Eric Rice are immensely popular. Doug Kaye is a legend. Correct me please if you disagree but I do not know of any podcasters who has had as much of an influence as Robert has with his blog.

Will lightning strike twice?

Robert did have the good fortune of blogging from Redmond. He worked there at a time when the company needed to display itself in a way that would counter its image as an evil empire of sorts. He opened up the company in a way that will serve as a historical example of how blogging has affected corporate culture. Channel 9 did what it was supposed to do. With his rough cut video intervews, Robert and the team he worked with showed that people besides Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie actually work at the company.

The timing was just right for a personality like Robert to be a Microsoft blogger and engage with folks. He's a jolly guy, able to counter flames from angry commenters. He'd get fried sometimes. But he was always quick to get back in and engage. He did it in a way that wasn't over the top. And that counts for a lot. It's easier to be a lightning rod when people like you.

We know little about what Robert's role will be at Podtech. But his impact will be far different. My guess is he will continue to be an evangelist in some way, back on the conference circuit, interviewingh people and bringing the message to the corporate world about the offerings that grass roots media and Podtech provides.

Will he have the same effect on podcasting that he had on blogging? Is podcasting so different that the two are mutually exclusive in how they impact our lives? Will there ever be a Scoble like personality in the podcasting world? Podtech doesn't seem like the place where Robert will act as a lightning rod. But maybe he'll do a daily show? Rile it up? I'd love to see that.

I just expect that we will continue to see Robert do great work. And that in itself ill make an impact on podcasting that will change the medium for all of us.

Good luck, Robert and Maryam. We'll all be watching with interest.

John Furrier has raised $5.5 million for his PodTech network. That's a cool load of cash for a company that produces shows. Wait, I thought the startups making media were not in favor? I guess that isn't true anymore. Podshow raised many millions and has all kinds of original programming.

John will be hring podcasters. That's amazing. Will there be a podcast newsroom? I never thought I'd see the day. I am just ecstatic about the prospects of smart, collective journalism that explores issues and is made available as podcasts.

Congrats, John! :-). I'm watching with interest.

Adam Curry and folks are talking about the unlabel. How does the news from Tower Record fit into this concept? Tower is calling their effort, TowerPod. They'll have more news about it at SXSW, where I'm heading later this week. Hope to learn more about it there. In the meantime, here's what we do know so far. Podcasters will get access to 6,000 songs, with revenue coming from embedded ads that will be placed in their shows. Music will come from indie artists. Profits get split between Tower, the musicians, indie labels and the podcast creators.

At the Podcast Hotel, the event I produced recently, an artist round table discussion lead to an animated discussion about artist compensation. Samantha Murphy argued that podcasters should compensate the musician for playing their music. Tim Mitchell of IODA said it is all about conversion and if so, podcasters should do very well as podcasting becomes a new distribution medium for indie music. Listen to the discussion here.

Details are sketchy at this point about TowerPod. How much will the artists receive? What does Tower get out of this? And how are the podcasters compensated?

Plus, how does this work? How is the ad embedded?

Outhink, a P2P service, looks to be the engine behind TowerPod, which makes me think that the podcasters will load their shows to the Tower service, where the ads will be embedded and then categorized according to music genre. I've heard a little about TowerPod from folks who are contributing to it but nothing as of yet about how artists will make a decent buck.

Good to see another player in the space. I just wonder how this will all shake out for the artist.

Coca Cola is sending bloggers and podcasters to the Olympics. I wonder if these blogs will be worth reading. Why make such a point that these people will only have positive things to say? Do they not trust hese college students to just post their own impressions of the Olympics? Won't this just make these posts a bit too fuzzy?

From Mediapost:

Adding to its usual marketing efforts during the games, Coke is paying to fly and accommodate young representatives from China, Germany, Italy, Canada, Austria, and the United States--each of whom has agreed to keep their posts positive, according to Coca-Cola spokesman Philipp Bodzenta.

"They understand they we're looking for the positive side of the Olympics," said Bodzenta, adding: "They are part of the PR team, but they are not Coke employees."

Business Week interviews the founder of Toodou, who discusses podcasting, censorship and the future of their indie media service.

