Verbalism

Community & Podcasting

Another quote and link, but Kathy Sierra's post on the dumbness of crowds, community and Web 2.0 is absolutely vital reading.

It's the sharp edges, gaps, and differences in individual knowledge that make the wisdom of crowds work, yet the trendy (and misinterpreted) vision of Web 2.0 is just the opposite--get us all collaborating and communicating and conversing all together as one big happy collaborating, communicating, conversing thing until our individual differences become superficial.

One of my new year's resolutions is to stop staring at the naval of UK podcasting.  However, a recent thread of conversation on the forums provoked by Adam Curry suggesting there was no community in podcasting has got me thinking about his subject.

 

Tags: Adam Curry, Kathy Sierra, web 2.0, crowds

What Exactly Is A Blog?

If Dave Winer doesn't know what a blog is, nobody does.  He thinks an unedited voice is what makes a blog a blog. 

If it was one voice, unedited, not determined by group-think -- then it was a blog, no matter what form it took. If it was the result of group-think, with lots of ass-covering and offense avoiding, then it's not. Things like spelling and grammatic errors were okay, in fact they helped convince one that it was unedited.

Literally and at a deeper level too, the unedited voice is clearly what defines podcasting. 

 

Tags: Winer, voice

Digg For Podcasts Part II

Did I mention sometihng about a digg for podcasts?  How prescient of me :)

Digg has just launched a page for digging podcasts as part of its expansion of the topics the service covers.  It'll be fascinating to see what shows rise to the top.  I wonder how long the whole process gets gamed, in much the same way as the voting on Podcast Alley?

 

Tags: Digg, podcast, gaming, podcast alley

New Electronica Podcast

Just a quick bit of self-promotion.  Irregular readers (well you're bound to be, bearing in mind my sporadic posting here), will recall I have a penchant for electronica, techno and the like.  One or two of you may even have subjected yourselves to one of my Electromancer mixes.

Well, you'll be pleased to know that a large part of my musical life has found a new home over at my recently launched electronica podcast, Beatific.

No blogging, no opinionated rambling, no feeble excuses, just some music I like and very occasionally some music I compose. 

 

Technorati tags: music podcast, electronica podcast, beatificpodcast

Quote of the Day

Feeling very dicey today, having picked up a rather unpleasant stomach bug from my little son.  But had some time to listen to Nicole Simon's pre-conference podcasts for LeWeb.

Just about 1,000 people will be attending LeWeb this year (previously known as Les Blogs) which is really quite extraordinary.  I lived in Paris for a year in 1990 and I love the city.  A real shame I can't hop on the Eurostar and make it over there.

Anyway, back to the point ... Nicole's podcast with David Weinberger concludes with my quote of the day on one of the transformational effects of the internet on us:

The world is much more interesting than anyone told us it was.

The internet is not revolutionary, it's just reasserting two vital human traits that have always carried us forward: sociability and curiosity.

 

Technorati tags: internet, cluetrain, curious

Digg For Podcasts

I attended an event at the ICA last night celebrating the Webby's - a kind of Oscars for the web world.  Final entries for the awards have to be in by 15th December.

I'd forgotten how unremittingly art-house the ICA is!  It was very dark and very, very hip - but then I realised that in the shadows lurked quite a lot of people I've got to know over the last couple of years.  Met some interesting new people too.

One person I bumped into was Chris Vallance from the BBC who mentioned that he'd suggested to the powers that be at the Beeb, that it might be a good idea for them to host some kind of 'digg' style chart for independent podcasts.  Whoever topped the chart at the end of the week would get their own slot that week on BBC Radio 5.  A chance to expose some podcasters to a wider audience ... something to be fair that the BBC and Chris in particular have been good at doing.

At the same time, of course, Dave Winer, Jason Calacanis and Peter Rojas are talking about creating a new podcast mp3 player and touched upon the digg for podcasts idea too.  Even sounds like something Calacanis might explore in his new role as entrepreneur in action at Sequoia.

 

Technorati tags: digg, podcasting, webbys, bbc

Death of Britcaster

I'm really very, very sad about this on many levels.  It appears the Britcaster forums are to close. 

 

Two of my favourite online resources Electromancer and now Britcaster disappearing within a couple of months of each other - can't quite believe it.  At the back of my mind too there is a lurking concern that both of these places have disappeared because ego overcame community.

First of all if Britcaster is to disappear, I'd like to say thank you so much to Neil and Jen for creating what was indisputably one of the best forums I've ever had the pleasure of participating in and I've been using forums and newsgroups of one kind or another since the early 1990s.

Britcaster is UK podcasting history. So much positive has been built from it ... PUM, PodcastCon, meet-ups, numerous business ventures, and most importantly friendships.

I'd sincerely hope that the Britcaster forums can continue with fresh moderators. It would be sad to lose the name and the domain to history, but if it has to be, so be it.

In the words of Joni Mitchell:

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone?

 

Technorati tags: britcaster, electromancer, podcast

Apple's iPhone

The Financial Times today reports that Apple has submitted a patent for a device that combines a mobile media player with a mobile phone.  I've been saying for a long time that in terms of podcasting it's the mobile phone market that's the big opportunity and this is clearly not lost on Steve Jobs.  As the FT says:

Apple has sold more than 70m iPods since the device first launched in 2001. That number pales in comparison with the potential market for mobile phones, however. Analysts expect more than 1bn mobile handsets will be sold in 2007.

It'll be fascinating to see what the design gurus at Apple can do with the usability and looks of your humble mobile.  Despite all the bells and whistles and design skills of Nokia and others, I always feel that mobiles haven't reached the design sophistication and usability and let's face it sheer bloody cool factor of something like an iPod.

I, of course, am studiously anti-cool - a kind of technology Jarvis Cocker ... so however nice the Apple iPhone (good job I've trademarked 'iPhone') looks, I'll not be buying one!

 

Technorati tags: Apple, iPod, iPhone, FT

Stormhoek & Mentos ... a match made in geek heaven

OK, so they're jumping on the mentos/pepsi bandwagon, but the guys at Stormhoek and the inimitable Lloyd Davis take the PISS with a bottle of very fresh wine.  Nice!

More Bloody Blogging Excuses And Some Podcasting Thoughts

Blog when you've got something to say. Blog when you feel like it. Hardly the ethos of blogging and contradictory to some previous posts I've made here, but nevertheless I think that's fair enough. Perhaps writing for three blogs, running two businesses, and putting together a podcast, count as an excuse too. Anyway, I hope the select band who do occasionally visit Verbalism, will forgive my inconstancy.

Oh, and at the risk of returning to the blogging cat phenomenon, we found out today that Catherine will be induced in just over two weeks. That's baby-talk I'm afraid, not some kind of political bribery scandal.

The other thing I wanted to mention was a post on podcasting I've been meaning to link to for a little while from the prolific Rex Hammock. Rex says some interesting things about how he sees podcasting leaving its mark on society:

Before the coming podcasting boom and bust, it was just a grassroots notion. Before we cycle through the inevitable macro-myopic journey of over-expectation and disappointment, I want to say once more that podcasting is going to greatly disappoint lots of people who think it's about the money. But what podcasting will eventually lead to is way beyond our minds' grasps.