Rabble and Travelpod

We announced integration today between Travelpod and Rabble earlier today here. Users of Travelpod can update their blogs from Rabble and view their posts on Rabble now. Our partnerships allow people to publish content in a uni-directional or bi-directional way to allow our partners a way to mobilize their audience and to let Rabble work as a tool for existing web users. We have another announcement today at BlogOn and more to come in the following weeks.

A year later

This morning I jumped on the treadmill for a quick run. I mean a run that was slow that didn't consume too much time. Recently running has fallen off of my routine but I am resolved to get it back on track. I was listening to a podcast on the shuffle and I realized that it was this time a year ago that I created my first podcast.

It's fascinating to see how fast a new segment of self expression has grown from a handful of people to a fairly well funded segment that has also been embraced by media incumbents and a large number of people. I thought today was my one year anniversary but actually it is two days from now so I plan on getting together a special one year podcast show. Stay tuned.

Bands on Rabble

We announced today some of the bands on Rabble in a press release here. We have some deep relationships with a bunch of labels going back to MP3.com and we want to make sure that as our community develops that we find ways for fans of bands to find each other. Lots more to come but these labels got in with us early and have been great working with us.

Chance Podcast Simulcast

Tonight I sent out a special MP3 feed of my show The $250 Million Radio show. It is a live concert from the artist Chance. Go check out his site and check out the show. I haven't done this before but felt that it was really important to support what he is doing with this show. He has managed to corral 35 of us podcasters into playing the simulcast through our feeds. Very cool marketing. Definitely ground breaking in terms of clever marketing ideas for a new distribution platform. I am sure that this is only the first of many cool things to come on the podcasting and videoblogging front.

Flock

Ok, I am done for the day on this stuff. Matt told me to check out Flock a new social networking browser. Or something like that. I know the feeling. It's kind of mobile blogging meets social networking. Yeah. It's not live yet but there is a Business Week article here.

Ning

More new stuff. I want more time to play with new stuff. :-(

Ning is "A playground for building social applications". They have a framework that you can use to develop your own version of craiglist, Match, Flickr, etc. Interesting. Since I am not a developer I'll have to find someone to give me their $.02 but I'll definitely check out some of the Ning fed apps on the homepage.

Videonary

There is a new startup in San Diego that Bruce told me about called Videonary. Go check it out. There are some interesting possibilities.

BitTorrent Funding

I didn't post anything when BitTorrent was funded. I am really excited to see people putting some real cash behind this kind of technology. I don't know the founder, but my fear is that unless he is careful he runs the risk of getting sideways with the content industries. That would be unfortunate but hopefully the new investors are aware of this and will seek to find meaningful ways to work with companies who want to take advantage of this kind of distribution.

Creating Company Infrastructure

This week we brought a new person on board and I realized that we are actually a company now. I mean not just that we have people working in an office, we have evolved to the point that after sitting down with her for a couple of minutes I had to have our system administrator set her up with email, intranet access, WEP key for Wi-fi etc. I found myself laughing and later after our company meeting (I think that's funny too) I thought it might be interesting to share some of the tools we use.

Phones - VOIP. We are in this giant 14,000 sq. foot office where we have been on a month to month lease for over a year. And we get a great deal. Because we wanted to be able to move quickly if need be we started out with Vonage. I have been using them for around 3 years and have been pretty happy. Unfortunately they aren't as good for office stuff so we move over to Junction Networks for outbound VOIP and we finally broke down and installed a POTS line for fax.

PBX - For our PBX we use Switchvox where our good friends are busy cranking away making the world of IPPBX good for normal business users like us. We use softphones so far but I imagine at some point we will get some SIP phones.

Intranet - At MP3.com we had the mother of all Intranet's known as Gotham. At Intercasting we have our own little version of that intranet brought to you by some of our former/current co-workers at MP3.com. On the Intranet we have a Wiki from Media Wiki. (The same tool that powers Wikipedia) We use a calendar that nobody is really happy with yet called WebCalendar. You can tell a marketing person didn't name that tool. I want to get a client based tool that synchs with WebCalendar. I have been playing with Sunbird but it is still a bit early for that.

For stats we use Awstats but will move to a custom solution from one of our friends known as Cheeseburger in the coming months.

We also use some geeky tools like Nagios for system monitoring and Bugzilla for bugs. I am hoping we get some kind of open source contact management and project management tools in the coming months.

Blush

It was a good trip. This is typical of the response we had during demos. Lots of work to do but we feel like its been a good start.

The $250 Million Radio Show #27

I finally did a podcast. First time in a long time. The direct file is here. I'll post show notes later. Its a longish show for me. A bit of rock, a bit of indie, and a chunk of hardcore.

Delay & Co.

It's great to be back in the office. Been catching up on a to do list a mile long. I have to admit that yesterday I spent a bit of time crawling the various political blogs to get a read on the Delay indictment. I don't have much to say other than how I find it funny that politicians from both parties blame partisan politics on their legal woes. At the point that an indictment is handed down, it seems like its time for that story to end and that it's time for your lawyer to start doing the talking. Tom, shut up. If you are innocent you will be acquitted. I'd enjoy not hearing you talk for a while.

Tate's First football game

58ON0144.jpg,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

I had some stupid self inflicted, repeated schedule problems over the last several weeks. One of the last one's involved me going to boo Eli Manning last Sunday evening. Rather than reflect on the chaos preceeding the game, I'd like to share that Tate got to see his very first football game. I expected this to be a little bit less than tame version of a normal Chargers game but boy was I wrong. The whole crowd booed everytime Eli Manning was on the field. Tate had to plug his ears often but seemed to have a blast. Much to my surprise the thing he seemed interested in most were the cheerleaders. It must have been the pom poms! The Chargers crushed the Giants. I am sure that Eli will dread visiting this town for years to come.

CTIA

Spent time speaking on two panels yesterday and the attending the press reception with Qualcomm showing Rabble to reporters.

I have a pretty full day of meetings and then my four week death march roadtrip ends. I have a ton of follow up work to do but will be glad to be doing it from home rather than hotel rooms and on planes.