Th Unofficial Apple Weblog shows how to change your podcast feed in iTunes. The TUAW post also has a handy document you may want to peruse. It's the technical specification document for podcasting and iTunes. As they write at TUAW, the docment is a wealth of information.

Podcasting is on the radar for marketing execs but their sites are set more than a year out for investing more dollars into the medium.

That's the conclusion of a Marketing Sherpa, ad:tech study which polled 644 marketers who spend 44% of their total ad and marketing budgets on the Web. The study looked at the 2005 best and worst practices in internet marketing and a look at the year ahead.

Eighteen percent of respondents said they will definitely spend money on an in-house podcasts with 31 percent stating that doing an in-house podcast is more than a year out.

Fourteen percent said they will sponsor a podcast in 2006, while 32 percent said sponsorship is definitely more than a year out.

These numbers make you wonder about the success of podcasters trying to make commercial plays. How will the the market shake out in the year ahead for the podcasting pioneers if revenues from advertisers are limited? And, who will get the dollars available? I expect that the mainstream media players will continue to be the big winners. They are already attracting major advertisers for their podcasts and can offer packages that include podcasting sponsorships as an added value.

What the numbers say:

Sky News, out of the UK, is offering video podcasts

Here's what they say you can see with your video iPod:

In this week's 7 Days programme: see the man with bionic arms... an animal version of Big Brother... the stuntman who goes up, up, and away... an Elvis celebration and a soapbox spectacular.

Here it is -- tabloid TV on your iPod!

Saw this at MicroPersuasion. It shows the demand for podcasting skills among employers as tracked by Indeed.

Steve Rubel says at the MicroPersuasion blog:

Meanwhile, demand for podcasting skills grew to Nasdaq-like proportions last year, only to crash near the end. Will the market return?

Perhaps people are realizing that podcasting is not rocket science?

Podcastsing is taking a next natural step in its development by tying into enterprise applications, hand-in-hand with blogging, its close relative and partner.

Blogs are the first to make this jump as ties to enterpirse and CRM applications are made by setting permissions to a corporate blog with access privileges to specific categories. Within these captegories, podcasts are uploaded, linked from the blog.

I have a few corporate clients who, like most anyone, just want to know the best way to use a blog or a podcast. One of these clients has a sales force that is on the road three to four days a week. One thing I recommend people in companies such as these are audits to define where may be the best fit for a blog or podcast strategy. For this holding company of heavy industrial equipment makers, their sales force needs better access to information related to new products that have higher margins. As the sales force is on the road most of the time, blogs may be less beneficial than a daily podcast that they can listen to as they are driving and trying to prepare for their next stop on their sales journey.

Podcasts can be tied in with blogs that deliver custom information from enterprise applications. And this is where a smart phome, integrated with a feed reader that can download mp3s seems like a natural evolution in how podcastng emerges as not only a wonderful consumer application but also one that provides real advantage for a mobile workforce.

Australia'a Greens leader Bob Brown is podcasting from his mobile phone. He finds it easy to go directly to people simply by pulling over in his car, getting out his mobile phone, recording a comment about an issue and then posting it directly to the web. He now has five shows since he started the effort in early December.

Seems like politcians could podcast pretty easily and a lot more frequently if they used their mobile devices just to let us know what they are thinking about. I'd like to know who is the most prolific political podcaster. Who is really making use of podcasting to be more authentic and real? Are politicians capable of creating podcasts that are real and authentic? My bet is that the list of podcasts from politicians that fit this mold is pretty short. But if you know of a podcast from a politician that really seems authentic, please let me know. I'd like to hear what they have to say.

Matt May and I are speaking about podcasting at Idea Day tonight in Seattle. The event is at ThinkSpot. Social hour begins at 7 p.m. Matt and I present at 8.

Matt May and I are speaking about podcasting at Idea Day tonight in Seattle. The event is at ThinkSpot. Social hour begins at 7 p.m. Matt and I present at 8.

Is podcasing for consumer electronics companies a way to get buzz or is it a feature set important to innovation? I just ran across a Sony announcement on TechSmec about the Vaio Home Entertainment PC, designed to use the TV as display.

They state:

The Sony VAIO VGN-XL100 is supplied with Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition for simplified access to media features as well as full PC functionality. In addition, it comes with VAIO Information Flow, a specially designed graphical interface for use at a distance from the screen. This makes interaction with the VGN-XL100 a very simple matter, and provides instant access to popular services including RSS feeds, a newsreader, podcasting, picture slideshows and the music player.

