Tim O’Reilly’s talk at eTech this March just got posted on ITConversations. Called “Watching the Alpha-Geeks,” (link is to more info and download) it’s a great 30 minute overview of the trends underlying the bleeding edge of new tech. Very cool, very listenable. A great way to catch up or brush up on some of the most exciting things going on in the space. The world really is changing and this talk does a great job of explaining the upsides and some reasons to be concerned. O’Reilly is fantastic, as are many of the speakers in the ITConversations podcast series.
If you’re in the mood for podcasts, the most recent edition of the Gillmor Gang is not to be missed if you’re interested in new media vs. old and the changing advertising landscape. Amanda Cogden from RocketBoom, Jeff Jarvis from BuzzMachine/About.com/NYTimes and Richard Edelman, head of the PR firm that represents Walmart and is smart enough to employ Steve Rubel, are all the guests. And it’s only 30 minutes long! So if you are put off by the usual hour length of one of the best podcasts online – this could be your big chance to check it out. Very forward-looking stuff in this one.
Oxfam maintains the tradition of European NGO’s using witty online video to build support for their campaigns, this one highly interactive and about economic class: Bit Unfair.
I’ve been listening to some pretty good podcasts lately and thought I’d point readers here to some of them and the resources around them.
Who’s the #1 blogger amongst people who have identified their favorite reads in the new Technorati Favorites system? Steve Rubel, a prolific blogger who covers the new PR at MicroPersuasion. He did a great interview with Brian Oberkirch of Weblogs Work, just posted today. He talks about blogging his brains out and the emerging roll of blogs in PR. About 30 minutes long, it’s a good listen.
After being told by Dave Winer in comments here to stop worrying and listen to his most recent podcast on OPML 2.0 explained in an understandable way – I admit that I do feel a lot better. I don’t think his explanation is as accessible as he thinks it is (I’m going to try and write up an even more straight forward one here asap) but if you are interested in OPML it’s a great thing to listen to. It’s at this link: OPML 2.0 Podcast
An OPML file is, in this case, a single file you can use to subscribe to a number of RSS (definition) feeds all at once. This means that with one link you are subscribed to all future content from selected sources. I think that selecting a handful of key feeds in certain topic areas and offering those to other people is going to be a powerful way that information-overload gatekeepers help the rest of the world find and easily subscribe to the best news sources available. In this sense everyone who puts together OPML files is like an editor of anthologies; only the authors that the editor selects provide ongoing, dynamic contributions.
Without further theoretical ado, I’ll tell you how to use these files and then tell you what I’ve put in them. Continue reading →
George Siemens over at eLearn space likes iTunesU, Apple’s new system to facilitate academic content delivery via iTunes. But a fight is underway between Apple’s use of “Digital Rights Management” (content reuse restrictions) and many folks on the web, now including the people behind the GPL (general public licence) software framework. Will largess and convenience defeat grass roots openness and collaboration? Impassioned discussion on the conflict between the newest version of the GPL and DRM over at the always interesting Dan and Dave Show podcast.
Corey Pudhorodsky, creator of the absolutely fantastic 501c3 Cast (a podcast about non-profits with really good interviews and news), asks over at the Net Squared Blog:
I’ve been thinking about beginning to more aggressively email people and organizations that I find on the web who I think might be interested in my podcast. The conceived email would just include a short introduction and invitation to check out the show. I’m sensitive about the unsolicited emails that I receive and this has me thinking, what is spam? If I take the time to find people that I think might be interested in something that I am doing, and send an email to the person, should that exclude me from junk mail category? What if I personalize each email? What if I don’t and just bcc every address? If the email is readily available on the web, does that mean that the person is open to receive solicitations?
My response was that emailing bloggers for coverage (as well as print publications) and then having people learn about your project there, perhaps email their friends about it etc. was a better way to introduce your work to people than unsolicited emails. I’m really not sure, though.
I pointed readers towards a list of the best articles I’ve found on pitching bloggers (http://del.icio.us/tag/pitchingbloggers)
and suggested that subscribing to the RSS feeds of searches for both links to your site and key terms was an important way to engage with the conversation.
What do you think? Is unsolicited email to introduce your project to people you think would be interested – is that spam? Any other thoughts on promoting a podcast about non-profit work? I hope you’ll go over Corey’s post at Net Squared, put in your two cents and check out the conversation (as well as Net Squared itself). I also hope you’ll listen to or subscribe to Corey’s excellent show, the 501c3Cast.
Here’s an intro to the wacky world of MP3 Blogs and info on how YOU can have one-click audio played from right inside your blog or website. Woo hoo! Want to tell people about a cool podcast? Or a nifty song? You can make it easy for them to listen with this tool described below.
So it’s been a pretty busy day so far for me, but not as busy as these folks! The coolest thing I’ve found online today has been this awesome 1975 musical performance titled “Postal Workers Canceling Stamps At The University Of Ghana Post Office.” Give the little play button a click and check it out as you read the rest of this post!
Postal Workers Canceling Stamps At The University Of Ghana Post Office
These sites are on less that fully solid legal ground, but they are pretty darned cool if you ask me. Standard practices include posting links after every song to buy the album from the artist, a message on the sidebar urging you to pay for music at least some of the time and a note to anyone who owns copyrights on any of the music posted saying “just let me know if you want me to take your song down and down it will come – no problem.”
Snip… out goes the discussion of competing theories of intellectual property rights.
Anyway! So you might be wondering, “how do these sites put little play buttons that enable me to play these files without leaving the page?” Like these:
I don’t even have these songs on my server! And you can listen to them without leaving my site – wow!
How did I do it? Hours of painful toil! No, it wasn’t that hard actually. I just viewed the source code of the Aurgasm buttons, copied and pasted them into my blog post here, and changed the URL of the song being pointed at. Wow! It’s all made possible via Fabricio Zuardi and Andre Cardozo’s awesome open source XSPF Web Music Player. To learn more about this rad tool, check out this page and this page, both on the open source community site Sourceforge.
You don’t need to know about that stuff though just to use the tool. I am going to try to figure out how to make a bookmarklet for this code, but I don’t have time right now. But you can copy and paste the code from my site, replace the parts here with the mp3 filename you want to play and the title, and paste it into your own site.
It’s taking me too long to make the code appear as code in this blog post, so just go up to your browser’s View menu and “view source code” for this page. I’ll surround the code you want with asterisks and you can copy and paste it into your own blog posts or site.
Just look at the letters and symbols right around the file URL real close before you paste over them. You can do this! It’s not really very hard. Feedback: My brother just emailed and reminded me that it would be a good idea to include a direct link to the file that this tool streams, so folks can download it too.
Does this have you totally pumped up or what? (I’m stoked.) Well here’s something else to listen to, my Net Squared coworker Britt Bravo explaining how volunteers can plug in to the Net Squared community. Maybe your enthusiasm will spill over and you’ll go profile a non-profit group or two.
Britt Bravo on how you can help Net Squared (6 mins)
Corey Pudhorodsky, creator of the absolutely fantastic 
Isn’t that awesome! I found it via on one of many MP3 Blogs now available online, this one called 
Galaxies, by Laura Veirs (very beautiful song!)