We went to Fry's today

Can a trip to Fry's ever really be satisfying? There are too many things to buy and not enough time or money to ever make it feel as good as you think it will feel before you go in. That said, we bought the following:

An Apple Ipod Mini for Jessica. Blue. 4Gig

I bought a Ramsey's Electronics FM Stereo Transmitter. Back in October I wanted to do a little broadcasting from a low power transmitter. So after I lean how to use a soldering iron and I can find a couple of hours to spare, I'm finally going to give it a try.

Two Electric Powered Razor scooters. The office was feeling a little stark and Fry's didn't have any beanbags. I am sure these are going to be a lot of fun. I'll post a picture or a videopost soon.

Copyright and Grouper

Neil Berkman, who worked with me at Echo sent me this link to an LA Times story today about Grouper and pushing the boundaries of intellectual property law. Neil said it reminded him of what I was writing about in The Copyright Fairy pieces.

There is no question in my mind that there are opportunities to make money for those who can solve the technological and intellectual property issues around media. As I have said before I think the best way to facilitate that is to work with people who openly embrace the interaction between consumers, technology and media. Any other hair splitting approaches such as limiting to a certain number of people, or streaming not downloading, seems destined for litigation. Litigation as a component of a startup's business plan is generally not advised. Rare cases like Lindows aside, I think that staying clear of the controversy is the best path.

On the Media - MP3 and Podcast Link

Nick corrected me and pointed out that the link to the MP3 and the link to the podcast. Very cool.

My Ipod dilemma

Actually my wife's Ipod was purchased several years ago when Apple first released the Ipod. She used it a little bit but then it sat on the shelf for a while. I picked it up periodically as my running was sporadic. When the podcasting thing burst on the scene, I adopted the device as mine. I actually really got to like it as I have also been running regularly. Until recently. You see, my battery is finally dying. It started out as strange outages when there was still a charge left and just continued to get worse. I'd say at this point its pretty much toast.

My wife has decided she is going to train for a half marathon and wants the device back. Of course I am more than happy to give it back as it doesn't work. She probably wont have a sense of humor about it and the whole flawed battery thing might be lost on her. Because of this I guess I am going to buy her a new Ipod. The dilemma is what should I do. I could buy my own mini. Or another Mp3 player like the iRiver. Or I could get a PSP, but I don't think that is very practical. Choices. I'll report back on my shopping field trip later this week.

An Impending Period of Transitional Chaos For Media

You know what, I may not have heard the show Nick mentioned. I think I actually heard this one. Either way, if you like this kind of stuff I would check them both out.

On The Media - The Chaos Scenario

Nick sent me this link. The show entitled The Chaos Scenario is what he pointed out to me. I had actually heard a part of the show when I was taking my morning ride out for Starbucks/Heroin for me and my wife. The parts that I heard were really fascinating and in the middle of it I heard JD Lasica opining about the fate of traditional media. The really scary piece was the comment by Proctor and Gamble that media isn't working for them anymore. Ouch. When the worlds #1 advertiser isn't happy a change is on the way. Unfortunately the link is in a Real Networks format, so I won't be listening to it. Maybe I can find an MP3 out there somewhere...

Venture Money Flowing into San Diego

Tom Ryan sent me this link, which I read in the LA Time over the weekend that there is a significant influx of venture money into San Diego. It's great to see some recognition of the developing community of innovation that is popping up in our neck of the woods.

The $250 Million Radio Show #20 - The Best of Show

If you haven't bothered to listen to any of my podcasts, give this one a try. I think it is a great collection of bands that is both fresh and accessible. The Mp3 file is here. The credits are here. The podcast feed is here. If you have listened, please keep on listening.

Hunter S Thompson's 21 Gun Salute

It appears that even in death Hunter is a man of amazing originality. He is going to have his ashes shot out of a cannon.

Harvard Preschool

Full disclosure - I didn't go to preschool. Hell, I went to an inner city suburban high school. Worse than that, I briefly attended a private liberal arts school in Oregon before completing my accomplished education at the prestigious California State University, Los Angeles (Magna Cum Laude no less) while working a full time job at Sony Pictures.

So my son Tate is supposed to be entering preschool we are told at the ripe old age of three. Now I am sure that my parents, who must have been clueless, or aspired to my spending my early years in oblivious play, didn't know any better. We on the other hand were vaguely aware of these horror stories about putting your kids on the waiting list of these schools soon after they are conceived. I found this to be ridiculous and waited (gasp) until he was 1 1/2. Since that time we have been begging, pleading, and doing whatever we can to get him into the preschool near our home that does seem like a great place.