With video podcasting taking off, I'd expect we'll see similar announcements in the weeks ahead, especially with MacWorld on its way. What will be the impact on podcasting as more consumer electronics companies use podcasting to try and differentiate their products and services?

My Top 19 predictions for 2006. Mark off a few points if you will for my belated attempts but I had to follow an incredibly thought out, accurate, data intensive methodology that took me weeks to process and an hour to write down. Here ya go:

1. New podcast networks will flower like tulips in the spring. Most will just make it through one bloom.

2. I'll go fishing on the Sandy River. Podcasts, especially in music, will be the hot ticket as more people realize that you can listen to a show any time, any where you wish. That includes on the river... which helps if you are fishing below an underpass.

3. Spring will come and the video blogger boom will rumble like thunder.

4. Current.tv will fail as the network looks the other way, deciding not to embrace video blogging.

5. Hijack! Increased instances of feed jacking will shine more light on the practice of redirecting RSS feeds to third party hosts.

6. I'll move for something like the 25th time in the past five years. This time I'll write about it on a paper napkin.

7. Adam Curry will continue to listen to his father's advice and try not to pave the goat path. Eric Rice will move again in Second Life. He'll podcast from the reality world. Chris Pirillo will interview the one red paper clip guy who ends up trading his fleet of Scions for a 20,000 square foot mansion just outside of a well known war zone. Dave Winer will make another few $.

8. I'll be cursed by at least one person for my last prediction, furious yet again they were not invited to the party, mentioned in wikipedia or asked to play a character in a podcast.

9. I'll continue to thrash myself for paying up the big bucks but wireless at Starbucks will be crucial for me to keep connected. I'll continually seek out a penniless connection, hoping that by December, North America will become a free wifi utopia.

10. More people will discover OPML as they finally get that it can serve as a galaxy for millions of feeds. All you need is a magic bike to get there.

11. Web 2.0 will be known as aw2. That means alex williams squared. It's the square root of my life since discovering RSS almost three years ago, about the time lichen started growing on the web after the dot com boom's volcanic eruption in 2000. ;-)

12. Fee, fly, flow becomes a new expression. It comes from a hip hop song about RSS.

13. The FBI will discover a Cosa Nostra podcast and use it as evidence in a reality television show.

14. George Bush will lose his iPod and the NSA will try to stop the media from telling the story.

15. Conferences will continue to draw micro camps that will serve as sorts of satellite networks. A few smart producers will get it and network these camps for an extended event that balances the commercialness of traditional trade shows.

16. The podcast hardware business will grow and become a catalyst for fresh innovation in consumer electronics.

17. Better software tools for podcasting on mobile phones will help at least one company get a healthy round of venture funding.

18. Podcasts of World Cup Soccer games will garner some of the best audiences ever for a recorded sporting event.

19. I'll play indoor soccer at least once a week for Los Jugaderos. Focus is on the game. Someone else will have to do the play-by-play.

I don't know, is it me, or is the RSS icon looking like a more universal symbol? With Microsoft announcing last month that they are adopting the Firefox radar like symbol for RSS, I wonder what it will mean to people who have no clue about RSS? The little dot, is that a person telling the world about a feed? Are the radio waves a symbol for subscribing, meaning that you want that feed flowing your way?

The efforts by folks like Matt Brett over at Feed Icons will define how the RSS feed will look in the years ahead. Matt is spearheading an effort to standardize the identity for syndicated works. I like what he is doing. As part of the effort, he is asking people to download the icon so they may create one of their own in their favorite color. Matt's plans are to create a user submission gallery in 2006.

The orange xml button works for me. But I see the need to make it more of an international icon. And now I can see the icon for RSS in a rainbow of colors. Seems fitting, doesn't it?

Barney and Miss Beazley have their own video podcast. Who are these scottish terrriers? Apparently, they're the pet companions of President George Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. Check out the pictures. These dogs travel! I wonder what these dogs have witnessed in their years living inside the president's living quarters?

