In my brief tenure as a co-host for the (now-ended) Lab with Leo, I was able to pimp my own podcast, Radio Free Skaro, while explaining the dreaded Red Ring of Death on the Xbox 360. Many thanks to the intrepid Third Guy, my RFS co-host, for tracking down this clip.
Just to dampen the previous “OMGPARADIGMSHIFTBLURGH” of the previous post, here’s a “whoa, nelly, not so fast, Internet honchos” from the recent Web 2.0 conference.
Internet smart guy Clay Shirky recently gave a lecture about how big changes are masked by a calming influence until societies are ready to adapt. He points to gin as the dampening effect of the Industrial Revolution, with most Britain drunk and surly until they stopped seeing urbanism as a threat and started seeing it as an asset. Same with television, which narcotized a public faced with one-way communication and nuclear deterrence. Now we’re in a two-way age, with blogs and Wikipedia and Youtube, and we’re growing into a world where participation will be the norm, not the exception. Neat stuff.
Ah, with web celebrity must come web contempt. A fine bunch of reprobates, these are, though I’ve never understood the Rachel Ray hate.
The Third Guy was absent for this week’s podcast, and he missed a heap of news with the release of not only the Series 4 trailer and various teasers on the interwebs but an honest to goodness announcement of April 5th as the airdate of the Series 4 premiere. Warren and Steven tried to hold down the fort through jocularity and sarcasm, but their constant threats involving the Gun of Spite (and later, the Cannon of Hatred) because of the Third Guy’s impending trip to Paris and to a studio audience to view David Tennant in person meant an air of amusing menace permeated the proceedings.
…as arbitrarily decided by the Guardian. An interesting list, though I’m sure everyone’s got 50 of their own favorites that didn’t make the cut.
Chris Anderson, who wrote “The Long Tail,” (a great book, btw) has a new book in the works called “Free,” all about how digital goods are plummeting in cost and hence are driving the new gift economy. Wired has an excerpt from the book, along with video.
And with that Variety-esque headline, here’s a story abut how the Washington Post (paper version) and the washingtonpost.com (series of tubes) don’t get along all that well. I’m not privy to the WashPo as a paper, but I know the website is doing good work on the net, including a heavy emphasis on video.
Besides all the other stuff I’m doing, I’m also going to be co-presenting a “VideoBlogging 101” session at Northern Voice, Vancouver’s annual blogging conference. Roland Tanglao, Jordan Behan and myself will walk attendees though the basics of videoblogging, from shooting stuff on your cell phone and streaming it to the net to basic video making techniques, getting your video onto the net and my section on how to effectively prepare and plan for your shoot, as well as a bit of an overview of higher-end tools. You can also make suggestions on our wiki prior to the event.
Roland has also posted on his blog about the event, and put up a video of our recent meeting that he shot on his Nokia N95.
Microsoft wants to spend 44 BILLION dollars to buy Yahoo. Is it just me, or does this remind anyone of the AOL-Time Warner disaster? Neither company can compete with Google, so together….they can’t compete with Google? This deal strikes me as phenomenally stupid. By the way, when this story hit Digg, the assembled wisdom of the site’s users cited it as “possibly inaccurate.” That’s right, Diggers, the BBC is questionable, while 9/11 conspiracy sites and Ron Paul advocacy rants are completely above board.