That said, I can't believe that our generation, who I believe generally didn't attend preschool can be so caught up in the insanity of trying to get our kids into this school or that school at such a young age. So on with the school. Apparently we made it just by the skin of our teeth. Or so it seems. I am waiting with great anticipation to have a discussion of quantum physics or trends in non representational art in the early 20th century with my son sometime around the age of four. I am certain that it will be an engaging discussion. Oh, and when he is five, he is going to public school.

Handsets, Handsets, Handsets

53500041.jpg,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

Too bad handsets aren't as easy to work with as PCs...

Google Map Part 2

My office is here. This is a super cool way to take maps to a new level. I'm not sure what the utility is yet, but the cool factor is off the map. :-)

U2 in San Diego

52U50030.jpg,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

I was amazed by the number of camera phones and actually camcorders at the U2 concert. Here is one I snapped. I have more over on Flickr.

My Current Media

Not much really because we are so busy. That said there are a couple of things:

U2 Concert: We caught the second night of the opening dates of the U2 Tour at the San Diego Sports Arena. It was a great show and IMHO was better than the last tour although I have to admit I have spent next to no time with the new CD so far. The show was a nice mix between intimacy, which my wife liked, and the hints of big media from the Zoo TV era, that I enjoy. I definite must see.

Music: Mars Volta - Francis The Mute. I had heard that this was the new Pink Floyd, etc. etc. I grabbed a copy the other day when I was making one of the only vehicle trips to Los Angeles in the last year (I almost exclusively take the train). So armed with the CD, I headed out. I was blown away. This is an awesome album. At times it is very inaccessible, but if you wait through the really strange parts you are totally rewarded with amazing sections. I think this is a really cool trend in hipster music away from some of what has become formulaic emo punk and towards something that is progressive revival / psychedelic revival. This CD and the Coheed and Cambria CDs are both examples to me of an interesting new chapter in new music that I hope takes off quickly.

Dirty Windows & Butterflies

My car, which is usually in bad need of a car wash anyways, is currently coated in the remains of many dead butterflies. Apparently the largest heard of butterflies in recent memory has been created by the record rainfall in San Diego and Mexico and literally tens of thousands of them are flying north to Oregon. Why I am not sure. It really is an amazing site though. I'll have to whip out the camera this afternoon.

Info World "Outs" my blog

Here. Ok, so if you've never been here, welcome. The stuff on the right entitled Of Note is some stuff of substance. If you want more, check out our Intercasting Blog.

Intercasting and Rabble in The San Jose Mercury News

We had a nice write up in the Mercury News here.

EVDB Live

I saw from Brian's blog that they went live last night. Check it out here. I set up an account but won't be able to play with it until tonight.

Intercasting Blog - Goodnight Gracie

In a business you bring different skills to bear. I'm a sponge for information and have a strong technical orientation and am steeped in content. Shawn on the other hand has a lot of talents but foremost among them is his writing talent. If you enjoy my nonsense, you are in for a treat. Check out Shawn's latest post here. It recounts a bit some of the good times that were our journey at Vivendi.

Yahoo 360

Sander hooked me up with a pass. I started to set it up. It looks pretty comprehensive. I gave a heavy sigh when I started filing out the About me and the Linked in section and the Friendster section. Does FOAF just suck really bad? I'll try it later. The groups thingey is cool but it is taking me awhile to get used to it. I never really did Yahoo! except for a spam catcher so I am not sure what I am getting here. I need to give it a real test drive before I have an opinion, but thank heavens it didn't require I use my MS.passport decoder ring thing to get the privilege to use the service. The secret admission stuff is a little tired too. Anyone need in? Send me an email...I'll be your friend.

The Copyright Fairy – Part Two, Well Everybody is Doing it…

In my last installment of The Copyright Fairy, I was concerned with how people would rather not investigate how the law is constructed when there are a variety of resources available to inform them of the state of copyright law, and by extension how their actions, could put them in hot water, especially if they are a high profile figure.

This post was inspired by my comment to a post by Russell Beattie regarding his PSP and his use of BitTorrent to put an unreleased movie onto his device, which is very cool, but not legal. I like Russ and his blog is a daily read for me. My comments to him were partially tongue in cheek as he currently works for the would be Media giant called Yahoo. I think that it’s problematic to work at a company that makes a living off of helping to promote to consumers the valuable intellectual property that media companies create and then post on a highly trafficked blog that you use BitTorrent to get the movies that you want.

It’s totally Russ’s business to do whatever he wants in his home and as the Libertarian that I am, I salute him for exercising that right. I also like the brashness of his comments. It’s good entertainment and I plan to read on in the future.