I look forward to catching up on my reading, putting together some podcasts that are long overdue and getting to spend some much needed time with the family.

Phone Geek and the Mobile Activists

IMG_0626,
originally uploaded by DevelopmentSeed.

What an amazing conference I am at. I can't wait until I can spend some time to regroup and talk about some of the things we are covering at this conference. Suffice to say, go check out www.mobileactive.org.

Sony PSP - Personal Media Device

Two of the primary trends that we focused on when we founded our company Intercasting were the rise in self expression or consumer content creation and the evolution of the mobile device into what we refer to as a Personal Media Device or PMD. I have written several posts on my blog in the past about some of the devices I consider as advanced PMD’s. They would include the Sony Ericsson P910 and the Sidekick II.

In the last several weeks I have picked up some new devices that I believe warrant a closer look as PMDs. The two newest devices I have been working with are the Sony PSP and the Nokia N90 camcorder phone. I haven’t spent enough time with the Nokia phone yet, but will be doing so over the coming days as I am attending a conference in Toronto called Mobile Active that is focused on using mobile devices as tools for social activism. I have spent a lot of time with the PSP and have a number of thoughts on this device.

The PSP is at first look, one of the most amazing PMDs I have ever seen. The form factor is generally nice. The UI is fairly straightforward. The screen is beautiful. The performance is excellent for it’s primary functions.

When we look at PMDs we think of these devices as devices that have components that allow for both the consumption AND creation of content. The PSP is all consumption. From a consumption perspective though, it is simply amazing. I wasted no time in taking my toy out of the box and immediately went to the Network settings to connect my device to the local WiFi network in my house. I had read about all the cool hacks that people had created for the first version of the software, but rather than explore that, I knew that having web connectivity with a browser was one of my primary use cases and I immediately updated the software to version 2.0.

From this point on I began to explore the various consumption methods available to me. The PSP allows me to view pictures from my memory stick Duo that I have taken on my P910 camera phone. I can also view other pictures if I can get them onto that small little memory stick. I know many people are not found of the memory stick but as a die hard Sony devotee, I am invested in this platform.

In addition to viewing still pictures, I downloaded some MP3 files and really liked the audio quality on the device. I had intended to download some beefy podcasts before I wrote this piece, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll try to load up the device for my next long flight.

I am not a fan of the little DVD format UMD, but I have to admit that it is really small and the playback is really good. Overall the video quality is just amazing. I haven’t spent much time yet trying to playback any mpeg 4 files from my p910 but expect to do that in the next couple of days. The number of titles available for the device is currently small from my perspective which didn’t give me much to choose from but I ended up picking up a copy of Sin City and really enjoyed it.

Gameplay is awesome. I am primarily a football/strategy game/first person shooter player and didn’t see any titles that appealed to me right now, although Madden comes out in a couple of weeks. I opted for Tony Hawk Remix 2, which is a great way to waste time flying back and forth across the country when you don’t have a power outlet for the laptop, which is my primary use of the device.

Web browsing is very gee whiz to me in that it is really cool to know that I have a readily accessible web device that I can whip out at any airport to do a quick check of webmail or go onto our company intranet for my calendar, our wiki, or our reporting area. Unfortunately it feels really slow. Painfully slow. I have had intermittent connection issues and I have been having out of memory issues when I load heavier websites. I am not entirely sure why that is as I have been using a 128 meg memory stick.

All in all a very cool device. What it is missing is anything that allows me to create content. Or at least create content easily. I conceivably could use the web interface to update my blog but the UI for text entry leaves a bit to be desired.

The PSP really showcases how you can step up media consumption from where it is today with the various Ipods to something approaching a nuclear device of consumer time wasting and media overload. What completely baffles me is why there was no thought about people using the device to capture content. I understand that a USB keyboard is coming soon, but it would have been really cool to add some things like a camera. Or Bluetooth to use with my cell phone when I can’t get wifi, which unfortunately is all too common.

As I head out on the plane today with my bag of gadgets I look at each of my devices and find some great things that they each have and some missing pieces that in some configuration would be an ideal device or two for me. I love the P910 for its Opera browser and fairly easy email functionality. I also love that I can take passable quality video and pictures that I can share with others that are mobile originated. I love the instant messenger integration of my Sidekick II and the form factor of the keyboard which lends itself to good textual content origination. The web browser leave a bit to be desired and I can’t wait until they have a better camera. The PSP is the mother of all media consumption for me but that’s about it.

As we continue to see the increased awareness in the general public that we are entering an age where more and more consumers want to create content to share with others, and also consume content not originated from the center of the media network, I believe that we will see the emergence of devices that really begin to marry the best attributes of the many new devices we see in the marketplace. I don’t believe that we will ever get to the fabled one device, but I think we will increasingly find new devices that bring together a deep and useful feature set that will empower users at the edge of the network to become the media broadcast and distribution nodes that we believe is the next inevitable evolution of what we think of as media.

The change of seasons

This summer has been amazing. I am currently sitting on an airplane on my way to Toronto to participate in a conference around social activism and cellular devices. In my pocket is a piece of paper with a list of to do’s that MUST get done this week. While sitting on the plane I realized that today is the last day of summer/first day of fall.

I am extremely excited that I am going to have power on both of my flights today because I know that I have an outside chance of getting caught up on a backlog of emails from the past four weeks and some time to catch up on some blog posts I have been meaning to write. I can review some agreements. I can actually do the work that results from spending time with people in face to face meetings. There has been a lot of meeting and now there is a lot of work. It’s a source of anxiety about being able to get everything done but it is also exhilarating to see things take shape.

What I have found over the last two months is that a lot of what I am working on is stuff that I can’t really blog about. It is killing me to not talk about the various cool discussions we have been having and the really smart people I have made friends with over this summer. Maybe later. Suffice it to say, it has been an amazing time and a lot of the things that we envisioned when we started working on this company, and that I started exploring when I started this blog, are coming to life on a daily basis. We will obviously be able to share more company stuff down the road, but I only hope that later when I can write more freely that I don’t forget to mention some of the awesome conversations and people who I have come to call friends that I have encountered on this really cool journey.

