smays.com

Let me 'splain it to you one mo time.

Michael Bazeley, writing in the Mercury News (My Very Own Radio Station), does the best job of 'splaining the podcasting thing I've come across:

"Thanks to a new technology called podcasting, I've turned my iPod into a personalized radio station, loading it with talk shows and cutting edge music that I'd never be able hear on traditional radio stations. It's transformed my listening habits overnight. Although it's new, I'm convinced podcasting will transform the way many people consume media, just as blogging and TiVo have. When you can program your own radio station, carry it with you anywhere and pause and restart it at will, who needs mainstream, advertising-supported broadcast radio?"

His piece quotes Doc Searls who believes:

"Podcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it as well."

Hey, I'm just posting this shit so I can say I told you so.

Three years (minus two days)

On Thursday, I will have been "...writing some of this down" for three years. More than 1,000 thoughts, notes, links, rants, reviews and random ravings. I couldn't have imagined sticking with it this long and I can't imagine ever stopping. I'll be 57 next month so I could easily have another 25 years of blogging ahead.

I tell new bloggers that the first 48 hours will tell the tale. If you're gonna get the bug, you'll get it within those first couple of days. And if you're not hooked by then, it's probably not for you. My friend Jeff hit the Blog Road running and never looked back. Chuck is amped by the business possibilities. David fought it as long as he could. And XM Ben is still in pre-launch mode.

Not everybody I know is blogging. Just some of the more interesting people I know.

Tough book.

Just slogged through 800+ pages of Neal Stephenson's The Confusion (Volume Two of the Baroque Cyclel). I enjoyed it more than the previous sentence would suggest but I found it a tough read. With another 1,000 pages ahead of me in Volume Three.

Tough movie.

Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby was sort of Rocky meets Terms of Endearment. [Spoiler ahead] I excused myself before the first amputation and watched air-hockey in the lobby. I don't do movies where people die on respirators. I don't do animal movies. Sorry.

March Madness on Demand.

CSTV.com will offer live and on-demand streaming video of up to the first 56 NCAA Tournament games through the Regional semifinals as well as streaming video of interviews, pre-and post-game press conferences, and video highlights. Local-market webcasts of games broadcast by CBS will be blacked out. [More at E-Media Tidbits]

Blane Mays.

My brother Blane has returned from Banda Aceh to his home in Bandar Lampung, following two weeks of helping with the tsunami disaster relief effort. He will return to the areas for a couple of weeks at a time between now and June when he returns to the states for six months. It is still unclear how long foreigners will be allowed in the area, which has been closed to same for the past five years and only opened because of the tsunami.

Pod-Think.

Consultant John Silliman Dodge recently offered broadcasters his "iPod approach" to programming and marketing radio. In a recent article for FMQB he asks:

"Look at your 21st century customer: Blackberry in one hand, iPod in the other, and a cell phone on the belt. Ask yourself the defining question: how does my radio station fit into this person's life?"

Not-quite famous people from Kennett.

A recent entry in the Sundance Film Festival, Hustle & Flow -- written and directed by Memphis native Craig Brewer, and produced by John Singleton-- has been purchased by Paramount.

"Djay is a pimp suffering a midlife crisis and although nominally successful, he yearns to record his flow and become a respected rapper. Galvanized by a gospel song, he sets his dream in motion--recruiting his motley crew and building a studio in his home. And though he succeeds in putting his rap, "It's Hard for a Pimp," onto tape, the barriers to fame and fortune are many, and getting there becomes an elusive goal."

Kennett Senior Correspondent Viretta, proudly reports that her baby boy, Luke, worked on the soundtrack. She adds that she's not bothered that the film is about "pimps & ho's."

45 degree plunge

Barb and sister Jan are in Destin for a week. Checking on the house and hoping for some warm weather. Doesn't look good. Technorati search took us to Cliff's Travels 2005 who reports a 45 degree plunge over night:

"The temperature when I got here was 73 degrees. This morning it had plunged to 28. No hike on the beach this morning. I am off to the west looking for warm and sunshine."

Didn't spend enough time on Cliff's blog to get to know him but his "About Me" sounded interesting:

"At 64 I am ready for the game to begin. This winter I will tour by pickup truck, bike and foot for six weeks. Then I will bicycle 3000 or so miles before summer. After that?????"