Saw this at iPodGuideTV:

I've reviewed some weird podcasts since I launched this site, but this one has GOT to be the strangest. From what I can tell this is the official video podcast of President Bush's dogs. Is that right? Is this what George Bush has on his iPod? Have I gone crazy? Is this my tax dollars at work? WTF?

iPodTV is one of those sites to watch if you are into the video podcast space. You'll find multiple categories, including 13 posts on video iPod directories, 12 covering animation and 22 on software.

Here is some of the news I saw there today:

* More news about BlinxTV
* Commander in Chief to be available on the iPod.
* VideoiPodder.com, a site that "scours other bittorrent sites, and posts the iPod-format video torrents it finds there, along with a few of its own."
* And TheBodcast.com -- not to be confused with Playboy's vodcast program.

Now, here's why it is smart to hire, funny, witty authors, with distinctive voices. For they don't only sound good on radio and television, they can make great podcast personalites, too.

Motel 6 has launched a podcast featuring Tom Bodett, their longtime radio and tv spokesman, famous for his deadpan, dry narratives with the cheery hometown music in the background.

The first podcast features top six reasons to stay at Motel 6 during the holiday season, with one of the reasons being, "You, not grandma's poor circulation, control the temperature."

I

Now, here's why it is smart to hire, funny, witty authors, with distinctive voices. For they don't only sound good on radio and television, they can make great podcast personalites, too.

Motel 6 has launched a podcast featuring Tom Bodett, their longtime radio and tv spokesman, famous for his deadpan, dry narratives with the cheery hometown music in the background.

The first podcast features top six reasons to stay at Motel 6 during the holiday season, with one of the reasons being, "You, not grandma's poor circulation, control the temperature."

Slapcast is down and podcasters using the service have lost their shows. It's still unclear what happened but it appears the domain has not been renewed.

Podshow, through their site, Podcast Alley, is offering to help Slapcast podcasters get their shows up and running again.

From the Podcast Alley blog:

f your podcast was hosted or controlled by SlapCast.com and you have lost your podcast… please contact me ASAP. It doesn’t make sense and we want to help you get your podcast up and running again.

Send an email to info@podcastalley.com with your show name and contact information and lets get this fixed. PodShow will be happy to help you get your podcast running again.

Yahoo! is paying tribute to Howard Stern with the Howard Nation podcast.

From Yahoo! Podcasts:

Yahoo is giving Howard's millions of fans an opportunity to say thank you for 20 years of the most amazing entertainment, share favorite memories, and wish Howard well on his move from old-fashioned terrestrial radio over to Sirius.

Google Music is getting a lot of mention today. It just seems the online music space just gets hotter with each passing day. While at the same time the traditional music industry seems to get hotter and hotter under the collar about protecting their turf. Most notably is the most recent salvo by the Music Publishers Assocation to try and stop unlicensed publishers from posting song lyrics on web sites. MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed. Wow.

Google Music sets the search giant's sites on the ever more lucrative music business, providing indexed searches for bands, lyrics to songs and music services including iTunes. Will Google be labeled a pirate for indexing sites that feature song lyrics? It doesn't seem likely but who knows when you have someone like Keiser making such inflammatory remarks.

Here's a bit on Google Music from News.com:

Google Music will allow a person to type in the name of a band, artist, album or song in the main Google search bar special, and results will appear at the top, accompanied by icons of music notes, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google.

But what will Google do, now that it is setting its aim on the ever growing online music world? In particular, how will Google use this directory to form a podcast index that competes with Yahoo!, which has so far demonstrated the most cohesive search strategy for the podcast market? Yahoo! is on a roll with its acquisition of Del.icio.us and its embrace of RSS. They launched their podcasting directory earlier in the fall. Media RSS seems to be gaining attention. They are developing audio and video search. And they have their own music store. Plus, they are focused on being an entertainment brand.

Dave Winer has posted an item that he wrote originally in June (we linked to the post at the time) that he has heard Google is preparing for an iTunes clone with RSS 2.0 to make it a competing podcast service. It's hard to see that in light of Google's apparent close ties to iTunes in Google Music.

A more likely scenario is that Google will continue its indexing strategy and leverage its power to generate revenue from related advertising.

I don't see Google as an entertainment brand. But, perhaps, this is one way for them to pursue the show biz market? Hmm. Any thoughts on this one Mr. Keiser?