Business Week

Thanks to all who sent us some Business Week love. We ended up making the editors picks in the Tool box, Wireless services section. This has sent a lot of visitors our way over the last several days. Please do check out the other cool sites in the survey that you can find here.

Fellow Podcaster in a Coma

A really cool guy, Derek from Skepticality went into a coma last week. He is one of our fellow members in AMP and you can read about it here. Someone pinged me today and said there was a rumor going around people that I know that I was in a coma. Not me. I just had really really ugly heartburn. Derek, he needs your prayers.

NFL Sunday Ticket

I am an obsessive football fan. I sat with great joy this Sunday watching a variety of games. Hands down the coolest thing about this last weekend was the new Red Zone Channel from Direct TV. I have been a subscriber to NFL Sunday ticket for several years now, and as an insane fantasy football player, I happily jump from channel to channel watching games. The Red Zone Channel, which unfortunately only focuses on games on Fox, is a channel that switches from game to game for you when scoring opportunities occur. Wow. This is so cool. They kept mentioning that this was a sneak preview and I didn't know what they were talking about as they already had my fee for the season. So the scoop is as follows:

There is a new Superfan option which is another $99 and it gives you the Red Zone Channel as well as a bunch of other stuff including a ton of games in HD. You mean I could have been watching everything in HD yesterday??? Loser. So I guess I need to sign up. Check this out if you are a football fan.

Six Feet Under

Yesterday was a strange day. I had been in New York the entire week before and was really wiped out this weekend. Yesterday was a lot of time with the kids and opening week of football. More on football later.

So I take the triplets for a walk in the stroller and have Tate in a backpack and we head out to our local favorite market. I pick up a really nice piece of Coho Salmon, a beer, and some sparkling water at the store for dinner later that night.

On the way back from the store I slam a good portion of the sparkling water. Once I get home I take the salmon and cover half of it with some really good cajun spices and leave the other half untouched as Tate loves salmon but not spices. While cooking I leisurely enjoy the beer and the first part of the Colts and Ravens game.

After the salmon comes out, I set up plates for Tate and a friend and I start noshing on the spicy piece. About half way through my portion, I notice that I have the worst heartburn I have ever had. I take 4 Tums. It doesn't help. It feels like a serious knot in the middle of my chest, near the diaphragm. Not good. I then start to sweat. I keep hoping that the Tums will kick in. Not happening. Jess looks at me strangely. "Are you OK?". Um, not really. This really hurts. I am thinking I am going to drive over to the hospital nearby.

I call my doctor. He asks about my heart and light headedness. Nothing. Just this really bad pain that comes in waves and some sweating. He doesnt like the sweating. He tells me to call 911. Not good. He says it's prolly not a heart thing, but minutes count. I don't like the sound of minutes count.

Several hours later I am discharged from the hospital with some serious reflux spasm thing. Glad I am alive and glad it wasn't really a big deal after all. I was really glad that I know that if things aren't going well, I have the presence of mind to not tough it out but to make sure that everything is really alright.

New Orleans

I am a great fan of New Orleans. It is one of the few cities I have repeatedly visited for vacation. I have certainly spent more time in New York and San Francisco (and I still consider Los Angeles home). I have been to at least four Jazzfests, one Mardi Gras, one CTIA, and several other random trips to New Orleans just because. I love this city.

I had been stewing on what had happened for a number of days and then I had dinner with John Diaz in Venice last week. John, a plane crash survivor who worked with me at MP3.com has deep New Orleans roots. His family goes back several generations and his elderly parents (80s and 90s) had just been evacuated earlier that day. John was clearly shaken, and that's a lot to say for one of the most iron willed people I know.

I can't even imagine how long it is going to take to rebuild. It is truly a tragedy. My favorite places include Laffite's Blacksmith shop. Rumored to be the oldest bar in North America. The Napolean House. The best place to chill in the quarter. Note that their website is down. Cafe Du Monde. Nola. It goes on and on and on. It is so hard to believe.

What is even harder to believe is the tragedy that the many people who call this city home are going through. No jobs. No house. Nothing.

Podcasting Time Bomb

I guess I should have linked to this story about Terms of Use in my last post. And this one in Boing Boing.

AMP Library live

It can be very difficult for a ragtag group of merry indie music podcasters, who have day jobs, and don't have money as a group, to come together and pull something off. But sometimes we actually do just that.

Back in the day, pre AMP schism, we had started to form a library of music where our members can draw upon a database of music that has been cleared by the artists without any sort of heinous restrictions or over-reaching licensing. Just a straight up you can use this and we will credit you and there you have it.

So after much time and effort, we have put it live. We have a lot to put back in there, and a lot of work to do to get it going the way it should, but its a start.

Check out the library if you want to peek. If you are in a band head on over to the signup page and send some music our way. Please read the terms and conditions carefully. We want you to know we respect you.

Podcaster Overload

So over two days in San Francisco, I met with the following music podcasters:

CC Chapman - Accident Hash
Chris Rockwell - The Daily Download
Big Mike - Extra Super Action Show
Michael Butler - The Rock and Roll Geek show

CC had told me he was going to be at the SF Podcast meetup and I didn't realize it was going to be a "Podshow" heavy gathering. They had the whole crew in town. Even Ron Bloom. CC showed off their music site.

Earlier in the day I had been over at Odeo talking about AMP and other stuff. Fortunately for me that evening, the Odeo guy who showed up at the meeting was none other than Rabble their head geek. I had the opportunity to show him our Rabble.

The next day I was in LA for a couple of things and got to hang out for a couple of hours with Jason Evangelho from Insomnia Radio, arguably the biggest music podcast and a fellow AMP founder. Very good time and great to get to put a face to a name.

San Diego Mobile Monday

I have been asked to speak at the inaugural Mobile Monday meeting for San Diego on September 19th. Please come by if you get a chance. We will show the group Rabble and talk about of the various things we are working on at Intercasting.

