(Almost) End of Deadwood

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Since the beginning of this season of Deadwood, I’ve been wondering if this is the end. Scott points us to the answer at TVseriesFinale.com.

When it was announced that HBO would we cutting the series short after three seasons, fans signed petitions, took out an ad in Variety, sent letters and made calls indicating that they would cancel their HBO subscriptions at the end of Deadwood’s third season (next week). http://www.savedeadwood.net/

As a result, Deadwood will return next season, but instead of a full-blown 12-episode season to complete the series, HBO and (creator) Milch will instead produce a pair of two-hour movies.

Milch has said that he wasn’t in favor of doing a six-episode season because each episode of Deadwood has typically represented one day in the lives of the characters and South Dakota area. Shifting to two-hour movies will allow him to break that format and to be able to complete the storytelling he had for the final season.

Podcast monetization

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From Podcasting News:

“About.com, a New York Times property, has launched a sponsored medical podcast about heartburn and acid reflux. Each podcast will be approximately three to five minutes long and will be introduced monthly. The series –the first of its kind on About.com– is sponsored by AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company that makes Prilosec and Nexium heartburn and acid reflux medications.”The podcasts allow us to provide educational information to patients in a unique and creative way,” said Dana Settembrino, brand communications manager, AstraZeneca.

Topics to be covered include: What Causes Heartburn; Acid Reflux and Your Diet; How to Talk to Your Doctor about Acid Reflux; Exercising with Acid Reflux; and How Stress Affects Your Acid Reflux.

According to Marjorie Martin, general manager, ABOUT Health, “Podcasts provide an exciting new format for delivering trusted health information. Users can now choose to listen online or take the information with them. This series on heartburn and acid reflux disease should provide the millions of sufferers with the tools to better manage their condition.”

Dr. Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H. is the program’s host. “Dr. Mona” is a quadruple board-certified practicing physician and Emmy award-winning medical correspondent.”

We covered heartburn on the Living Healthy Podcast back in February.

I find Henry’s conversational style more to my taste than Dr. Mona’s scripted read, but I’m hardly objective. Would love to know what AsstraZeneca is paying for this and their expectations. But one can assume they think this makes more sense than 30’s and 60’s. About.com seems like a good fit. You go looking for info on heartburn…and find a podcast on the subject.

But how sustainable is this? I think sponsoring something with broader topic scope might make more sense.

Prairie Garden Trust Podcast

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Tin CansMy friend Henry Domke has produced and posted the first Prairie Garden Trust Podcast. Friends and supporters of PGT can now get regular updates via podcast. While I’m not exactly an “outdoorsy” guy, I’m stoked about Henry using this new technology. He invested a couple of hundred bucks in a podcast starter set (mics, mixer, headphones, etc) and is using GarageBand3 (MacBook) to produce. In a matter of hours, he had his first show online, ready for subscribers. His first show has a couple of rough edges but he’ll smooth those out as he goes.

In The Old Days, he might have tried to find a radio station that would give him (sell him?) some time on a Sunday morning. Today, he’s global. Anybody, anytime, anywhere. If they care about his topic, they can listen. Still another example of The Long Tail at work. No topic is too obscure. If one person cares enough to produce the show … and one cares enough to listen, the costs of production and distribution are so close to zero, there is no barrier to getting started.

Record Skype calls. Easy.

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Call RecorderCall Recorder from ecamm network provides a really simple, inexpensive ($13) way to record a Skype call. For Mac users. David and I chatted for 2 minutes last night so I could check this out. I was using an inexpensive LogiTech headset/mic and I’m not sure what David was using. He sounded a little hotter than I did and Call Recorder does not give you a way to monitor levels (that I saw). But this is literally a one-button plug-in for Skype.

The resulting audio file is a Quicktime .mov file. Call Recorder comes with a few conversion tools that turns your call into an MP3 file. And one of the tools converts to two channels so you can work with either end of the call. For price and ease-of-use, I don’t know how it can get much better.

The quality will only be as good as your connection and your mics. But I think this sounds a lot better than anything you’d get with a regular phone call. And I think I can tweak this for better results. I’ve got a couple of interviews coming up that will give me a better test drive. And, as I told David, I’m sure that are Windows apps that will do this as well or better.

KATG: Please watch this trailer

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Keith and the Girl fans received an email today, touting a new movie coming out in a couple of weeks. Crank stars Jason Statham (Snatch, The Transporter, The Italian Job) and opens September 1st. The email pointed me to the trailer:

“It’s a cool ad, and it brings KATG a little scratch whenever it’s viewed. So take a look-see and pass it to your friends. And then get back to work! How are we gonna survive as a society if everyone’s watching movie promos all day?!”

I really like Statham so I was glad to know about the movie. And I’m even more inclined to watch the trailer (and tell others) because it helps KATG… and I’m a fan. Do you see how this is different than just running the ad on one of the TV networks? Would love to know how much KATG got for this. Hope it was a lot.

Problems for XM and Sirius?

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WSJ: “Many people are simply having iPod adapters installed in their cars and skipping satellite altogether, a concept that was barely on the horizon when the industry was young.”

Not sure how big a problem this is. But I’m one of those folks spending more time with the pod and less listening to satellite radio. If I had to renew today… I would. A year from now…?

Car stereo with USB port

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Eric Benderoff (Tech.Buzz/Chicago Tribune.com) loves his JVC KD-G720 car stereo, an aftermarket item into which he can plug (via USB port) an iPod, or a thumb drive filled with MP3 files. The songs play through the car stereo, and he can control the volume and song selection directly through the unit, not the iPod. When his iPod is plugged in, the car stereo charges the music player as it plays. And the song information scrolls across the stereo’s screen, telling him the artist, song name and album title. The thing can also receive satellite radio from XM or Sirius, spin CDs (in WMA and MP3 formats) And play terrestrial radio stations. All for about $200, not including installation.

JVC USB Stereo

This just makes so much more sense than some proprietary, factory-installed hardware. I might have to get me one of these. Yum. [via RAIN]

Skype from Norway

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I just spent half an hour chatting with Chuck Zimmerman who is in Oslo, Norway covering the annual meeting of the International Federation of Agriculture Journalists. More on that in a moment…

The purpose of the call was to play with Skype (and teach Chuck the correct pronunciation of fjord). Chuck’s had a Skype account for a while but –like me– really didn’t know a lot of folks using the service. I’m guessing a half-hour telco call would cost a few bucks, but the Skype-to-Skype call was free. And the quality was damned good. I’m not gonna post on this again until I can include some sample audio.

One final observation on Chuck’s coverage of the IFAJ conference. Of the approximately 200 journalist attending, Chuck guesses 95% are print and the rest are PR folks and a few radio types.

I’m guessing most of the attendees are there to drink beer, eat cheese and have a good time. Which, I assume, Chuck is doing, too. But not one of them is blogging the event. Chuck is doing it because the folks at Pioneer are paying him but, still…

Anyway, Skype was slicker than snot and I promise to get you a sample for those that haven’t played with this amazing service.