It may be scrutinized about its posts for the history of podcasting but as far as science goes, Wikipedia's accuracy is on par with Britannica.

That's what Nature is reporting:

...And podcasting pioneer Adam Curry has been accused of editing the entry on podcasting to remove references to competitors' work. Curry says he merely thought he was making the entry more accurate.

However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.

So, isn't this saying that Wikipedia essentialy has its own peer review network that compares in quality to the systems and processes the encyclopedia folks follow? And so why are we flapping about Wikipedia? What about the millions of bloggers and podcasters who flout all kinds of questionably accurate statements?

What is the best way to podcast a written article? The problem Joi Ito's Web is pondering: How do you best express quotes in spoken form?

Quote, end quote is a common radio style when reading quotes from a newspaper article.

I like what one commenter said....

Pinch you nose and use a funny voice.

Perfect. :-).

Penguin is planning to podcast the Charles Dickens classic: 'A Christmas Carol.' It's the publisher's first foray into podcasting.

From Revolution:

The Dickens podcast will be in five instalments running on December 15-16 and December 19-21 and read by the actor Geoffrey Palmer, best known for his roles in 'Butterflies', 'As Time Goes by' and 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin'.

Like other publishers, the foray into podcasting is sparking ideas for how to use the new medium to promote authors, unpublished works and new authors.

My favorite video catching hack now comes from Yahoo!, thanks to the search engine giant's acquisition of Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking service.

For months, Del.icio.us has been a chief discovery tool for me to find new video and audio. It's always refreshing to see what pops up.

Last night I saw a parody of Steve Jobs introduce the "invisible iPod," on SNL's Weekend Update. I saw Jelly D, the rapping pastry. He's a guy dressed up as a jelly donut who made it to the semi's of a freestyle rapping competition in Oakland. A woman sang and played the harp with an animated blackboard featurng sailing ships and flying doves. I saw a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in his younger days as Mr. Universe on a trip to Carnivale in Rio where he teaches a Brazilian woman some new words using a carrot stick as a prop. A quite insightful look at the California governor.

I've watched a Green Day music video "When September Comes," and "Some Postman," by Presidents of the United States of America.

I don't ever know what will appear. It all depends on what people post to Del.icio.us. The Del.icio.us hack works like this:

I go to Del.icio.us and look for tag words associated with the file format I am searching. For instance, I started watching music videos in June over my desktop. I first created an addres: http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mov

I then added a tag: "music video." The url looks like this. The tag is in bold: http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mov+musicvideo

The address takes you to the web page where you may subscribe to ther RSS feed: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:filetype:mov+musicvideo

Copy the RSS feed into iTunes (under avanced) and the videos start appearing as people post to Del.icio.us according to the tag "music video."

In podcasting, still one of the greatest challenges comes as more people start making shows. What is worth watching? Recommendations help. And recommendations through tags works beautifully.

Tags also help extend the meaning of a podcast. I can subscribe to shows I like through podcast directories or by visiting the individual's site. Chris Pirillo, Adam Curry, Rocketboom are all in my iTunes because I have subscribed to their feeds.

But with tags I can listen to podcasts that perhaps may not even have their own RSS feeds. They are collections of links that are either audio or video files that people have tagged. Del.icio.us does the job of providing the RSS feed. And through that process, I am opened up to a whole new universe of shows and programs that appear automatically in iTunes, the same way as a traditional podcast.

What does this mean for Yahoo!? It means that they have an advantage as far as I can tell in the podcasting space. I can use services like Del.icio.us to discover new shows. It also adds value to iTunes in it keeps me going there to see what funky new stuff is showing up. And it takes me out of the traditional podcast paradigm. I am now consuming shows that may not necessarily fit the standard podcast construct. They may not even have RSS feeds. And I am getting grass roots media that is recommended by people, not editors. It's not that I don't like editor recommendations. But I often find that everyone is an editor thes days. So, why should I limit myself to what the traditional mediia suggests?

I love to use Del.icio.us hacks. Do you have one?

Earthlink is advertising in the Washington Post's video podcasts.

What a strage world it must be for newspaper executives these days. They face an aging readership and a product that costs a relative fortune to produce.

Seems to make sense that video podcasts would be worth the investment for a newspaper, huh?