San Francisco Podcast Meetup

CC Chapman from Accident Hash is in SF this week doing some stuff for Podshow. He mentioned to me that there is a Podcast meetup in SF tonight so I will definitely be checking it out.

Google Talk

I woke up this morning to several invitations to join Google Talk, Google's new IM client. I downloaded it and set it up. I am derrick.oien. Very creative of me huh? The invitations I received were from two fellow podcasters. It's been interesting to see how my Skype list grows daily and my AIM list is staying flat. Most of the Skype growth is European business associates or podcasters. I am thinking podcasters are generally the most early adopters I have met.

Rabble in Best of The Web Survey From Business Week

We are flattered that Rabble is one of the entrants in the Business Week Best of the Web competition that you can find here. I would humbly ask you to click on the Wireless Services category under the Toolbox section if you get a chance.

September Madness for Travel

I just booked my travel for the month of September. Ouch. I am speaking on two panels prior to CTIA in SF. One on creating mobile communities and one on emerging technology in the mobile software value chain forum. I am also presenting at a conference on mobile activism. That should be really cool. So September includes Toronto, NYC, SF and some other odd trips. Should be a long month.

Godcasting

I had lunch today with Craig Patchett founder of The Godcast Network. Craig is one of the early celebrities of podcasting and happens to be local. We had been meaning to get together for a long time and finally got the chance today. Glad we finally did it.

Office Space

So we are starting to fill out our once vacant office with stuff. More photos here.

Summer Thoughts

I was driving home down the coast the other day and I realized that I am somewhere on the other side of summer, well past the half way point but still somewhere in that place that I love about Southern California. And I realized that I haven't really taken the time to stop and enjoy this bit of time.

The last two to three months have been nothing but crazy and I am longing for a quick break that isn't coming anytime soon.

I then stopped and realized a couple of things.

My wife has been really slammed the last several months as she has returned to work and is still maxed out with the triplets. She is amazing.

The triplets have become increasingly easy, although that is almost a joke to say when you consider how many little creatures they are and how quickly they are developing.

My oldest son is now a school kid. And he has been playing pee wee sports, which is really funny and really cool.

I have been dying to write things in my blog out of a compulsive need to keep up my frequency of posting, but doing this has only resulted in a number of posts that when I look back on them aren't the type of things I expected to write about when I began. I guess I need to be patient and know that it's ok to not write stuff, especially if you are doing it for the wrong reasons, i.e. frequency over quality.

I am at that interesting cross roads in a company where you move from hard core startup to quickly growing company, which is simply amazing when I reflect on how far we have come and where we plan on going.

I am on the road all of the time, and although it is going really well and I am really excited about what we are working on, its a delicate balance to make it all work.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that, things are good yet very busy, and I am both happy and thankful for where things stand today. I don't expect to be blogging as frequently as we really start to do some heavy lifting, but when I do blog, hopefully it will be better than the last couple of months.

Podcasting Funding

Lots of funding this week. Podshow raises $8.8 million. Odeo raises an undisclosed amount.

We closed our Series A round for $5.5 million

As Shawn pointed out here, and Dave Beisel here we closed our Series A round for $5.5 million last week, which we announced yesterday in this press release.

It was an interesting process going through fund raising and along the way we met a bunch of really smart and interesting people. We are very excited about our new partners and expect that we can make a lot of headway in the coming months.

Leak about us - funding

Guess that's how it works. Check it out. I'll post something after I land in Seattle later today.

AMP'ed Podcast

Some of the folks in AMP put together a weekly review show of a slice of what we are doing each week. We pushed the first one live last Friday. By Saturday it was the #22 ranked podcast. By Sunday it was #8. This morning we are at 12. Please go check out the AMP site for the subscribe button or check out iTunes and look for the Top Podcasts to subscribe.

The Helmet and MMS

I think this is Tucker. It could be Brit, but I am pretty sure it is Tucker. Our triplets have slight flattening on the back of the head that at some level is a cosmetic issue, but because it could have some minor health issues we have opted to have them get the helmet. The helmet is fitted to their little skull and it helps their head get more symmetrical. I wish my parents had fixed my head when I was a baby.

The reason I am posting this though was because it was the first MMS message I have ever received. I was shocked today when my wife Jessica, who had to do the appointment without me sent me this picture from her phone to mine. She is on Cingular and I am on TMobile. (To be clear I also have a Verizon and Virgin Mobile phone, but I have been with Tmobile for years).

It's great to see carrier interop on MMS starting to happen. We obviously think we can help make picture sharing happen with Rabble, but anything that allows consumers to start to understand that what used to be known as a phone is now a media production and consumption device is goodness in our books.

Derrick Oien and Shawn Conahan

Derrick Oien and Shawn Conahan,
originally uploaded by Sander van Zoest.

Wow! A group of us set up an MP3.com alumni group on Flickr to share pictures. While browsing through the pics I found this one of Shawn and I at the MP3.com IPO party. That may have been one of the last really outrageous party sessions I have had in my life. Well maybe not, but certainly it was a very long night and an even longer next day.

I can't believe how young we look in this picture. Hmmmm.

Kill Your FM Zine

A group of my co-conspirators at AMP have just released their second issue of the Kill Your FM zine. You can find it at the AMP homepage. The really cool thing about it to me is that it is targeted for the Sony PSP. That's just amazing, and one more reason for me to go buy one. The issue has reviews of bands, tech writeups and MP3 files. Very nifty.

Mobilecast

Moconews reported on a story today about a product called Mobilecast that allows you to convert podcast files (mp3 files) to AMR which is the format many cell phones use. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks interesting. I'll report back when I get a chance to play with it.

First Rabble Review

We had our first review of Rabble. We were very pleased with the write up entitled Joining the Rabble: Making Mobile Community Work. The article can be found at TelecommWeb. A subscription is required. Shawn did a write up here with some excerpts.

Although there are some great comments about the product from a feature standpoint, I was really excited about some of the commentary about the community, which is without question the key component to making something like Rabble a success.