So after Russ slapped me down for my negative tone and condescending preachy post…

It got me to thinking about two issues. The first is BitTorrent. I love Bittorrent. I sent the guy money and I proudly wear my BitTorrent T Shirt to the gym often when I work out. I make a BitTorrent version of my podcast The $250 Million Radio Show as often as possible even though the majority of the people who get my show download it directly from my servers. I think its an important technology that you should support provided you are using it in a legal manner. Back to my previous post, The beauty of BitTorrent, and the reason that the Grokster case isn’t going to help out people who use BitTorrent is that everyone has to upload to download. This puts you in clear violation of the DMCA as rendered through the various decisions in the various cases adjudicated to date. Lots of legal stuff can be found on Google, I mean Yahoo.

Russ said something to the effect that everybody is doing it and not talking about it isn’t going to help. You can find his direct smackdown in the comments to the post. Well, that may or may not be true, but it is illegal. Period. I may do some things in my house that are illegal, but I am certain that I am not going to post about it on the Internet. That just seems to make sense to me.

The second thing was the conflict between technology and media that is at the heart of what many of us have been working on for a lot of years now. Because I highlight the issue some think that I am stung by the copyright issue and that I hate content companies, etc. That couldn’t be further from the truth. For most of my professional career I have worked for big media or companies that supported big media. I am certain that I will quickly pass that as I have spent a lot of the last several years working in small media and technology. Those of us who play in these waters are aware that you have to walk a fine line. There are some who take an extreme position on either side, but the vast majority of us are somewhere in the middle hoping that the content companies wont quash technology, while enjoying and wanting to find new ways to help traditional content reach new and broader audiences.

The important point is to know where your bread is buttered. When I was in my early 20s I worked at Sony Pictures and managed to get into a preview screening of Johnny Mnemonic. At the same time I was marginally active on the alt.cyberpunk list on Usenet. I naively posted a review and had a conversation with Amy Harmon who is now at the New York Times. She published my comments out of context in the LA Times on opening day. The head of the studio called my boss early Monday morning screaming for my head. When I saw Russ’s post I could see Terry Semel (Former head of Warner Bros.) reaching through the Internet to grab him by the neck. As he clearly pointed out its not really any of my business, but I thought that a word to the wise would be time well spent.

Working with Sriram.

Easter Candy

Dirty Face,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

I DID NOT eat Easter Candy. I swear.

Dave Winer on Copyright and the EFF

Interesting to see this. Maybe the implications for blogging as it relates to copyright is providing some thoughtful commentary. I do actually agree with his critique of some of the large media companies, but copyright law cant be situational.

Intercasting in Time Magazine

We made it into this weeks issue of Time magazine! The article is here.

AMP on Ipodder

The Association of Music Podcasting is now listed as its own node on the ipodder.org directory. Very cool!

Glenn Reynolds - Instapundit and Liberty

I never thought that I would quote Glenn Reynolds on anything. Its good to see here that Glenn believes in personal liberty. I am just in shock that so few are screaming that this whole nonsense over this poor woman in Florida is about personal liberty. I say to the government, don't come into my house. I respect you laws when I leave it. You respect mine by not coming into my house.

Content Is Queen

Shawn put up our second post on the Intercasting website today. We don't have the RSS feed button up yet, but if you want to subscribe the link is this. Shawn is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on that blog right now, but I will also jump in later.

Association of Music Podcasting (AMP) Part Two

If you like independent music and are into podcasts, come on over and check out the Association of Music Podcasting. We have been working on forming a lasting organization to promote music podcasting in a way that highlights great artists who support new distribution technologies. We have recently started admitting members to the original group of 6, and today bumped the number to 13 with many more to come.

We think that this is the highest quality selection of shows produced to date that all have music where we have the permission of the rights holders.

Prodigem Vs. Our Media

I created a Bit Torrent for my Show # 19 Podcast using Prodigem which you can find here. At the same time I uploaded the file to Ourmedia. I think I screwed up and didn't use the Publisher tool, cuz its still doing something, although what I am not sure. I need to let it run for a while and see what happens. I'll do a review of the publisher tool later. It could also be the massive amount of traffic too.

The $250 Million Radio Show #19

Is available as an Mp3 file here. Show credits here.

EVDB - Part Two

Jason from Weblogs Inc. had some more about EVDB.

Spell with Flickr

This is really cool. Type in a word or a series of words and get the word in images. Here is what I got with Rabble:

Zoominfo

Check out Zoominfo. Doc Searls had a link to it. Kind of cool, and kind of creepy at the same time. It creates an Internet orginated bio. Mine is here.

SMS.AC

This is too bad. I keep hearing this from a variety of people and have started to see a number of posts like this. I know a number of people over there including Greg, who used to do PR for us at MP3.com. Pull messaging is the only way to go.

EVDB

Brian unveiled his new company yesterday at PC Forum. Haven't seen any coverage other than this. A couple of awesome engineers are working with Brian on this business. I can't wait to see what they have built.

OBEY

Obey March 18,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

I have been trying to accumulate as many of these pics as I can. One of the very coolest things of sites like Flickr is the ability to check out slideshows of Tags.