Ever watch Rocketboom? Now you can get it on Tivo. Now, who says that original material can't make it in the world of big media? Repurposed? Not Rocketboom. The Rocketboom folks are at the roots of the grass roots media juggernaut. And now, they're moving into a new universe. I wonder what they get out of this?

Good to see a grass roots players get a little love. All the big media seem to love this new medium. But they are the repurposing kings. They're not Rocketboom.

Subscribe.

Just saw a post about the Playboy Bodcast. Still not convinced that video podcasting won't bring more riches to the porn biz?

From Sawf News Connect:

Playboy.com today announced launch of its own sexy spin on the popular podcasting craze. The new "Playboy Bodcast" will enable consumers on-the-go to download online video features from Playboy.com directly to portable players like Apple's new iPod Video.

The "Bodcasts" will be updated every weekday and will contain the following online video features:

* Joke of the Day -- joke delivered by a Playboy model.
* Ask Hef Anything -- offers wit and wisdom from Mr. Playboy, Hugh Hefner.
* From the Mouths of Babes -- provides advice from Playboy's sexy Cyber Girls.

Check out this eyetracking study of web video. The conclusion, talking heads are boring to watch online. People check out the controls, headlines and even a trash can. The answer may be that people want action and movement.

Interesting conclusion:

Since the Web's beginning, I've warned against repurposing. The initial problem was that companies simply put up advertising brochures as websites. Later, newspapers and other content sites failed to follow the guidelines for writing for the Web and used headlines that were optimized for print. Now, as technology evolves, we're seeing the same phenomenon for yet another media type: you can't recycle video and expect to create a good online user experience.

Saw over at MicroPersuasion that editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have named podcast as the word of the year. (Steve notes that Oxford American has a blog but not a podcast.)

My question: Now, how does Oxford American's choice of words affect the history of podcasting? Will this be a marked moment?

Check out podcasting and some of the other top words in their press release. I find the first three haunting:

bird flu (an often fatal flu virus of birds, esp. poultry, that is transmissible from them to humans, in whom it may also prove fatal)

ICE (an entry stored in one's cellular phone that provides emergency contact information)

IDP (internally displaced person; someone forced to relocate within a country because of a natural disaster or civil unrest)

And these uplifting:

lifehack (a more efficient or effective way of completing an everyday task: "I found a great lifehack for getting a cheap hotel room.")

reggaeton (a Latin American dance music which combines elements of reggae music with hip-hop and rap.)

RSS, now there's a great lifehack.

Sunshine has a way of revealing the dark shadows below the surface. The rays shine, showing so much of something you could not see before. Ever see a great fish swim by deep in a river pool? All you can see is its dark shadow. But sometimes, when the light is right, you can see the whole shape of the fish. It's spots, rainbows and sometimes, a scar or two from a battle long ago.

I guess that is why I am watching, looking for what the sunshine reveals about podcasting and its history. With just a little sunshine, I am learning more about the shadows below the surface, the ones that say so much about the players involved, but also the podcasting community, myself included. ( Interesting take on this in Adam Curry Daily Source Code.)

I can't judge these guys, Adam Curry nor Dave Winer and each of their takes on the history of podcasting. More so, I wonder, what does this debate mean for all of us as the history of podcasting continues to unfold? How are these past events shaping what happens today?

For instance, with a bit more sunshine. I am getting some glimmer of what happened between Adam and Dave almost a year ago in Miami. I now have some understanding for why suddenly, after talk of being like brothers, Adam and Dave inexplicably split, with nary a mention of each other and what had come to pass.

Here's what Dave had to say on his road trip to Miami, dated Dec. 28, 2004. This is from a cached page on Google. I would link to the original post but Dave's archives for this time period seem to be down. Here's what he says:

Anyway, talking with Adam yesterday I remarked that people seem to like getting ideas from him, but they don't like getting them from me. Then I talked with Scoble at length, and he said something similar about himself, that he works hard to be liked, and that I don't. The weird thing is that Scoble is just beginning to get the taste of people not liking him, but any good editor will tell you something's wrong if you're a reporter and everyone likes you. And if we're citizen journalists, I guess we have to get used to this. Anyway, it's really hard to get motivated to deliver more innovative shit, knowing that it's going to be just as hard the 53rd time to get people to suspend their disbelief as it was the 1st. It's not surprising that Fortune skipped our contribution. I'm constantly written out of the story of my creative life. Should I continue? Why? This is one of the things I'm thinking about while driving.