From the article

So whom does Rabble attract and what sorts of content do they make? From what we have seen, the early user base is young 20-somethings who most often post images of themselves and who ask such earth-shattering questions as whether they should let their hair go curly or straight? We get a lot of new- car posts; the occasional semi-nude body advertising his/her physique; and a lot of semi- drunk gal pals taking pictures of themselves in bars, asking the eternal question of life: "Whassup?"

It's very difficult to strike the right balance of product feature set to match a demographic. We set out to create a community that would allow our target demographic to interact and create content much in the same way that they have on some of the leading youth focused blogging sites and the social networking sites. To us, the early indications are that the users understand this immediately and know what to expect, albeit in a mobile environment. Another important piece of the puzzle is to have early members of the community to take a leadership role and model the behavior norms of the other users. The reviewer understood this and commented as follows:

Trivial? Yes. Mundane? Often. Thoroughly absorbing? Absolutely. Whether someone is complaining about an intense family problem or just showing off his or her body (or how drunk they can be while still holding a phone cam), the ephemeral postings quickly can germinate into ongoing soap operas or conversations among a group of simpatico souls. Learning the hard lessons of online communities that often go bust, Rabble does an excellent job of bringing the most active and interesting content to the top. It tracks the most- frequently-subscribed channels, the most popular and frequent posters, and "cool content." It is in these areas where we find serial postings from people whose personalities come through. Rabble already has its own grassroots celebrities. "LiberalFury" is an activist chronicling his journey to Washington, D.C., while "fayble" is a young lady who is away from her boyfriend and obsessively pining away in endless posts. This reviewer is a couple of decades away from his early Twenties, and yet the angst and trivia of these posts is absorbing. Rabble also has seeded the community with minor rock bands who post images and thoughts from the road as they tour.

It is still early and we have a long way to go, but we are excited by both the activity of our users as well as the interest of outside parties.

Football is coming

This morning I received my first email alert from my fantasy football service of choice, The Huddle. Wow, it's time, football season is upon us. As someone who is only a fan of football, this time of year is my most fixated on things of a sports nature. Whether it is high school, college or professional, there is nothing quite like football in my book. It's been a long time since the superbowl, glad it's back.

Rabble at BlogHer Con

I can't say for sure, but Debi might demo Rabble at her session at BlogHer Con on Mobile Blogging. If you are there definitely ask her to let you check it out.

PodcastMusic.com

What is this....hmmmm.

11th anniversary

Tomorrow marks 11 years of marriage with the most awesome woman in the world. I knew life would be an interesting journey, and I can't imagine having shared it with anyone better. Here's to my wonderful wife Jessica, a true partner in my life.

Pageant of the Masters

We are going to the Pageant of the Masters tonight. I recall that the first time I heard of it I thought it was a really stupid idea. People getting up on stage and recreating famous works of art. Yawn. In reality it is one of the coolest things you have seen as they show you how they do it and it is amazing how it turns out. It's a definite recommendation if you get to Laguna Beach in the summer.

Rabble at MOMEMO

If you haven't had a chance to check out Rabble yet, we are presenting it at the Los Angeles Momemo on Monday.

The $250 Million Radio Show #26

A little train podcast can be found here. Credits here.

Libsyn Feed

I set up my Libsyn account. My Libsyn feed is here. As soon as we can detail what we are doing with them I'll let you know. What I can say, not having been a Libsyn user, that their stats are AMAZING. Being a stat junkie I really dig this stuff and hosting my own stuff and using AWSTATS and other cheesy server stats packages has been less than optimal. I don't plan on moving my podcast feed from my Acmenoise feed anytime soon, but if you haven't listened to my show and want to help me check out the stats in more detail, feel free to subscribe to the feed above or check out the page I set up on Libsyn here.

Libsyn and AMP

At AMP we are finalizing a deal with Libsyn to do some cool stuff with our shows and their service. More details soon. Later today I hope to send some links to my feed coming from Libsyn as well.

Sidekick -- PMD

For the last several weeks I have been using a recently purchased Sidekick device. I find it ironic that the developer of the device is a company called Danger as I think this is the device that will ultimately get me in an accident due to my use of Instant Messenger while driving.

At our company we speak a lot about PMD's or Personal Media Devices. To us a PMD could be a Sony Ericsson P910, which is an elegant piece of mobile technology that allows a wide variety of media creation or, on the other end of the spectrum my LG-6000 running Rabble which allows me to create posts and add pictures, etc. Nothing too fancy, but when you think about what most phones can do, its definitely a hint of where we are going.

Over the last two months I have seen more and more people using the Sidekick. One of our night nurses had one. The guy running the Ferris wheel at the fair had one. A couple of friends started popping up with them. What I found most fascinating was that none of the people I saw with this device were what I would call early adopters. These people were mainstream tech users who happened to be typing on this little QWERTY keyboard. I figured I must be missing something.

To be brief, I am extremely fascinated by this device in my short time using it. It comes with a lot of functionality in a small user friendly form factor, and I can see how different features would appeal to different users. I am using it for one thing, AIM. My P910 is great for email, phone calls, reviewing docs, etc. Where it really falls down is IM. I have tried repeatedly to use one of the more popular interop mobile clients but have been really disappointed with the experience. The Sidekick has this nailed. They appear to cache sessions on both sides for those periods when you lose connectivity and then resumes the session with the stored text on either side.

The other features on the device include a phone (how quaint), email capability, a web browser, and a variety of PIM type features like contact management and notes as well as a camera. I would definitely use this for email if I wasn't conditioned to use my P910. The other features seem to work well, but they are not the big use case to me. For different users I could see the appeal of certain combinations of the feature set.

From a hardware perspective it is a great device. The screen easily flips, the keyboard is a good size and the overall device size isn't too bulky although it is by no means a small device. The price point of around $250 keeps it just a hair above what I would call a mainstream consumer device, but it isn't far off like many of the smart phones.

