Apple wants to be your news and information station

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“An Apple patent reveals that the company is working on a podcast aggregator that would dynamically collect the news that you are interested in and deliver a personalized news podcast. In other words – Apple wants to be your news and information station. The system would allow you to:

* Subscribe to and personalize a podcast with software like iTunes;
* Select news segments selected from a variety of categories; and
* Automatically download the personalized podcast to your Apple TV, iPod or iPhone.

The custom news show could consist of a 5 minute segment from CNN on the day’s national news, a 5 minute segment from a local news station, and a 10 minute segment on sports highlights from ESPN.

Once you select the playlist of content that you’re interested in, Apple’s servers would request the latest podcast content from content creators, stitch the segments together and then deliver the personalized podcast to iTunes or other podcast software. As part of this process, Apple could insert targeted advertising dynamically.” – Apple Insider via Podcasting News

Hmmm. A listener in the states served by our networks could include one of our 4 minute state newscasts, a three minutes sports report and a farm report. That “stitching segments together” part is what I find intriguing. Terry Heaton wrote about the “unbundling” of media. Is this a “re-bundling” of media?

If I were programming a local radio station, I’d be damned sure I had a killer local newscast/podcast up on iTunes.

Cool Tattoos

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Cooltats
Thanks to a fascinating new technique you can cover yourself in body art and no one will be the wiser, unless they see you in the dark, which is the only time these tattoos are visible.

The new technique uses blacklight reactive ink, which is reactive to UV light. [The Cool Hunter]

Doc Searls: What’s Around the Bend?

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Doc Searls is on a panel (Public Media 2008) titled Technology and Trends: What’s Around the Bend? From his list of ten, here are three I found interesting:

  • Cell phones will be the new radios and televisions. This will start to happen in a big way the minute Apple opens its iPhones to independent developers of native applications (rather than just ones that run in a browser).
  • Websites will become as inadequate as transmitters. That is, both will remain necessary but insufficient means for reaching listeners and viewers, and for relating to them. “Live Web” methods such as streaming, file sharing, social networking and “rivers of news” will all play roles as well.
  • Archives will be the ultimate killer kontent. Stations and networks will come to value not only their own archives, but will work to make those archives as easy as possible to find, consume and otherwise use — and to open CRM systems for VRM tools to make it as easy as possible for listeners and viewers to voluntarily pay for the privilege. Bigger inventory, bigger income.

I couldn’t begin to guess the number of hours I’ve spent archiving material (I think Doc hates the term “content”). MissouriDeathRow.com; Legislature.com; Missouri Supreme Court oral arguments; and –once upon a time– Missouri State Highway Patrol accident reports. We saved damn near everything but I can’t say that I noticed a huge appetite for that archived material and I was never smart enough to make any serious money with it. But we’ve got it.

Candidate conference calls

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Dave Winer wants to listen to those daily conference calls the candidates have with reporters;

“It seems much of the real action in the campaign happens here, but we (voters, taxpayers, citizens) have no access. I listened to an MP3 of one of the calls, with the chief strategist and communications director of the Clinton campaign. It was fascinating, gave me a picture of how the press and the candidates relate that I had never seen before.”

A few years ago I asked one of our reporters to post the audio of one of these conference calls where a bunch of reporters are on with the news-maker.  She was shocked that I asked and explained that the call was “just for reporters” and they decided which portions were news-worthy. And the reporters would not want “just anyone” to hear their questions.

I’m with Mr. Winer. I’d love to hear these calls, raw and unedited. I’ll decide what’s news and what’s spin. No filtering, please. I have to wonder if some reporters might be concerned this could raise questions about their editorial judgment. What they decided to include in the story and what they left out. I fail to see how that could be a problem if their story ended with, “…you can listen to the entire conference call on our website.”

My very own Atomic Fez

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Atomicfez200At long last I’m the proud owner of a Fez-o-Rama fez. And I was able to help out with a worthy cause at the same time. While my leopard skin fez makes me feel like the love child of Idi Amin and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle… it doesn’t approach the quality of workmanship of the Atomic Fez.

Fezmonger Jason even threw in an extra tassel (maroon) for formal occasions.

Sixteen years later: I’ve passed the Atomic Fez along to Barb’s nephew, Wes, who wears it with scholarly respect.