And in the next post...

BTW, I love Adam and Scoble like brothers.

(A note on this, Dave and Adam had known each other for almost four years, dating back to this post, when Dave talked about meeting Adam and the brainstorming session they had about what Dave termed virtual bandwidth.)

Dave traveled on to Miami, meeting Adam, Ron Bloom and others in early January. The four days that followed, lead to a split. From Curry.com::

For days we had heated discussions about the future of Podcasting and it was clear that the differences of opinion were vast.

It was also clear that no one from the group (which included 2 investors) wanted to work with Dave but me. It was a very uncomfortable time for me, and at the end of the week I told Dave I wasn't interested in setting up a business anymore if we couldn't get the business people on board. He freaked out (in a restaurant) and demanded that if I got a television show out of the press at the time, that I would have to pay him his 'share' and drove away without saying goodbye. That event made me realize I had made a wise decision. Some people you just don't want to be in business with.

Podshow, which was started months after the Miami meeting, is not the company Dave and I discussed and it wouldn't be where it is today if we had followed Dave's vision. In fact, he shunned the entire idea and even the name outright. We made a clean break in Miami and Dave apparently can't accept that.

Part of the 'work' that Dave and I did under our so called 50/50 agreement was on audio.weblogs.com, which I promoted relentlessly. Where's my piece of the $2.3 million that Dave received for it? He didn't even have the courtesy to toss a bone to the server admin he promised to 'make whole' upon a sale for setting up the infrastructure gratis. And there are more Winer stories like this flowing into my email box.

All of this is not a "whatever," kind of issue. It's not about these guys making fools of themselves. It's about us all and what is happening as the stakes get higher as more money gets into podcasting. I disagree that someone needs to tell these guys to behave. That's not anyone's job.

If we did look at it as an issue about behavior then we'd all be a bunch of drones, minding our manners, making sure all is secure and quiet. Instead, we're discusing the issue. Look at what has come out of the entire debate:

* Dave has repeatedly been critical of Wikipedia in his blog posts about the podcast revisionist issue. The discussion has surfaced all kinds of debate about the online encyclopedia. In response, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder, has decided that anonymous articles may not be created at Wikipedia.

* The debate about podcast revisionism is flowing more sunshine into who out there really are the pioneers, the ones who started creating new applications and services as well as the foundation for what a podcast should be.

So,I say, bring on the sunshine. Let the discussion grow, weeds and all.

The RSS Hijacking story is getting a bit more sunshine now that the folks at Podkeywords are giving their side of the story.

A lot of questions to answer. I'll have more later as I am traveling.

Here are a few posts to read:

Podkeyword's response, which includes, a post from Kevin Devin, who comes to Podkeyword's defense. David Lawrence is under the belief that George is getting a bad rap. He will have George as a guest tonight on his radio show to discuss what has happened. See the Podkeyword blog for info on time and how it can be heard.

In particular, look at the list of podkeyword users that has been posted. Are you on this list? Are you having the same problems or is this not an issue at all?

Also, see Collette Vogel's follow up. She is taking Erik as a client over this issue.

BackBeat Media has started a podcast network, signing Coverville, Evil Genius Chronicles and the Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab.
From MacObserver:

"We have six years of experience working with web publishers so it is a natural transition for us to work with podcasters who need business and advertising support," said Dave Hamilton, cofounder of BackBeat Media, iPO, and TMO, and cohost of The Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab, in a statement. "With the formation of the BackBeat Media Podcast Network, we can bring that experience to a new medium while offering advertisers an additional channel to connect with a smart and savvy consumer base."

Look out, the RSS Hijackers are here. News comes that podcasters may be vulnerable to people who steal RSS feeds.

Collette Vogel at the Center for Internet and Society recounts the experience of Erik Marcus, the podcaster responsible for Vegan.com and his show, "Erik's Diner." Apparently, Erik lost 75 percent of his readership to an RSS Hijacker.

