Sorry, this is just copied from Hugh’s post, but I have no words for this. (More here.)

Alive in Baghdad correspondent Ali Shafeya was killed on December 14th, details are still coming in. He was 24, survived by mom and sister.

and:

but is that worth even one human’s life? We are still not 100% sure its not the assignment we gave that killed him.

and:

We’ve raised $90, can anyone else help Ali’s family pay for the funeral? his brothers and father are all dead. survived by one sis & mother

and:

you can make a donation to suport his family to smallworldnews@gmail.com via paypal, please note that it is for Ali’s family.

Filed by Julien at 5:39 pm under podcasting
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Ok, so Hugh’s new site EarIdeas has a challenge: Name the best podcasts you know of, and Hugh promises to listen to them and add them if they’re up to par. (EarIdeas wants to provide novices with great first experiences when listening to audio on the web.) So, here we go– I’ll tag a few people afterwards to keep it going.

1. Search Engine: Full of awesome ideas, incredibly well-produced, etc. Altogether favourite show right now. (Thanks to Mitch for the reco.)
2. The Nothing Show: Tim Coyne and Dave Delaney talk about whatever shows up on their twitter lists. I know this sounds idiotic, but it’s fucking hilarious. Just trust me.
3. DYKC: Do You Know Clarence is under 10 minutes of just straight talk. Short podcasts have been having their way with me these days, so Clarence has my respect for producing good content without needing to listen for 45 minutes.
4. Creepy Sleepy Show: Dan Patterson has been doing this forever and hasn’t gotten enough respect. It’s the only political show I can actually listen to. The latest show was over an hour, which breaks my “short podcast” rule, but it was still really good.

I know I should have five right now, but I’m in a kind of rush, so four will have to do. And since I’ve named five people already in this post, those will be the people I tag: Mitch, Dave, Tim, Clarence, and Dan. Move it!

Filed by Julien at 1:58 pm under podcasting
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I know this may seem like a conspiracy theory to you guys, but the other day we realized something at the office.

The iTunes Store on the iPod Touch… well, it has no podcasting section.

Anyway, after a bit of discussion, we kind of began wondering– is Apple flushing podcasting? I mean, they definitely don’t profit off it, so with limited screen resolution on the Touch, it makes sense that they’d kick it off. But is this telling us something more? I’d love to know what you think.

Filed by Julien at 8:38 pm under trends, podcasting
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This week, Apple is featuring one show that hasn’t updated in 8 months, and another that hasn’t updated in almost a year. Explain to me again why they hold the reigns of podcasting.

Now, Dave Winer started working on a podcatcher. Should you care? Definitely.

Apple is now the barrier to entry. Though podcasting is a space where we wanted to wipe out the gatekeeper, we’ve handed the keys to Apple, instead– a company notorious for keeping secrets and suing bloggers. How did this happen?

Meanwhile, there are other podcatchers in the shadow of iTunes that give over 60 subscribers EVERY DAY. Nobody knows about them because Apple keeps your drooling over the next gadget to impress your friends with.

iTunes is like the sun– it blinds you if you stare too long. Stop focusing on them, and you’ll see: there are opportunities everywhere.

Filed by Julien at 4:57 pm under podcasting
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How the rich control your education, being a cyborg, and the chessboard of life.

Relevant links: Famous for 15 people, Chat with a rich kid.

[http://m.podshow.com/media/170/episodes/85532/inoveryourhead-85532-10-31-2007.mp3]

Filed by Julien at 5:13 pm under download, hip hop, podcast, podcasting
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Update: The part about Scoble leaving Podtech appears to be false. Sorry about the gossip dudes. My sentiments remain unchanged though.

I don’t know anything about Podtech (I don’t think anybody does), but I just read on Andrew Baron’s blog that Podtech is in sinking and Scoble may be out (the original tweet-based rumour being here). Who does this leave as the premiere audio/video content company? Podshow. Who’da thunk it.

If this is true, it means there’s going to be a lot of doubt going around the content-creation space (audio, video, etc.) in the next little while. Maybe less money, who knows.

The individual creators, on the other hand, are in a stronger position than ever. As the networks fail, the creators can continue to do their work for less money than a company ever could, getting little sponsorships along the way to keep them alive. They’re f’n cockroaches, and can thrive in the tiniest of niches with no problem.

I’ll be offline for the next fourteen hours (on a ferry in the middle of the Atlantic), so I won’t know how this will pan out, but I bet there are interesting times ahead for folks like us.

BTW, I’m calling it right now: Scoble, next evangelist for Facebook.

Filed by Julien at 9:30 am under business, podcasting
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The future seems to be littered with videoblogs with attractive women as hosts.

While I understand the need to get viewers as much as any producer, getting an attractive girl to do it can sometimes seem like the cheap way out. With Rocketboom, JetSetShow, and Geek Brief, I feel like they’re still part of the community– Zadi, Cali, etc., are more than just hosts. But the more of these I see, the more cynical I become. In some cases (iTunes link), we use women in the iconography, even if there are no women in the show!

These tactics are cheap and base. Our community is better than this– we began with principles of subversion and being different than old media, so why are we emulating it? Are we the hippies of our generation, ending up in top-floor penthouses, wondering what happened to what we believed in?

Filed by Julien at 12:11 pm under podcasting
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Tim Coyne just launched the One Red Paperclip of acting… taking the iPhone spoksorship ‘fluke’ as a springboard, he has sponsored Jaffe’s Across the Sound, hoping to use the podcast’s audience to help him land an audition for one of four huge TV shows– CSI, House, Criminal Minds, or Shark.

Filed by Julien at 10:48 pm under podcasting
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If you’re irritated about the way influencers seem to be jumping from one web app to another, you aren’t alone. Dave Slusher just renounced ‘the search for the newer and shinier,’ and I suspect many others will follow after Facebook becomes passé.

What Dave doesn’t realize is that it is in the nature of early influencers’ attention to be transitory. The reason they jump from one app to another is precisely because they are early influencers, and people pay attention to them precisely because they try things before anyone else.

In fact, I could even go so far as to say that, if they stop trying the new and shiny, attention to them will dwindle.

What Slusher has done (by unsubscribing) is exercise the power he does have, which is attention. If attention is what causes these web apps to become popular, it is also the thing that causes early influencers power to expand– attention is the very nature of power on the web.

So if you’re waiting for your web app to get picked up by Scoble, Arrington, or anyone else, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Even if you are the new Facebook, it is in their very nature to drop the old as the new and shiny comes along.

It happens in Hollywood, it happens in electronics, and it happens on the web. One day, you and your app, your weblog, or your podcast, will be over.

Start working on your next thing NOW.

Filed by Julien at 6:52 pm under strategy, business, trends, podcasting
6 Comments

Joseph Jaffe just got a free iPhone from a listener. All he had to do was offer up a sponsorship for one episode of his show.

This lucky accident could revolutionize podcast sponsorship. (I sure hope it does!)

Your podcast may only have 100 listeners, but no matter your niche, I’d be willing to bet your listenership includes some high-ups with decision-making ability.

Personally, if I found the right audience for a client, I’d drop $250 for an episode, easy. All you’d have to do was reach me, and you’ve had that ability all along– it comes built into the show you do.

So get to it.

Filed by Julien at 2:50 pm under podcasting
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