As far as a PMD, I think this device has great potential as it relates to blogging and photo blogging. I can take a quick picture of my son at soccer. Email it to my photo blogging place of choice. Pull up a web browser for blog entry, and post for all to see. Or I could use a client based application like Rabble, although Rabble isn't currently available for this device. The QWERTY keyboard lends itself to quick, yet longer form data entry although we have seen amazing amounts of text entry from standard phone keyboards. The nice combination of features from a hardware perspective would be nicely accented by similar software.

What does it need? My wishlist would be the following:

High Speed Connectivity - 3G network option
Deeper access to applications.
Open platform to other IM or Communication type software like other IM clients or Skype.
A better Camera.
WiFi Connectivity

All in all its a great device and I am sure that the next one is going to continue down the path of an awesome feature set path as more users discover what you can do with it.

iTunes Podcasting support Part Three

Ok, my show, The $250 Million Radio Show, was added to iTunes. I like to think it was coincidence, but it appears that almost all of the shows in our group were added. Power in numbers. Feel free to go and subscribe!

LiveJournal on Rabble

We rolled out support for Live Journal on Rabble over the weekend. If you use Rabble and Live Journal you can send posts from Live Journal to Rabble and back.

iTunes Podcasting support Part Two

The following is a press release that our podcasting association AMP released today:

Is Apple Thwarting Independent Music Podcasters?

Despite the widespread proliferation of podcasts through Apple’s new iTunes version 4.9, it appears music podcasters that legally distribute independent music are being left behind and effectively locked out of the iTunes podcast directory, which is fast becoming the primary vehicle to find podcasts.

The Association of Music Podcasting (AMP) represents the largest podcasting content group in the world, with forty three members. As of this release, three weeks after the delivery of the latest version of iTunes, thirty four AMP podcast feeds remained unlisted in the iTunes directory. These podcasts were subsequently either listed in the iPodder.org directory that served as the initial basis for the iTunes client ,or were submitted within twenty-four hours of the iTunes release.

It appears Apple has placed procedural obstacles for many older, established podcasts to quickly enter its iTunes directory. Despite that brand new podcast submissions appear to be taking a reasonable amount of processing time (approximately 48 hours), many legacy podcasters have waited weeks to no presence on iTunes.

Moreover, podcasts taken from the original iPodder.org listing are barred from resubmission, with no available option to resolve the issue of podcasts "on hold."

“It’s frustrating,” says Chris MacDonald, owner of IndieFeed Podcasts, founding member and Director of Legal Affairs at AMP. “We’ve been podcasting since mid September of 2004, when this thing really got started. I have thousands and thousands of listeners; yet our fans can’t migrate to iTunes easily. We are losing loyal listeners who aren’t technically savvy or who choose not to run two podcast aggregators at a time. It’s silly to suggest Apple can’t add those feeds to their directory in a reasonable amount of time. It’s also very odd that my non-music feeds, which were provided to Apple at the same time, migrated to the iTunes directory in only two days.”

"Corporations are looking to take advantage of the roadwork that the existing podcasting community has created via an unfettered, open-choice format,” says Derrick Oien, President of AMP. Oien is one of the earliest legal music podcasters, going back to the fall of 2004. His show is among many not yet listed in the iTunes directory. Oien adds, “It appears that Apple is more concerned with molding the community to their immediate commercial needs than with embracing this open community and adhering to an effective long term strategy. We have witnessed the early evolution of podcasting at a break-neck pace, partly because podcasting’s open format rapidly adapts to fit the needs of the community at large, and successful corporations will embrace rather than attempt to control this phenomenon. AMP continues to rapidly amass a large and dedicated collective audience, and we are working with people and organizations that approach podcasting in the spirit in which it was conceived. We look forward to working with them. At some point we expect that the support we receive daily from listeners and artists will get Apple's attention."

Rabble and Influx Insights

We received a mention in Influx Insights today in an article about the decline of Kodak and the rise of services like Flickr and Rabble. Check it out.

Gardening Thoughts - Heirloom Tomatoes Part Two

I am on the board of a company called Trusonic. They do really cool things with music and messaging in retail establishments. It's a great company with a bright future in a space ruled by basically two companies, Muzak and DMX.

One of the other guys on the board is Eric, who is the chairman & CEO of Pepperball. They make those nasty rubber bullets that basically mace you if you mess with the police.

At lunch we were talking about business stuff and other things when Eric said that the overcast skies were making it tough for his tomatoes to grow. What followed was a long conversation about the different varieties we are each growing, successes etc.

So far I am really pleased with where mine are. I have had two turn red so far and am looking at a summerful of some really good tomatoes.

3Hive.com

During my many travels, I got to hang out with the guys from Nitro Records, which is the label of great bands like The Offspring, Rufio, The Letters Organize and the Aquabats. Great stuff and great guys. Sean, who is the head of A&R also is a contributor to an amazing MP3 blog at 3Hive.com. If you like great indie music, I would recommend checking it out. Now if we can just get them podcasting...

The $250 Million Radio Show #25

Just pushed out Show #25 here. Credits here.

MySpace Acquired

For over $540 Million. Wow. Check this out. Congrats to them.

Back from the East

Man was the weather bad in Boston and New York. Hot and Muggy. I have a backlog of posts for today and a podcast. It was worth mentioning that we got to hang out with Dan and Mike and Dave Harper on our trip, in addition to all the meetings that were directly related to business. In town for two days and then taking a much needed break to Jackson Hole on Wednesday.

AMP and Odeo

We signed an agreement with Odeo this week to work closely with them and AMP. We are excited by their vision and look forward to doing some really cool things with music podcasting together. More details to follow.

Tate Turns 3

So Tate turned 3 yesterday. I am bummed that it coincided with an important trip, but we are going to have a big celebration on Saturday and pretty much through the whole weekend. Wow has time flown by so fast.

4th of July Pictures

Here are the kids on the fourth.

Traveling Yet Again

Boston and NYC next week. Figure it will be a light week for blogging. I have a couple of things I need to post before I leave. I am thinking there is a 50/50 chance that happens.

Blogger Image Upload

I have never used the Blogger web interface to put pictures on my blog. I have always used Flickr or Picassa. Here is one using the web.