I like your attitude, Cliff. Let the games begin!

Uma Thurman and I are the same height.

Compare your height to famous people at Tall or Not. [via BoingBoing]

Podcast ad nauseum.

"In less than six months, more than 2,000 podcasters have sprung up. Eventually an iPod-like device will have a subscription capability built in so you won't even need to be tethered to a computer. It's not hard to imagine an iPod with WiFi capabilities that could become a radio with no geographic limits." [Dave Winer in MTV.com story]

The internet is the network no one owns.

That jumped out of a post by Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine and --at first glance-- it seems too obvious to mention. But the company I work for was started by a man who built and owned (owns) a radio network. He didn't own the radio stations but he owned the network that provided them content (news, sports, ag). Others might have been able to produce the content but (back then) had no affordable way to deliver that content to the radio stations. When our founder put in a satellite uplink, we had an even greater advantage. Faster, cheaper, better quality.

We still have the satellite uplink and the downlinks and we work with more radio stations than ever. But more and more of our content is now "delivered" to our affiliated stations via the internet. Very close to not needing the satellite system at all. If we were starting the company today, it would almost certainly be web-based. And the podcast explosion is sure to add another interesting dimension.

Other nuggets from Jeff Jarvis' post:

* The audience often knows the news before we report it.
* A blog is a little First Amendment machine (Jay Rosen)
* Google is a brand killer. People find what they want from any source and don't credit or remember the source.

Report from Indonesia.

My sister-in-law called from Indonesia this week with a report on my brother, Blane. He's somewhere in the Aceh province of northern Indonesia, helping coordinate relief efforts.

Most of the cell towers were destroyed so calling home (1,000 miles to the south) is iffy, but Tonya got a call a few days ago. Blane says it's far worse than anything shown on CNN. And the corruption is beyond description.

Because he speaks the language and knows the culture, his role seems to be more one of coordination than hands on. But it's ugly, stressful work. They only allow team members to do body recovery for a couple of days at a time before rotating to other tasks. No shit.

He's scheduled to return to Bandar Lampung late this week and we're praying for safe return. On a brighter note... I learned that he, Tonya and the kids will return to the US (Tulsa) in June. Every four years, they return for six months furlough. I'm sure he will have some amazing stories to share.

Lucy the Hell Hound

While you were sleeping.

Clever invite to Brett's annual Ground Hog Day Party.

Howard Dean lost in Iowa...
Donald Trump had a hit TV show...
So did Paris Hiltenon...
The US baseball team didn't make the Olympics...
Somebody actually claimed that goofy X-Prize...
Martha Stewart went to jail...
The Red Sox won the World Series...

Wake Up!

NFL podcasts.

The National Football League has a deal to make recordings of this year's remaining playoff games available for portable audio players (iPods, etc). The recordings will be available for purchase at iTunes and other sites that sell audio over the Internet.

If someone made a movie of your life...

would you pay to see it? This is probably a very old concept but I hadn't heard it before someone mentioned it last night at dinner. It's just the sort of navel-gazing question that's sure to haunt me. But I think it might be a trick question. When they make the movie of Scott Peterson's life (and they will), it's likely to be pretty interesting but I'm not sure Scott will want to see it. I wonder if the question is asked to validate a lot of stupid, risky life-choices. Can you get a feature-length film out of the 3 minutes you're robbing the convenience store at gunpoint? Can I find 90 minutes of good material in my life? Maybe if we do a documentary. Or a mockumentary. Working titles:

* My Life At General Motors
* Return from Voodoo Village
* Private Party Probe

Photos of old industrial buildings.

The Crystal Ballroom in the King Edward Hotel. The hotel was built in the early 1900's for the 'social elite'. It has sat unused for over 30 years.

More David Sedaris.

I'm a big fan of this very funny guy. Found samples of his stuff on NPR.org.

More radios!

I seem to have radio (past and future) on the brain. Spotted links to some vintage photos (by Arlette and The Rocketeer) at iloveradio.org.

More offensive!

