www.JaneYouIgnorantSlut.com

Older readers will remember the “Point/Counterpoint” segment on 60 Minutes. The liberal Shana Alexander would sqauare off against the conservative James J. Kilpatrick (they tried it again in 2003 with Clinton and Dole but it sucked).

My pals Darin, John and Scott are talking about doing a podcast based (loosely) on this idea. Darin is somewhere out in William F. Buckley land and John sort of neo-sixties liberal. I think Scott will serve as moderator. I’m trying to be supportive but… I don’t know. We’ve heard so much polticial talk in recent years, it feels like it’s all been said. Which suggests a different approach.

The lads make a list of the 25 most important issues facing the country. They each go into a studio and record 2 minute rants on each topic and plug the audio files into an online database (at “JaneYouIgnorantSlut.com”).

Visitors select a news story from one of the top five of the day (“George Bush visits Afghanistan and Pakistan”)…click a button…the website generates ten questions and randomly selects 10 rants from each pundit…and strings it altogether. Instant podcast!

The guys won’t have to sweat over a hot microphone every week and no one will ever know.

Blog phone

Sony Ericsson has introduced a couple of new Cyber-shot digital camera phones that come with 3.2-megapixel cameras and are designed to work with Blogger. Snap a picture…bada-bing…it’s on your blog. The cameras are equipped with more goodies than most manual cameras, including autofocus, red-eye reduction, digital zoom and a flash. They also come with a music player, video player, FM radio, push e-mail, a memory stick slot and 64MB of internal memory. Google will also be made the standard search engine on all Sony Ericsson phones with Internet access. [Thanks, Morris]

iPod Hi-Fi

Fill your home with sound, not stereo components. Keep your music collection at your fingertips, not in countless CD cases. Change the way you experience digital music. For $349, iPod Hi-Fi delivers crystal-clear, audiophile-quality sound in a clean, compact design.

Might have to have me one of these. We probably turn our stereo on 3 or 4 times a year. I think I read that Apple has sold 10 million iPods. If 1% of them buy one of these… 100,000 at $350?

Rural broadband on the rise

“Rural Americans are less likely to log on to the internet at home with high-speed internet connections than people living in other parts of the country. By the end of 2005, 24% of adult rural Americans went online at home with high-speed internet connections compared with 39% of adults in urban and suburban areas.”

— Pew Internet & American Life Project of high-speed Internet access in rural America

Seven in 10 watching TV news?

That’s one of the findings in a new Harris Poll of about 3,000 U.S. adults.

While broadcast television news appears to be the most popular medium sought, many adults also get their news several times a week or daily by going online to get news (64%), reading a local daily newspaper (63%), listening to radio news broadcasts (54%), listening to talk radio stations (37%), listening to satellite news programming (19%), and reading a national newspaper (18%).

Update: Table on Media Usage from Radio Business Report. The most disturbing stat? Radio news tied with online in the 59+ group. Shudder.

Media Usage