Blogger on Rabble

Last night, after the many trials and tribulations that come with development, we rolled out Blogger integration with Rabble. What does that mean? Well for one, this post, as soon as it hits the Internet will be available for people who subscribe to my channel on Rabble to view. It makes it a really nice way to integrate what I do on the web with what I do on my phone. In addition when I post stuff on Rabble I can set it up to post on one of my Blogger blogs, including the pictures in my camera phone post. While posting from a phone to a website isn't earth shattering and many others have done it, the posts coming back from the web to the phone is to my knowledge certainly unique as is a lot of what Rabble does. If you are a Rabble user reading this and you use Blogger, please check it out. If you use one of the other blogging sites, we expect to make that available to you very soon.

Also if you haven't visited the Rabble website, we have finally rolled out login for existing users. Right now it is only set up for blogging synchronization, but soon you will be able to use it to do a lot of the things you do on Rabble from a PC. Except maybe carry it around in your pocket.

London Bombings

We have two good friends in London, Kerry and Sunil, who live in the Barbicon which is close to the city center/financial district. I have been unable to reach them thus far. I am fairly certain they are alright, but it would be nice to know that for sure. I feel terrible for all the people who are going through what many people I know from NYC went through on 9/11.

Rabble Announced by Verizon

We are really excited by the support we have been given by Verizon. The press release announcing Rabble can be found here.

Cool, Southern California, and Information Overload

James Governor from Redmonk mentioned my three uses of the word cool in one paragraph. Upon a second read I think I ended up squeezing 5 in two paragraphs. Ouch.

Ok so two things. First, I am from Southern California. I like to think that isn't all that obvious, but I use the words, dude, cool, and awesome rather generously in conversation. For the record I don't surf, but I do live in a surfer Mecca known as Cardiff by the Sea. I am not sure if it's that or the fact that I have spent a good chunk of my existence in or around various parts of southern California. I also do a really funny thing with the letter "O" when I say it in words. Sort of an elongated emphasis. I don't know why, but I can't seem to stop it.

Second, I find myself in a weird place in terms of my information consumption and regurgitation. I am working on a post about the Sidekick I just bought and the challenges of too much and too many ways of communication. I'll hopefully get that out later today. What I should have said about Where 2.0 is the following:

1. There is a fundamental shift in the development of wireless infrastructure and a growth in the ability of personal devices to capture and both produce and consume content. If you have read my posts or any of the Intercasting Corporation posts this is a consistent theme for me and people in our company.

2. The general release of advanced mapping APIs from the large search engines, and the capabilities that are already present and that will logically follow will create an overlay of location that will become a new and key metatag for information consumption.

3. This open approach towards location and mapping APIs, which is consistent with much of what you see in blogging and RSS platforms is very important in that people aren't leveraging the core platform to box out competition, rather they are allowing small startups, individuals, and even big companies to use the platform and provide context on top of an important layer of abstraction for the development of new services and products.

That, in my mind, is VERY COOL.

Live 8

Wow, what a terrible show from a TV perspective. I TIVO'd the show on ABC and I can't tell you how bad the show was. The only thing that really captured my attention was the Pink Floyd reunion, which I would have paid large sums of money to see the whole set.

Where 2.0 - Postscript

Where 2.0 was a really cool conference. I had a number of really cool meetings and I got to see some people I know like Russ (met once before) and Dan. I got to show a number of people Rabble and I got a lot of good response and feedback that I really appreciated. Dan showed me his beta which is very cool.

The big takeaway to me, and I obviously have a bias, was that the big players are taking an awesome approach to exposing their APIs for some cool mapping applications like the image I posted on the previous post. (Be sure to click on the image) Creating value in context is going to be key. Location materials will be broadly available and I think that there are going to be some really cool things happening as the big search guys and the wireless carriers roll out their location based apis. We obviously hope to help push the envelope on some of those things as it relates to what we are focusing on.

Rabble Meets Google Mashup

Rabble Meets Google,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

A friend of ours did an overlay of Rabble users with the Google Map API that was released this last week. There are going to be a lot of really cool things that come out of stuff like this.

Passed Out

Passed Out,
originally uploaded by brikmaster.

Yeah, I have no shame. I took pictures of my wife when she was super pregnant with triplets and put them on the Internets. So figuring that turnabout is fairplay I found these pictures she took of me and I think that this is a good example of a typical morning at our house.

Sidekick

I picked up a Sidekick yesterday. I think I have seen four or five different people with one of these in the last 30 days, and mind you they weren't super connected geeks like myself. I'll drop a review later. I have to say it's really funny to be walking around right now with a Sony Ericsson P910, an LG 6000 for using Rabble, and a Sidekick.

Where 2.0

Fascinating conference. I am running between sessions and other meetings I had previously set up, wishing I could sit in sessions all day. I'll recap some of the highlights later.

iTunes Podcasting support

I downloaded the new version today. The flavor of the podcast directory is decidedly Adam Curry and general commercial like BBC etc. As someone into music podcasting I was bummed to see there were only 17 music shows. Accident Hash, from CC Chapman who is heading up the Podshow Music network makes sense as he is an early player and has a good show. The Biddies? Yuck. But that's my opinion. Coverville? A good show but a serious lawsuit waiting to happen. I can't believe that Apple has that one in there. They should talk to their lawyers...

On The Road, Grokster and Where 2.0

Ok, my 4th consecutive business day in LA. That's back and forth way too many times. Its been a good time though. Unfortunately it's been in the car and not the train as I needed some flexibility. This morning I had heard that the Supreme Court was done for the session and I knew that there were some important rulings that I wanted to hear about, I just didn't remember which ones. Duh! Grokster. Wow! I can't wait to read the opinion. I have heard mixed interpretations on the radio and in phone calls with people like " www.bigchampagne.com " Joe a .

Back in San Diego tomorrow and then off to " conferences.oreillynet.com where " Where 2.0 a . Stay tuned.,

Technical Difficulties - New Features

I checked out Bloglines the other day and saw that I had made a whole lot of posts and I didn't recall what was going on. When I looked at the post I saw some strange pictures and things that I hadn't put up. I then realized that we are just a couple of days from rolling out some new features on Rabble. So for those patient readers of this blog a quick heads up.