Ourmedia

Ourmedia has launched today. If you are interested in the idea of open source media, you have to check it out.

Congress vs. The People

I haven't followed the Terry Schiavo case closely. I generally don't like the tough issues around things like capital punishment, abortion, etc. It gets messy really quick and it's too easy to demonize either side or take a position that can be misconstrued later.

That said, as I understand it, this woman expressed to a number of people that she didn't want to be kept alive on life support machines. I haven't heard this disputed. As a Christian, I can't see how people can view being kept alive on a respirator or any other machine as complying with God's will. If God wants you to live without a machine, then you will live. If not, then your time has come. This whole matter is unfortunate and kudos to her husband for trying to let her decision on this subject supersede the grossly intrusive episode we see unfolding. As a believer in personal liberty, and as someone who respects the tenets of faith, I can't understand how anyone could support the interference of people who have such a clear agenda to have their way and prolong the life of someone against their wishes and against what would result in her passing without outside intervention.

San Diego Mounted Police

San Diego Mounted Police,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

My Wife and I took the triplets to the San Diego Model Train Museum because Tate loves trains, as many 2 year olds do. On the way out we saw this scary collection of Mounted Police Officers. I didn't take enough pictures to give you a real sense of their appearance, but suffice it to say, they were way scary. A couple of people asked them why they were there with their armored steeds. They responded that there was a protest coming there. We decided that this was no place for the triplets and Tate and split quickly. As we drove past the multiple checkpoints of riot style police, we finally encountered a rag tag group of 30 or so hispanic protestors with signs against the war in Iraq that were mostly written in Spanish. The Governator should have required that the excessive amount of officers be redployed to something more useful because clearly, these five could have wiped out the entire lot of them if they decided to get crazy.

Flickr bought by Yahoo

Here. Not sure if I like that.

Intercasting and Rabble Design

We worked with a great company, Sisu Media for a lot of our branding and design work. Dave posted some of the work here.

Packet Video Part Two

Um, ok so I need to fess up. Fate would have it that after writing this, I would be seated on the plane to CTIA across the aisle from Jim Brailean the CEO of Packet Video. They are doing some really cool stuff with video and phones as you would expect. I actually briefly mentioned my problems getting video off the phone and will send him an email next week. Given all the hype at CTIA around video on the phone, they have a lot of great opportunities ahead.

These Days

Local KPBS radio started distributing These Days as a podcast. Get it here.

End of the Road Trip

We head back to San Diego today. It's been a good trip. Recap later. Very tired.

Press Release

Is here.

Intercasting Blog

Shawn debuts the Intercasting Corp blog here.

Intercasting Corporation and Rabble at CTIA

We unveil our company today at CTIA. Our press release hits the wire later this AM and I will put out a link once I have it. We pushed the Intercasting website earlier this evening and are doing some cleanup. By the time I post this it should be pretty clean. It gives a good overview of what we aim to accomplish at least philosophically.

Our first product, Rabble, passed BREW certification last week and is now ready for distribution on CDMA networks who support BREW. We hope to announce some more things around that shortly.

We have spent a lot of time working on a robust and easy to use personal publication platform for consumers. Its taken a lot of people to get it this far and we are really proud of how far it has come. As Shawn would say though, "We just made it to the starting line."

Participatory Culture And The Empowered Media Prosumer

I am a fan of all the people I have met at unmediated so far including Eli Chapman, Dan Melinger and Jay Dedman. I haven't been reading feeds much this trip, but Eli wrote this piece that I had to blog about.

I really like how it hits on the combination of Create, Promote and Consume, which are concepts we are big believers in. In fact the product we are unveiling tomorrow is built around these concepts. It's been a fun trip the last several months having conversations with a variety of people who see the world in this way and how each of us take different approaches to trying to create different pieces in that puzzle that Eli so plainly demonstrated. Good stuff.

New Orleans Day 1

Last night after we got in, we headed over to The Napoleon House for my traditional and obligatory muffaletta and Pimms Cup.

Afterwards we actually worked. That was a Big Easy first for me.

This morning I also had another first, I went jogging. It was fun making my way through the Quarter on a slightly balmy morning. That was until my iPod battery died. I think I am at the battery failure point right now. Not cool.

Rhapsody Part Two

A good friend called me the other day to follow up on a call I had made when I was in NYC. He was calling to catch up but also gave me some grief for making fun of Rhapsody. I told him that the cancellation shenanigans are ridiculous but I thought that Rhapsody was by far the best service available. If you like music and don’t have a problem paying for it, the best experience to date, IMHO is Rhapsody. It is a real music discovery tool. It falls down in a couple of areas but they are minor.

