Topic: Media

Michael Frumin talks about Fundrace.org, which mapped the amount of contributions made by people to the candidates in the presidential race. He describes how he got the idea and the media frenzy that followed when all this public data was represented in a geospatial way on Fundrace.org. [Where 2.0 audio from IT Conversations]

Gary Cornell decided to ditch academia and become a technical book publisher in 1998, just in time to face a huge downturn in tech book publishing as the dot com bubble burst. Today, Cornell's Apress is proof of life after the bubble in a competitive market, producing bestsellers from authors such as Joel Spolsky and Dan Appleman. Scott Mace spoke with Gary, the CEO/publisher/co-founder of Apress, about topics ranging from outsourcing to Wikipedia. [Opening Move audio from IT Conversations]

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews author and media and presentation coach, Jerry Weissman, about answering tough questions. In these high-tech days, when everything is permanently on the record, this former producer for Mike Wallace tells us what does and doesn't work. [Tech Nation audio from IT Conversations]

"It looks a lot larger on the outside than it is on the inside," describes Michael Weiss, CEO of StreamCast, parent company of Morpheus. He's talking about the US Supreme Court. But what got him there? After all, Morpheus is only a regular company looking to make money through engaging in this new medium called "File Sharing/P2P". Why is he in a batt;e against the entertainment industry? Larry Magid speaks to him about file-sharing, piracy, and the distribution mechanism of P2P. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations]

Everyday people are participating in media and it's the internet that has made it all happen. From the early days of amazon.com encouraging readers to post reviews to today's world of podcasts and blogs, personal publishing has become mainstream. This panel discussion from Supernova 2005 features the folks behind the applications that let us all create our own media. [Supernova 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

"95% of the shows fail!" states Mark Cuban. Of course, he would know best - he's responsible for pioneering streaming media with Broadcast.com which he sold to Yahoo! for millions of dollars. He's also the man behind the success of the Dallas Mavericks. And now he's trying to do the same with HDNet: bring high definition programming to your living room. Host Larry Magid talks to Cuban about everything from piracy to the special makeup required for HDTV. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations]

Isn't radio an old, dying medium? What's it doing in a conference on emerging technologies? Matt Biddulph, Paul Hammond, Tom Coates, and Matt Webb show us how radio is a reemerging technology experiencing a resurgence in popularity and relevance. They explore how radio can be improved by introducing feedback mechanisms and by ultimately making it a more social medium. Using principles of social software, the BBC becomes more of a peer than a broadcaster. [ETech 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

In the openening session from Supernova 2005, host Kevin Werbach interviews Jonathan Schwartz, president of Sun Microsystems. They cover a lot of ground, but the dominant theme is the ways in which technology and control of technolgy are decentralizing: moving into the hands of users. As Kevin suggests, consider a world in which one billion people will have camera-enabled mobile devices.

Innovation certainly isn't dead, says Jonathan. As computing continues to get cheaper (a trend that began when employees demanded PCs from formerly centralized IT departments), decision making also migrates to lower levels within organizations. It's massive decentralization. It's even having an effect on media and entertainment, as users demand that they be able to listen and watch what they want and when they want.

It wouldn't be an interview with Jonathan if the subject of blogging by executives of public companies didn't come up. He describes what he's learned about public and internal blogging -- Are they really separate? -- and the importance of openness and transparency, even in public, or perhaps particulary in public. [Supernova 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

David Coursey is a technology journalist, author and contributing editor at Ziff-Davis's Publish.com. He is president of David Coursey Consulting, Inc. David is also the former executive editor of ZDNet AnchorDesk. Mr. Coursey talks about his extensive background in journalism and radio broadcasting as well as some of his recent columns expressing skepticism about journalistic weblogs and the long-term growth and economic viability of grassroots podcasting. [Web Talk audio on IT Conversations]

A four star review in USA Today, read by more than 2.3 million people got ActiveWords all of 32 downloads, but, a blog post by popular blogger Robert Scoble resulted in more than ten times that number. Buzz Bruggeman, the founder and EVP of ActiveWords Inc. speaks about his experiences in marketing and selling his company's software and the networking tools he uses. He discusses how a huge advertising budget may no longer be the only way to reach people. [MeshForum audio from IT Conversations]