Prince Harry is in deep doo-doo for wearing a nazi arm band to a costume party. Looks like part of his punishment will be a trip to Auschwitz. Damn. If he had been attedning our Halloween parties in 1978 or 1979, he'd have caught a lot less shit, simply because there were so many more offensive costumes in the house. Harry: Wear a mask next time.

More ink!

One of the half-dozen regular readers of smays.com recently asked me if I had a thing about tattoos (or something to that effect). I said I didn't think so and he pointed out that I've posted several times on the subject (I found six posts). We talked about tattoos for a while and I realized I was --in fact-- a little fascinated (can I be a 'little' fascinated?) with the idea. No, I don't have a tattoo and can't imagine getting one (inability to commit). So, here's one more post on the subject (by way of BoingBoing): Tian translates hipster chinese character tattoos by people who have no idea what they mean. Wait! One more. Texas Prison Tattoos.

More chocolate!

Last two weeks busier than any in recent memory. Gotta go back to the early days at radio station to recall working harder. Lots of 12 hour days but loving every mouse click.

Terminal town.

Doc Searls took this photo of the the California mudslide. Who --in their right mind-- would build a house there?

The Wages of Sucking is Death.

Won't someone please point me to a positive story about (what we've started calling) "terrestrial" radio? Mabye it's just media dog-piling but everytime I click my mouse, someone is predicting (or declaring) the death of radio. Alyce Lomax (The Motley Fool) is pissed and sad at the passing of (Thursday) of Washington D.C. radio station WHFS.

"Radio, as we've known it, is dead. The news about HFS obviously struck a chord with me, but with satellite radio, Internet radio, and things like Apple's iTunes (or even the iPod Shuffle!) revolutionizing music and giving listeners more options than ever before, chances are it won't be missed."

Okay, Alyce is entitled to her opinion. Now, where are those positive stories about radio?

FarmPolicy.com

Keith Good solves the "not enough hours in the day to blog" problem by getting up at 4:00 a.m. I talked to him this morning (10 min) about his blog, FarmPolicy.com, which deals with U. S. agriculture policy. A really good example of the kind of citizen journalism (or publishsing, if you prefer) that's transforming and challenging mainstream media.

Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.

Nokia's snazzy new 6620 gives Internet radio its due. It boasts plenty of impressive video features, including a still camera that produces surprisingly good photos. But it's the radio, available on a service through AT&T Wireless -- now part of Cingular -- that sets it apart. Why is the radio so important? Because it's live. Viable live TV on handsets is at least a couple of years away. Radio works right now.

Big remodeling project at work.

I'm trying to take one photo every day and then do some kind of time-lapse thing at the end. Not much to see during the demolition phase but it might be cool by this summer.

More buckets!

The work is coming in much faster than I can keep up with. Leaving more undone every day. Really cutting into surfing and blogging time. Looks like I might wrap up Year Number Three as a week-end'er. There IS a pony in here somewhere.

The future is here.

Max Headroom introduced us to Blipverts. "High-speed commercials condensed into a few seconds that prevent channel changing and embed themselves in viewer's minds. Sometimes they cause the heads of viewers to explode. "

On January 15, Cadillac will launch a series of five second commercials to illustrate the speed of its cars which can accelerate from zero to 60 in that short time. The ads include a voiceover which says, "How fast? That Fast." [Adrants]

If I had to pick three.

Janis Ian's Between the Lines and the self-titled Phoebe Snow and Elton John.

Cold. Damned cold.

Nice image showing aftermath of ice storm in Kansas City.

Whitehouse Barber Shop

So much in life is transient that I find it comforting to focus on the constants when I find them. Donna has been cutting my hair since 1984.

Blane Mays.

My brother is now in Northern Sumatra and heads to Aceh on Wednesday. He reports:

"The death toll is greatly underestimated by CNN and other news organizations because hundred of thousands of bodies are under rubble. The figure is closer to 300,000 dead. Please pray for me and the other workers who are trying to bring comfort and hope to the survivors."

"Please pray for these first teams who will be helping remove bodies that are badly decomposed; that our community development foundation will be able to quickly install clean water units; that the cease fire will hold between Acehnese rebels and the govt. Also, our teams will not be taken hostage or caught in crossfire."

Roger that.

Getting in front of the parade.