That said, my comments above are as it relates to content and content discovery. The whole scheme that RealNetworks deploys to make you cancel your service with a phone call is worse than laughable. It has been about a year and a half since I have voluntarily viewed a file delivered in their format. Their intrusive and deceptive client doesn’t have a place on any of the machines that I own.

Travel Log - LA to SD to The Big Easy

LA was busy. We started to each get a bit sick. My allergies got really bad and Shawn got a nasty cold. We did the usual all day in meetings thing and then ran off to catch the train to SD.

We got into SD late Thursday, got to spend the day in the office on calls on Friday and then hit the airport, yet again to get to New Orleans.

New Orleans rules. It's one of the places that I come back to very often. I think 4-5 Jazzfests and a Mardi Gras for me. It's going to be a long week.

Request for a Unicorn

Over the last several weeks we have been traveling heavily. Most of the longer distance travel has been on American Airlines. As someone who has been a longtime customer with elite status, you get in the habit of requesting upgrades as you have accumulated a large collection of upgrades. Unfortunately with the introduction of JetBlue in the SD to JFK market, AA has been forced to have comparable prices. I guess fortunately is the better word because a roundtrip ticket between SD and NYC is like $200.

The downside is that getting an upgrade is impossible. The other day I went to the ticket counter and checked the status of my upgrade request. They said that I was on the list but it didn’t look good. I told Shawn that this was a joke. He said that it was better than that. He said it was like a request to have a unicorn. "“Excuse me, I wanted to check the status of my request to have a Unicorn.” “Mr. Oien, we have your request, but it doesn’t look like we will be able to accommodate you at this time.” " Ok. Maybe next time. Ironically I got upgraded today on the flight to Dallas. Must have been a glitch. The unicorn said that he was double booked later today and that after this leg of the trip he had other business to attend to. Sigh.

Travel Log - SF to LA

San Francisco was beautiful yesterday in terms of weather. Our meetings went by so quickly it felt like we weren’t there for more than five minutes before we were rushing off to catch another plane.

Our last meeting was at SFO which was unfortunate as we were flying out of OAK. We had yet another frantic cab ride to catch a flight and got there with at least five minutes to spare.

We decided to stay downtown so we could grab a bite to eat at Ciudad, which is one of my favorite places in LA.

I had a bout of insomnia and did an early morning run from the Bonaventure to the Disney Concert Hall, around Pershing Square and then back to the hotel.

LA is a great place although many people not from here don’t get it. I don’t think I will explain my thoughts on it at this point rather I would say that if you get into town sometime make sure you grab a drink at the rooftop bar at The Standard. It’s not to be missed and to me gives a good flavor for the sense of the city.

Travel Log - Out of NYC and into SF

We 'weathered' our second nasty snowstorm on the east coast and managed to sneak out of NYC after a really long delay and a two hour cab ride to the airport. Glad to be back to the sunny west coast, at least for now. The meetings were fun but exhausting. Got to spend dinner one evening with Todd Rubenstein, a friend, that I got to know through his wife Laurie who worked with me at Vivendi running PR. Todd represents music executives, tv and other music related stuff in technology. We also have kids around the same age so its always a fun conversation covering a range of stuff.


Got into San Francisco last night at midnight or so. I decided to take a couple of mile run this morning. My Ipod dished out the following for my run:

Coheed and Cambria
Atreyu
Supersuckers
Saves The Day
This Mortal Coil
Circle Jerks
Yellowcard

It was great. A little aggressive but nice in the cool foggy morning as I ran from Fishermans Wharf into Golden Gate Park.

The guy sitting next to me on the flight was Andrew Thomas from CSFB, who coincidentally covered MP3.com back in the day. He covers Internet and Gaming sectors and was headed to The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco which explains why we had such a bad hotel.
In SF

The $250 Million Radio Show #18

Show #18 is here. I'll put credits on The $250 Million Radio Show site later today. I didn't plan on posting it until later tonight, but audio.weblogs.com sniffed out my new xml without my intervention. Actually very cool, but not expected as I have been using the pingform.

Early Press

We probably won't get any press coverage for Intercasting and our product launch until next week, but this is the first piece I have seen.

My Current Media

No books right now, too busy

CDs
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, Its Morning. I love this CD. I can't get enough of the opening track. My 2 1/2 year old is starting to pick uo the lyrics.

Calexico - Feast of Wire. I am a late comer to this band, but I am really starting to dig their sound.

Indie Bands
Supernauts - The management company sent me a track and I have got to say I am hooked. I am going to lead off my next podcast with these guys.

Games
Rome Total War - On Flights Only

TV
24

Podcasts
Accident Hash Podcast
Other AMP Podcasts

Magazines
CMJ - Been a long time since I read this. Just recently subscribed.

Offline

I plan on doing podcast #18 tonight or tomorrow. After that I hit the road for two weeks. I plan to blog intermittently during the two weeks, but I am not sure how frequently. To be sure there will be plenty of photos from my travels both here and at Flickr.