Early next week we should be rolling out integration of Blogger and Live Journal with Rabble. What does that mean? Well for one, I am going to be importing a whole bunch of content from this blog into my Rabble account. People on Rabble will be able to see these posts alongside the posts I create on Rabble. The other thing, which I think is even cooler, is that when I post on this blog, the content will go to Rabble. When I post to Rabble, the content will show up here.

If you see any weirdness just know that this is what's going on. We have a lot of other really cool features and things going down in the coming weeks as well.,

Shark 80 78 ' stagingdb.rabble.com rabble 1_3_ncln_63 1_3_ncln_63_1461_main.png' ,

Engage

My friend Neil works at a new dating site that soft launched last night. It is called " www.engage.com " Engage a . I haven't had a chance to check it out, but next week when I am up in SF I look forward to hearing all about it. I am sure there are some particular twists that will make it interesting.,

AMP Relaunch

As I alluded to in my last podcast there was a bit of a separation of some of the early members of AMP ( " www.musicpodcasting.org " Association of Music Podcasting a ) as there were some personality conflicts and the normal crap you get in a fledgling organization. I am still a fan of those who left and I think for their own in idual reasons it made sense in each case and I completely understand and support their decisions. Part of that separation resulted in a change of technical responsibilities that necessitated a dormant period on the AMP site.

Well no more. Please come by and check out the almost 40 awesome music podcasts covering just about every genre and style from all over the world. We have a lot of awesome deals in the hopper and expect to be making a lot of noise really soon.

If you are a podcast fan and want to see THE music place for podcasting, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.,

ODEO

I am starting to play around a bit with ODEO. Very cool. More later...,

The $250 Million Radio Show #24

After a long hiatus, Show #24 is here. Credits are here.

New Technorati

Check out the new " www.technorati.com " Technorati a . It seems like they have made some really good improvements. I haven;t checked the result sets yet and I am sure that there probably are continuing problems in that area, but I am excited to see where they go.,

Rabble in New York Times

We had a really nice write up here today.

Triplet Baptism

It's Friday and still no podcast. Maybe tonight. This weekend every relative on the planet is descending on our house to witness the baptism of our triplets, Mallory, Tucker and Brit. It should be great fun. I'll definitely post a bunch of pics.,

Silicon Valley

Spending the day traveling again.,

Schiavo and Liberty

I was glad to see that the husband of Terry Schiavo was vindicated in the autopsy results. Whether or not the results had come out the way they ultimately did, I still find myself terribly disturbed by the erosion of personal liberty in this country and the apparent lack of a voice standing up for personal liberty. I say to the government, I will pay my taxes and obey the laws. Just stay out of my house and my personal matters. Does anybody else miss this emphasis? Democrats? Republicans? Somebody?

Painfully Busy

Unfortunately I have been so busy with Rabble that I haven't been blogging regularly or reading my feeds or even letting a podcast fly. I expect that I will get a breather soon, but in the meantime I definitely plan to put out a new $250 Million Radio Show today or tomorrow. More commentary on Edge of the Network media very soon.

Travel Log - Redmond

The rain cleared and revealed a gorgeous day for Seattle. I spent the morning in town in meetings and headed out to Redmond for our afternoon meetings. Redmond has such a weird vibe. A beautiful setting which is the headquarters of the most successful company in the US in the last 30 years or so. Its amazing to see the lush malls popping out of the forests. It feels like today is going to be a good day. I fly home later tonight.

Rain?

I am in Seattle. I was shocked when I landed. It was raining a little bit. Hmmm. Seems unusual for spring. Oh well, I love this town. I'll forgive it...

Product Launches

Product launches are really cool. I guess I mean objectively cool because something came from nothing. The hardwork and time and all the stress and other stuff isn't very cool. But it's clearly a part of the process. Rabble turns a week old in a couple of hours and it has been an awesome week for us at Intercasting. I fly to Seattle tomorrow for a couple of days of meetings and hope to blog about some of my normal stuff during the downtime.

Channel Derrick

I forgot to say, if you are on Rabble subscribe to me on Channel Derrick. Shortly we will be rolling out integration from Rabble to Blogger and Live Journal, so look for some Rabble posts here later.

Seattle

I am spending a couple of days in Seattle this week for meetings. More later.

Mobile Homesteading

When we set up the Intercasting site I had intended to start migrating more of my posting to our company blog. I think I am going to try to do that more and more when talking about our specific company issues that may bleed over into the usual stuff I like to blog about. So without further to do, my first Intercasting post can be found here. Please check it out - a small slice is below:

"With that in mind, we embarked this week on the creation of a mobile community built around the premise that at the intersection of all types of user generated content and sophisticated personal media devices are the elements of a new and exciting community of users willing to create and share their media."

Rabble

Rabble launched on Verizon earlier this week on a subset of our handsets. You can see the information on our site. More to come this week! Check out What's New or Get Messaging to get a copy of the application.

A little news...

We launched. We are keeping it a bit quiet because we haven't rolled out all of our handsets (11 of 22). We will make some noise next week. Have a nice weekend.

Rabble at BREW

We are showing people Rabble at the BREW Conference in San Diego yesterday, today and tomorrow. If you are in town come by and check it out.

Travel Log - SF and Silcon Valley

Got back last week on Friday from the East Coast. It was a great trip despite the horrible weather. We have been doing a quick and dirty VC trip in advance of our launch and it has been a generally fun experience getting to know a bunch of smart people and trying to understand how you would include them in your company.

The weekend involved a lot of family time as my wife is returning to work after six months at home with the triplets. We spent a lot of time with the kids and took the triplets out to their first party at our friends Bruce and Darcy.

We spent the last day running around SF and Silicon Valley for part of our west coast trip and again really enjoyed the conversations and the people. Somewhere in the middle of this I got a nasty cold that isn't helping considering how busy we are.

Today is BREW conference which should be really interesting as we have a lot of interest in our product.