CNET has an interesting story on Clear Channel's Internet plans: "Radio analysts say Clear Channel, along with other broadcast radio stations, is being pushed online and toward new technologies by a fragmentation of its own market and by growing competition from satellite radio. Mix the power of Internet radio with those new delivery tools, and terrestrial radio begins to look increasingly fragile, unless it's online too, some observers worry."

New news network?

"As the network anchors drummed their manicured fingers, waiting for correspondents to parachute into position, the sketchy wire reports were supplanted by real-life, as-it-was-happening stories by bloggers who penned moving first-person accounts. This is as real-time as news can get. Weblogs, which started out as online diaries, have morphed into reporters' notebooks. The information is raw -- and perhaps unpolished when compared with news from more established outlets -- but it is nonetheless news."

I had the same thought as I read some of the early, first-hand accounts of the disaster. I don't know if it was journalism but it was sure interesting. Article at Business 2.0

Blog explosion.

Jeff Jarvis summarizes some amazing stats on the growth of blogs, from the latest Pew Internet and American Life study:

* 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people.

* 27% of internet users say they read blogs, a 58% jump from the 17% who told us they were blog readers in February. This means that by the end of 2004 32 million Americans were blog readers.

The same study reports only 38% of all internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term blog means. That 62% is in daily contact with me.

iPodderX

I've posted before on the challenge of coming up with an image or icon that symbolizes radio. Typically, the TV news networks will use a microphone or a VU meter when they do a story about radio. What does a radio look like these days?

I was reminded of this today when I came across the new logo for iPodderX (a piece of software for receiving Podcasts), designed (the logo, not the software) by one of my favorite designers, Bryan Bell.

Totally Wicked.

I've been saying I don't care for animated movies, but must start saying I don't care for animated movies not made by Pixar. The Incredibles was --as the little boy said at the end-- "totally wicked!" I had to keep reminding myself what I was seeing on the screen was not real. Someday we will be able to imerse ourselves in a virtual reality that won't be quite "real" but maybe a little "better" than real. I can't wait.

RIP antenna.

The DirecTV folks are sending out a tech to upgrade my receivers and add a dish so I can receive all local channels. I really don't give a shit about the local programming but have grown weary of futzing with antennas. So I'll pay the extra couple of bucks a month to watch ABC News and CSI (and Tivo through every local spot.)

Concrete TV.

I've only watched Episode 6 but fear I am addicted. Won't find this on Columbia/Jefferson City public access.

"Concrete Ron describes himself as "perhaps the greatest video editor of all time", and anyone who's ever caught Concrete TV on Manhattan public access television over the last decade or so probably wouldn't argue: a typical episode incorporates vintage porn movies, 80s aerobics videos, car crash footage, Hong Kong shoot-em-ups, old commercials, beefcake reels, pro wrestling smackdowns, cheesy B-movie moments, sex education films, random explosions, wet t-shirt contests, and plenty of "raw emotion, euphoria, physical collision, glee, fantasy, despair, and discomfort" in one noisy, violent, sexy, and brilliantly edited pop culture/infoporn mashup." [Fleshbot via Boing Boing]

So easy.

By midday Friday, more than 100,000 people had donated more than $8 million via Amazon.com. I used their One-Click feature to make a small contribution. One good deed to start the year. Thank you, Amazon. Sad Truth Department: I don't trust governments (including ours). I don't trust the UN. I do trust Amazon.com. They've never failed me.

Total peace

A friend points us to an amazing story in Friday's Kansas City Star about a woman who --as a child-- was shot in the face with a deer rifle at point blank range by the 11 year-old brother of a friend. Samantha, the 10 year-old girl, ran from the house following the shooting and stopped at a sign post.

"Neurobiologists explain it as the alarmed brain pooling with endorphins. But at the signpost, her eyes on a blue autumn sky, Samantha has what she calls 'a God experience,' 'an infusion of information' that some call trancendence. No voices. No visions. No sounds. Just a spiritual understanding that hurt and beauty and life are inseperarable. To truly live is to accept all. Samantha at that sign post suddently feels bathed in 'total peace, comfort and unconditional love."

Samantha's story didn't end there and it's still being written. Worth a read as he begin this new year.