Real Networks/Rhapsody - I will never use their products

I haven't been a fan of Real Networks for a longtime. I resent it when applications repeatedly steal your MIME types and generally do things to your computers configuration without your permission.

Late last year I did a brief consulting engagement where I provided an overview and evaluation of the various music services. It was fun getting back up to speed on the state of the various services.

After the evaluation I went about deleting the various applications. I had no problem canceling with any of them except Real/Rhapsody. When I tried to cancel, I found out that you could only cancel by a phone call. Hmmm. That's pretty weak for an online product. I called. It was Sunday. They were closed. I couldn't cancel. What a joke. Is that illegal?

This was in December, Yesterday while looking at the army of icons on my desktop I realized that this nasty program was still on my machine and I was STILL BEING CHARGED by them.

I called the number. They asked me why I was canceling. I freaked out. I promised them that I would ensure that there were no Real products on any of the machines that I own and that I would delete the products from any machines that I touch.

I know that the digital music space is a difficult business, but if this is how you have to make your money, I would recommend shorting their stock.

Oien Tribe

Oien Tribe,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

I find moments like this both amazing and shocking.

New Neighbors - San Diego Telecom Council

Our law firm, Fish and Richardson, have been the most awesome landlords in the world. We have been renting vacant space in one of the nicest buildings in the Golden Triangle area of San Diego. In fact we have been camping out in a corner of a 14,000 sq. ft floor for a long time. Over the weekend somebody else moved into the floor in a similar arrangement with us. They are the San Diego Telecom Council.

I walked around the floor to see who the new people were and to my surprise one of the people working there worked with me at Mp3.com. Small world, or rather small floor.

As we are getting down to the wire with our launch, I will take this as a good sign.

KCRW Podcasting - What No Music?

KCRW in Santa Monica just started publishing a lot of their content as a podcast.

Funny though, nothing from any of their music shows. Hmmm. I like what they have on the sidebar of the linked page:


"Legal constraints and copyright issues currently inhibit our ability to offer listeners our music shows as podcasts."

I am just so surprised. ;-) That said, I am dying to get a podcast dose of Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Podcasting and the Law

One of the guys on the pho list who is a DC lawyer/lobbyist set up a podcasting and the law forum here.

Unlinking Social Networks

Stowe Boyd, writes about his move away from social networking applications. I think its a great article that hits home with anyone who has signed up for the many and varied sites created to date.

The $250 Million Radio Show #17

Can be found here. Show list here.

Travel Log - New Jersey and 'blizzards'

Spent most of the day in Manhattan. Sat down for drinks with Gary Churgin and Michael Simon of the Harry Fox Agency for drinks and catching up. Gary became CEO at HFA right after we settled our lawsuits with the publishers, so we have known each other fairly well for a long time. In addition to showing Gary what we are up to, we had a nice informal chat about podcasting. No real take aways, but it will be interesting to see how they decide to approach podcasting.

During drinks, a 'horrible' snow storm began. This isn't normally a problem, except we needed to make a drive out to Morristown, New Jersey that evening. I happen to have a nasty combination of driving experience that makes me a dangerous snow driver. I am a long time Los Angeles commuter and I have spent the last 10+ Christmases in Fargo, North Dakota. I am entirely comfortable in complete whiteout conditions and I hate slow drivers. I laughed as I drove through, over and around the freaked out Jersey drivers on our way to the hotel.

Had an amazing dinner at Copeland. This was a top rate Manhattan dining experience out in the burbs. We had no idea that it would be this good. Dinner was with Scott Wolf who worked with me at Vivendi who now heads up sales at Muzak.

Brooklyn

Went to Brooklyn this morning for a meeting. Once we got off the subway there I realized that in all the many years I have been coming to NYC I had never been anywhere outside of Manhattan. Brooklyn was very cool. Need to explore some more some other time.

Travel Day - New York City

Wasn't I just there? Off again. Should be a nice flight given all the storms we were pounded with overnight.

Podcast on the Fly

Ian Miller, who screws around with me on the Acmenoise website that I use to find bands for my podcast cooked up a really cool feature. At Mp3.com we had a thing called Notify Me, which was an opt in email product that was positioned opposite some of what RealNetworks was doing with RMP files. What Ian added to Acme is a podcast link to each artist page. If you click on the link it generates an XML feed that you can plug into your aggregator of choice. Then, anytime the artist adds new music to the site, it automatically gets downloaded to your player.

