Topic: Podcasts

The Gillmor Gang on IT Conversations...

Steve calls in from the Integrated Media Association's New Media Summit with his special guest, Stephen Hill. The talk is all about the convergence of radio (most notably public radio) and "new media" if that term even makes sense any longer. That convergence is due to digital technologies and the fact that it's now possible for nearly anyone to create broadcast-quality audio with a very small investment in equipment. Stephen reminds us that even FM radio isn't very old, having become popular in the mid 1960s, when broadcasters even supplied the receiver. (Hey...sounds like satellite today!)

Public radio in the U.S. has more than 20 million subscribers, but the public-radio insfrastructure has become a bottleneck in its own right. (Is NPR the "Clear Channel of public radio?")

Is podcasting the next step for independently produced audio? It was an important topic at the New Media Summit. The consensus is that podcasting is still in Geeksville mode, but it's real close. What business model will prevail? Stephen thinks it's bundle-and-charge aggregation, and sees at least one segment of public radio going to a $240/year model.

But if there's an explosion of content, how will we sort our way through it? Will it be something like Attention.xml, or will we rely on more traditional systems like individual or group editors? An important development may be the Personal Service Publisher proposal (PDF) presented at the conference.

Dave Winer leads the Fat Man Sings session at Bloggercon III. Audio from IT Conversations.

Lawrence Lessig leads the Law session at Bloggercon III. Audio from IT Conversations.

A day is coming when Robert will have 10,000 feeds instead of the 915 he's currently reading. (He guesses the average blog reader follows 50 to 100 feeds, based on anecdotal evidence of talking with other bloggers). In fact, the number of bloggers he reads is much higher than 915 thanks to group blogs and services like Feedster, Pubsub, and Technorati. Robert Scoble leads the Overload session at Bloggercon III.

Jay Rosen leads the session on Academia at Bloggercon III. (IT Conversations audio)

Adam Curry leads the session on Podcasting at Bloggercon III. (IT Conversations audio)

The extended Gang dives deep into podcasting this week with Dave Winer, Adam Curry and three of the four members of the Firesign Theatre: David Ossman, Philip Proctor and Peter Bergman. Adam and Dave give the history (all eight weeks of it) and the raison d'etre of podcasting, and Steve suggests it's similar to the early days of pirate radio. Is podcasting just a flash in the pan, or a major challenge to big-business radio? Will the impact be similar to that of blogs or something altogether different? What are the implications of Howard Stern moving to satellite, and will legislation like the INDUCE Act inhibit freedom of speech in the exploding podcasting phenomenon? By the end of the show, the Firesign guests not only get it, they're guzzling the Cool-Aid.

Here's a twist: IT Conversations host and producer, Doug Kaye, is interviewed by Rob Greenlee for WebTalk Radio. Rob asks Doug about the birth of IT Conversations, web-audio business models, and what multimedia content formats work best. They discuss related topics such as the impact of Podcasting on IT Conversations, traditional broadcast radio and satellite radio, and whether audio streaming will flourish or die. This time it's Doug who has to answer the questions.

Doug Kaye interviews Adam Curry: His first gig was on a Dutch in-hospital radio station, then as John Holden a motorcycle-riding African-American pirate-radio DJ. Most of us met Adam as an early MTV host, but he actually got his start as a budding geek. In this interview with IT Conversations' host Doug Kaye, you'll hear a very personal side of Adam's life: how he discovered the Internet and the web, registering the mtv.com domain, then being sued over it. He founded OnRamp, an early web-development company that grew through M&A to a $230 million public company. Adam has started many other ventures, not all successful. He's been to Iraq and even produced a reality-TV show about his own family. Doug and Adam also discuss audio on the 'net. Here's your chance to hear the Behind the Mic side of the creator of iPodder and one of podcastings leading evangelists.

The Gillmor Gang: Google Desktop Search is this week's hot topic even though Doc isn't happy that it's not available on either Mac or Linux. No doubt it's a powerful personal tool, but what does it mean for IT departments? If it sneaks in at the desktop level, what about security and privacy? For that matter, what does it mean that "the application sends non-personal information about things like the application's performance and reliability to Google?"

Does Microsoft continue to have a blindspot for search? There were rumors of a pending Google browser. Is this even better for the company and for us? What's the commercial value for Google, and will Yahoo! follow suit? Finally, is GDS just a platform for additional services?

All of this plus the podcasting phenomenon on another chock-full edition of The Gillmor Gang. This week's special guests are Scott MacGregor (Mozilla Thunderbird architect) and Brendan Eich (chief architect) of the Mozilla Foundation.