Paul Jacobson

Gizmodo really irks me. I have been reading Matt Buchanan’s coverage of the Nokia N97 and while I agree with some of the comparative criticisms when looking at the iPhone 3Gs and the N97, his posts are completely over the top and sensationalist. Here is an example from his initial review post about the N97 titled “Nokia N97 Review: Nokia Is Doomed“:

I don’t even know where to start the hate parade I want to unleash on S60 5th edition. Nokia’s managed to make RIM’s BlackBerry Storm OS retrofit look like a work of art. And when legacy (sorry, mature) software runs into a crappy half-assed UI, it’s a steaming pile of suck on a slab of garbage toast. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to shove Android onto it. Since I have nothing nice to say, let’s keep this part short.

This sort of writing may appeal to Gizmodo readers but it certainly doesn’t appeal to me at all. Gizmodo is supposed to be one of the authoritative tech blogs on the Web and it seems to need to resort to this sort of junk writing to get attention.

Now, this criticism isn’t based on my disagreement with the criticisms of the N97 when comparing it to other modern smartphones like the iPhone 3Gs. I don’t disagree with many of the concerns raised but I have far more respect for blogs like MobileCrunch and podcasts like the gdgt podcast for the way they discussed the N97’s limitations (here and here, respectively).

Anyway, I did my social media thing this morning and posted a comment to one of Buchanan’s latest posts which I took a screenshot of in case it isn’t published for some reason:

I wasn’t much of a Gizmodo fan before but I don’t have nearly enough respect for the blog now to consider it a worthwhile source of news, for whatever my opinion is worth.

I came across this video which turned out to be a quick video about the popular Internet video site that has a number of mainstream shows in the US called Hulu:

The woman in the video is Daisy Whitney who I found out about in This Week in Media. Actually I listened to an episode and heard her voice and she kept coming back onto the show. She sounded really interesting so I looked her up and found her site.

Technorati Tags:
daisy whitney, hulu, this week in media

I have just been watching a video podcast episode of Marketing Voices with Jennifer Jones (part of the PodTech.net network) where Jennifer interviews Charlene Li from Forrester Research. Li believes that social media will be so commonplace in the coming years that it will be “like air”. Take a look at the video to find out more:

(Source: Web Strategy by Jeremiah)

Technorati Tags:
social media, charlene li, jennifer jones, marketing voices, like air, pervasive social media elements

There are some interesting stats on business adoption of social media on BizCommunity from a survey conducted by Melcrum. Here are some of the stats that interested me most:

• 55% of companies are already blogging or plan to start blogging in the next year;
• Other popular new media elements were podcasts (43%), RSS/webfeeds (51%) and social networks like LinkedIn (41%);
• 70% of the respondents had no policies in place to deal with blogging and the use of other new media elements in the company.

Now this research was conducted overseas so the figures probably don’t really have too much meaning here in South Africa but on the assumption we are following international trends, this information is pretty informative. Being the resident lawyer here at chilibean the last statistic is pretty scary. Every company should have an acceptable use policy to deal with how that company’s IT infrastructure is used and that includes new media elements. It is fantastic that employees are blogging and podcasting and that should be encouraged but the process should be managed to minimise the potential for liability.

(Source: Social Media)

Technorati Tags:
social media, business, adoption, melcrum, acceptable use policy

I was asked how to prepare a podcast. The person who asked me the question runs a Windows machine so I put a few thoughts down and then realised they could be useful to other people so here are my thoughts on how to publish a podcast. The tips are aimed at a Windows user and if you are a Mac user the one main change I would make is to use Garageband for your recordings because it integrates into iTunes. You would then need to convert the audio file you import into Garageband into an mp3 file which, as I mention in the post, is a more universal format.

To start, you need a decent recording and to make a decent recording, you need a decent microphone. I have a Logitech desktop microphone that didn’t cost that much although I think a decent quality headset – the air traffic controller kind – is a good investment because you could use it for something like Skype as well as recording a podcast. I have seen some nice ones for a few hundred bucks – the more you spend the better the headset will be (usually). A voice recorder will work too. The main thing is to get a clear sound and the file you need should ultimately be an mp3 file. You need software to capture the recording and on a Windows machine. Audacity is really good and free. Audacity can import files if you record them on a voice recorder and transfer to your PC (they will probably be in wav format if you do this) and the software can then export the recording as an mp3. Alternatively you can record directly into Audacity through your microphone or headset and then export the file (the recording will be in Audacity’s file format) to mp3 which is the most universal file format.