Fear And Loathing Quote

There are too many lines in the book to recount, but a quick search of Fear And Loathing quotes on Google brought the book back to life again. This one stood out to me:

"How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family; will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so, well, we'll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere, 'cause it goes without saying that we can't turn him loose. He'd report us at once to some kind of outback Nazi law enforcement agency and they'll run us down like dogs. Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Seattle Library

51KG0086.jpg,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

I am an armchair fan of architecture. In particular Gehry and Kahn. Yesterday I was in Seattle for business and happened to swing by the new Seattle public library while on a taxi ride to a meeting. The Rem Koolhaus building is certainly unique though reminiscent of the I.M. Pei triangle at the Louvre. I am so sad that I didn't get to go inside as the virtual tour you can find here really shows how amazing the building is.

Hunter S Thompson dead

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was one of the most bizarre and enjoyable books I have ever read. Any book that makes you break out into hysterical laughter is something that shouldn't be missed. Pleasant journey Hunter.

Great Post on Podcast Licensing

Can be found here.

Association of Music Podcasting

I should have mentioned earlier that a group of us music podcasters are working together to promote the music of artists who grant us their permission to use their music on a royalty free basis within our podcasts. We seek to highlight the awesome content that currently has a difficult time getting into the hands of consumers by traditional means. If this sounds like something cool to you, check out our site at AMP.

Lessig Podcast

Speaking of Lessig he has started a Podcast. I'll bet he isn't reading text over The Beattles. ;-)

The Copyright Fairy

Earlier this week I did a radio show on KPBS with Dave Winer. At one point in the conversation I stated that if the two of us were talking, and we had a Who song playing in the background, that if we recorded that conversation and made it into podcast then this would be copyright infringement unless we had the permission of the various rights holders. Dave retorted that he didn't necessarily think that is correct. There may be some strange application of Fair Use that I have missed over the last 7 years or so, but I don't believe that is the case.

What I found particularly funny about this exchange is how some of the blogger intelligentsia hold themselves out as thoughtful and informed yet fail to do the simple homework when all of the source materials are freely available for them. The DMCA? You can find it online. The 2nd district court rulings in MP3.com vs RIAA? Online. 9th district Court rulings in Napster vs RIAA? Online. Kazaa, etc. etc. Sorry for the lack of links but you get my point.

The conclusion that I have come to is that many including Dave wish that the Copyright fairy would come along and change the existing body of law because its just not fair. Although I agree with many who think that it would be great if we could use samples and play mashups, and play the songs of our youth in podcasts and home videos etc. the reality today is that you can't.

I propose that Dave and others who question the status of how podcasts fit into existing copyright law take some of the following steps:

1. Go read the law. I would include the DMCA and the various rulings in the dozens of digital music lawsuits over the past 7+ years.

2. Talk to your friends Larry Lessig and Hank Barry. I spoke with Hank briefly at Bloggercon and although we didn't talk at length I am certain that he would reiterate what I have said.

3. Immediately stop playing copyrighted music in your podcasts. If you care about the technology and its potential, don't make it a target for yet another round of lawsuits.

4. Start a conversation with the RIAA and the publishers. I am meeting with the CEO of the Harry Fox Agency next week. Understanding how they view the law and if there are opportunities to obtain experimental licenses or find other accommodations is a better way than just pretending or hoping that everything is just fine.

I would be extremely excited to find out that I am wrong about this, but given my experience, I have a very high degree of confidence that I am spot on.

I recall how the labels held technologists in great contempt during the late 1990s in the digital music space because many of them wouldn't take the time to either take a walk in their shoes, or take the time to understand the law. I find it ironic that those who would hold people to higher standards when they talk of the blogosphere, technology or internet ethics etc. can't do the same when faced with issues around intellectual property.

These Days Link

Can be found here. We were on around 35 minutes into the show.

Dave Winer on KPBS

Dave Winer, the father of RSS and co-father of podcasting will be on the KPBS radio show These Days with yours truly. Check it out if you get the chance. I'll post a link after the show.

Radio Show on Podcasting

Tomorrow I will be on the local radio station KPBS at 9:30 AM for a taping of These Days with local host Tom Fudge. I think the show will focus on podcasting and the issues involving copyright. I will post a link to the audio when it's available. I am not sure who the other guest or guests are yet.

Travel, Posting and RSS Calendar

We are in the last stages of work on our startup prior to launch sometime in the future. I suspect that I won't be posting as frequently as normal. I also am traveling a lot. If you scroll down this page you will see an RSS Calendar box that has all my travel plans. If you read this and happen to be in one of the cities I am going to be in, drop me an email and lets grab a coffee or drink or something when I cruise through your town.

Podcast Spot Link

NBC News.

Must use IE and Windows Media to view.

NBC 7/39 Podcast Spot

If you are in San Diego check out the Podcasting spot tonight at 5 PM. Yours truly is hanging out with NBC's Vic Salazar for a spot on Podcasting.