Erik writes to Collette:

RSS hijacking is different [from domain hijacking]. Most podcasters/bloggers are not technically savvy, and the technique used for hijacking their feeds doesn’t involve swiping passwords or overt illegal methods. Rather, it merely involves finding a target podcast, and creating your own unique URL for it on a website you control. You then point your URL to the RSS feed of the target podcast. Next, you do what it takes to make sure that as new podcast search engines come to market, the page each engine creates for your target podcast points to your URL instead of the podcast creator’s official URL.

The problem comes down to this. RSS Hijackers are sneaky. And most podcasters are doing their shows, not checking to see if their original url is in the podcast directories. Collette writes::

Since the URL points to their RSS feed, everything works fine and listeners will be able to hear their show through iTunes, Yahoo, etc.” The RSS hijacker can then sit back back for months or year letting “the target continue to grow his/her show’s listenership

So years can go by and then the hijacker strikes:

At some point, [the hijacker] can then spring out of the woodwork and demand payment from [the] target [podcaster].” The podcaster is “supremely vulnerable”, because the hijacker can at any moment change URL pointer to any other show of the hijacker’s desire and the target podcaster’s audience will “vanish.”

How do you stop this? Collette has a few suggestion:

1. You should check all the podcast directories and search engines to be sure that their RSS feeds are pointing to your official URL/RSS feed. (Though, in iTunes and possibly others, this information may not be readily available or obvious.) 2. If you learn of a hijacking, you can write to the hijacker and demand that she or he stop their conduct. 3. You can also write to the podcast directories and search engines to point out the bad actor’s conduct. 4. And, of course, you can consult a lawyer about possible claims against the hijacker.

I orginally found a post to the RSS Hijacking issue over at Om Malik's blog. The comments from his post shed some light on this issue.

John Furrier gets the podcast exclusive about the Yahoo! announcement for RSS in Yahoo! Mail and Alerts. John is convincing folks that it does make sense to launch a new product with a podcast. A few reasons why this makes sense:

* I can listen to the interview, which provides a bit more context to the news release
* I can use it as a comparison to the other blog postings about the announcement
* I can quickly go through the transcript, again to find insights into why the announcement makes sense

I see over at Red Herring that Walt Disney Disney and Clear Channel are getting intio the iPod advertising game. What's going to get onto these iPods? It looks like movie clips from Disney's Chronicles of Narnia and Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh.

But it is still such a tiny market out there. But the question is, how big will it get? And how fast will it happen? According to eMarketer, spending on online video advertising is expected to triple in the next two years, rising to about $640 million. By 2010, it could hit $1.5 billion.

But how does online video advertising fit as a segment of the total online advertising market? Here are some numbers from Jupiter Reseasrch I saw at ClickZ article from earlier this year:

Online video advertising is a tiny segment of the overall market, drawing a scant $121 million in spending last year compared with $9.5 billion for all online media, according to JupiterResearch. Other stats show Web video ad spending represents just under a tenth of a percent of the $250 billion total U.S. ad market.

But look at the market and you'll see Internet properties with audiences rivaling some cable networks. Sure, but I keep thinking how advertising will affect the original work that people are noe producing. What will advertising do to the fresh outlook of all these backyard producers?

I'll keep watching as long as folks keep mixing it up. So if anyone has a mashup with Rush Limbaugh appearing in the Chronicles of Narnia, please let me know. That's a backyard mix I'd love to see.

Via Scoble, I see that Amy Gahran has added 40 new shows to her women in podcasting list, bringing the total to 120. She posts the list as an OPML file.

Here's what she says about the list:

When I first converted this list from a maintenance nightmare (HTML page) to an OPML outline, I discovered that nearly half of the shows originally listed are now defunct. However, I still have a huge backlog of new suggestions to plow through. As a rough estimate, I think that when I’ve caught up with the by backlog of suggestions, about 100 or more shows will be on the current list.

What I like about this list? It's an updated source of shows edited by someone who cares about the topic. I trust it. Perhaps with OPML gaining more traction, more folks will keep podcast lists such as these as they appear to be easier to maintain than updating HTML files. I just started fiddling with the OPML editor, so perhaps I'm off, but for non-programmers like myself, creating an OPML list or outline looks far less ghastly then editing an HTML document. Now all I do is to learn how to make it look decent. :-).

JD Lasica rounds up some conversation on the distinction between videoblogs and video podcasts.

Hey, all -- Happy Thanksgivng to all of you out there. Enjoy.