It is a good idea to prepare a script for your shows because it keeps you on track and you may tend to make fewer mistakes (which means less editing).

You then need somewhere to put the recordings and make it into a podcast and I recommend Libsyn. They charge for disk space and not bandwidth (which is fantastic) and their prices are pretty cheap. They effectively create a blog for the podcast geared for podcasting so you basically upload your episode to their servers (they will have guides to show you how to do this) as a post on the site. The content of the post will be your show notes. The feed from that Libsyn site will be your podcast feed which you can also run through Feedburner to give you statistics on your subscribers.

Another way to use Libsyn is to just upload to their servers and publish the podcast posts to your blog under a specific category (you can use the specific category feed which you can route through Feedburner and then give out the Feedburner feed as the podcast feed). People can then get your posts (which will include the podcast posts) in your main feed and subscribe to your podcast feed in iTunes to capture the episode straightaway. Depending on how people access their feeds, they may just see that there is an audio file in the podcast posts and can choose whether to download it as a separate audio file as opposed to it being downloaded automatically in iTunes or their podcast software. The first method means the podcast is totally separate and runs through Libsyn (their blog, by the way, seems to run a version of WordPress) and the second method means everything runs through your existing blog and it is just a matter of using the podcast category feed as your podcast feed that people can subscribe to separately if they want to.

Of course this explanation assumes you have a blog already. You can create a separate blog for the podcast (Amplitude is a good example of this) and use the blog’s main feed as a podcast feed. I still recommend routing the feed through Feedburner so you know how many people listen to your podcast and if you decide to move the podcast somewhere, the feed stays the same (Feedburner feeds are containers for the source feed so if you change the source feed it doesn’t change the Feedburner feed – kinda like having one post box even though you may move homes).

Once you have all that sorted out you can also start including audio files (music is a nice addition but make sure it is licensed for your podcast so take a look at “podsafe” music or Creative Commons music files). This methodology also works if you want to create a video podcast. To do that you need to record your video and then publish it in the same way. You obviously wouldn’t use Audacity for the video recording and, depending on your camera, you could probably just save the video recording to your computer and then upload to Libsyn. Another option for a video show is to use YouTube to publish your video blog. People would need to then access your video podcast through YouTube although you can also publish the video on your blog as well.

I hope these tips are helpful if you are looking to start podcasting. Let me know if there is anything I missed or glossed over!

A podcast can be a great tool for business too. We have a few ideas about podcasting for business and would be happy to chat to you about that. Just give us a shout!

Technorati Tags:
creative commons, podcasting, audacity, garageband, how to podcast, libsyn

Mail & Guardian has just launched a new daily podcast called the Lunchtime News Wrap. So what is this podcast all about:

The M&G Online provides a short midday podcast of the main news stories of the day, Monday to Friday, covering local, international, business, sport and Africa news.

The episodes are pretty short (around 2 to 3 minutes and under 1MB) are basically an audio equivalent of the SABC’s News in 60 seconds. So these are great little episodes you can download around lunchtime or so and quickly catch up on the day’s news. The first episode is available for download. You can also subscribe to the feed.

I just listened to the first episode and it is a great idea although the sound quality could be better. I guess there is a tension between a small download and better audio quality (which means bigger file sizes). In terms of content you have everything from news to sport to weather for the day. This is a great idea and blurs the lines between regular broadcast radio and time-shifted audio shows.

Technorati Tags:
mail & guardian, podcast, lunctime wrap, daily news, broadcast radio

I received a call from Steven Davis from Apple this afternoon to discuss the rules of the competition which I criticised in my post titled "ipodcast competition is not for me". He said it is not the intention of the sponsors of the competition to violate users’ content license conditions and has asked me to assist him in modifying the rules to remove the cause for complaint. I’ll post further updates shortly.

Update: Heather Ford of iCommons posted an interesting post to her personal blog with a couple suggestions.

Tags: ipodcast competition, rules, content licensing, copyright