Packet Video Customer Service

I should start a customer service blog that's open to the whole world where we can document our wonderful customer service experiences. I think I have three so far that I can recall. So I am trying to figure out how to up-sample the video from my P910 so I can edit the clips. It's over a week since I sent my message to Packet Video. Since they are in San Diego I should swing by Michael Moore style and have the receptionist show me how to do that. And I could recorder it. Hmmm.

The $250 Million Radio Show #16

Can be found here. Information here. It was great talking to Vic from NBC. The segment should air Friday or Monday. I'll post more when I find out.

ASCAP Licenses Podcasts

Yeah right. I don't think the record labels or publishers will be too impressed with this license. ASCAP has a marginal claim that podcasts are performances. They have no ability to cover the other two rights.

Switchvox Press Release

Switchvox is being unveiled at the Desktop summit today. Here is their press release.

Podcast TV Interview

I am being interviewed today for a TV spot on the local NBC affiliate about my podcast. I plan on taking some pics and maybe a bit of video.

Google Maps

Ok this is some crazy stuff. I like this.

Blue Tooth Snafu

If you have read any of my older posts regarding Bluetooth you will know that I am an unapologetic fan of the technology. Well last week, right before my trip to NYC, my Jabra headset died. I may have been wearing it in the rain, but it felt like it was going downhill fast. I am now shopping for a replacement. When I figure it out I will let you know. I have seen a drastic improvement in the Bluetooth implementation on my phone over the previous version, so I am hoping the headset people have made some improvements.

Flickr Giant Pics

Speaking of Flickr and Tags, we have a bunch of art around the office from the Obey - Andre the Giant series. I uploaded a couple to my Flickr account and then tagged them. I got to see this really cool slide show which I recommend.

Sand Hill Road - Brian Dear

Brian put some pics on Flickr recently that chronicled a trip to Sand Hill Road. We generally drive through Palo Alto and out the back way as you work up the road so we don't get that view. Instead we look at the mall as we make the left hand turn. It is kind of cool the myth around Sand Hill Road and the reality that strikes you as very funny once you start making the rounds. I almost put up some similar pics on the last trip but restrained myself.

Million Dollar Baby

Ok, so I really do enjoy big Media content. Although we have too many kids, my crafty wife has managed to get shifts of babysitters to watch our 2 1/2 yr old and the triplets. As a result we have actually seen a couple of movies including almost all of the Best Picture Nominees.

My favorite? Million Dollar baby. Not just because it has Million in the title.

Clint Eastwood is an amazing director. Hillary Swank, though I don't care for her generally, is powerful. The story is engaging and hit me in the torso like I haven't been hit in a while, pleasantly surprising me after a section of the movie, that in retrospect, had slowed by design. Go see it!

Seasons of Interest

I am in football mourning. I don't expect to check out this site, or this site, or this one for a while. I wasn't really interested in the teams in the Superbowl, but it was the end of the season.

Since the election I haven't checked out this site, or this, or this either.

Some things relate to time. Some things relate to place. Right now, right here, I am not relating to either football or politics. At least for a couple of months...

eMusic - Cancelled

I was cleaning up some of those credit card treadmill items today and with a heavy heart, cancelled my eMusic subscription. I have been a big fan of the service for such a long time, but the cap of tracks (which I understand by the way) always made me mad if I hadn't downloaded my quota as there was only a reset and no carryover. It's leaving money on the table. Combine this with the fact that I really had most of the music I wanted anyways and each end of month became an exercise to download something, anything to get to my 40, seemed like a waste of time. I wish them well.

New York Recap

NYC can wear you down. Non Business related highlights included:

Bond Street Restaurant
Brasserie
SoHo House

Non Business Related meetings that were cool included:

Jay Dedman
Andrew Scott

Back home and busy. Lots to catch up on....

Taxi Audio File

Ok so I had to cut up the file to get the good parts, but it can be found here.

If anyone knows what they are saying I would love to find out. I am hoping its something like "Hey lets have a beer after work" and nothing more sinister than that.

The Revolution will be televised under our nose...

While riding in a cab the other day. I heard a really bizzare radio broadcast in the cab of the driver that was all fuzzed out and reminded me of a propaganda broadcast in an unrecognizable language. I was very intrigued as this was a really cool audio icon to me so I pulled out the P910 and started recording the noise.

It was really cool. I stopped the clip and asked the driver what it was. He said it was CB. I asked him if he could turn it up so I could record it. He got really pissed and said no and turned it off. Oops. I can't imagine what they were talking about but it kind of gave me the shivers given his response. I guess it might have been kind of creepy for me to ask to record it too....

Rome Total War

I received a copy of Rome Total War for Christmas but hadn't opened the package up until on the flight earlier this week from San Diego to NYC. Its a good thing I hadn't. This game is so unbelievable. I looked up after a short time playing (Or so it seemed) and we were in NYC. Nice.

MP3Tunes

Michael is at it again.