Month: September 2006

Day 2 Notes

Today was the first official day of the Expo, and it was definitely intense. And by that I mean, much busier than last year in terms of foot traffic. The trade show floor was open from 10 AM until 5 PM, but by the end of it, Dickson and I were pretty drained.

  • Today was excellent for spreading the word about Podcast Spot. Dickson even managed to snag an interview! The portion with Dickson starts at 19:35 and runs for almost exactly 8 minutes.
  • I really like that the Denny’s here is more diner-like than the ones back home. I don’t like that their iced tea is actually tea on ice. I prefer the fake sweetened stuff 🙂
  • If you came by the booth and we told you that the upload limits on the cards was wrong, I apologize again, it was actually correct. We must have been tired this morning when we looked at it, but when we finally got Internet to check the website, we realized there were in fact no printing errors!
  • We managed to get some more notepads today, so we’ll be bringing some home for those of you that have requested one!
  • I have some photos and video and stuff to upload, but the Internet connection is just too painfully slow, so I am gonna wait until we’re back on Sunday.
  • The guys organizing the Expo have been great, except for “the power incident” today. We didn’t need to power anything at our booth, but all booths have a lamp at the top for the banner, and we were going to turn it on. Thing is, they wanted to charge us $90 to power the damn lamp. So I said screw that. Highway robbery.

We’ll be at the Expo all day again tomorrow, so stop by and say hello if you’re in the Ontario, CA area!

Day 1 Notes

Just a few notes from our first full day here in Ontario:

  • The season premiere of Smallville was tonight, and it was damn good. We made sure to be back to the hotel in time to watch.
  • It was hot today, but it sure cooled down this evening (not that I am complaining).
  • Was nice to see some familiar faces tonight at the exhibitor/speaker/press event at the convention center.
  • Turns out the “Starbucks” in the lobby of the hotel isn’t a full-blown Starbucks, but rather, proudly brews Starbucks coffee. Still, not bad.
  • I absolutely hate paying $10 per day for ultra slow Internet. It aggravates me to no end. At least we were prepared enough to bring our own wireless router.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Expo – should be good!

Portable Media Expo Setup

Dickson and I are just killing time here in the nicely air conditioned hotel until 5:30 when there is an event for exhibitors and the press. I mention the air conditioning because it’s a scorching 94 degrees here today, or for everyone back home in Canada, 34 degrees celsius. Edmonton had just started to get some nice weather again before we left, but it was still only about 15 degrees!

We finished setting up our booth in about ten minutes. Like last year, we opted not to do anything fancy, though unlike last year we have a banner this time. You can see what I mean in the pictures. We also decided to sponsor the conference notepads this year, and I am really happy with the way they turned out.

More later!

The Start of a Great Trip

I think this is going to be a great trip! For the first time in recent memory, Dickson and I were not scrambling to finish anything the night before leaving town. That was kind of nice for a change, we’ll have to do it more often! Today didn’t start out so great though. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, cleared customs without any problems (minus Dickson getting manhandled in the security check by an over-eager young man) and then sat down to wait for the flight. Thing is, our flight was over 20 minutes late. And with a 45 minute window to catch our connecting flight in Salt Lake City, that was somewhat distressing.

Turns out we made it just in time to make the flight, but the lady at the counter informed us they had overbooked as they didn’t think we’d make it. So we volunteered to wait for the later flight (only 2 hours later) and in return we got meal vouchers and a $200 credit with the airline (Delta). It was a pretty sweet deal! And such a difference from last year, when we missed our flight and had to pay a lot more to get to Ontario. Another nice side benefit was that our bags arrived ahead of us, so we didn’t have to wait for them to get off the plane – they were waiting for us.

We’re now in the hotel in Ontario – the DoubleTree, which is very nice by the way. They gave us a fresh chocolate chip cookie each upon checking in, and we passed a Starbucks on our way to the room. See what I mean about being a good start?

We just noticed that Podcasting News has an item on Podcast Spot too. I’m really excited for the Expo to start now!

Roland nails the Globe and Mail on Web 2.0

Post ImageFellow Canadian and photoblogger extraordinaire Roland Tanglao posted some harsh words about a recent Globe and Mail article. The article includes a fairly negative quote from Albert Behr, who says, “you’ll notice that there are no Web 2.0 companies on the [Technology Fast 50] list — they just cost too much to be profitable in this country.” I have to agree with Roland:

The prognostication that “Web 2.0 companies cost too much to be profitable in Canada” will turn out to be just as laughable as the 1990s predictions of Apple’s demise. The whole point of Web 2.0 (the read write web or whatever you want to call it) especially with affordable infrastructure like Amazon S3 and EC2 is that anybody with a great idea and great implementation skills can build a web service anywhere in the world (not just in Silicon Valley) that is useful and scalable.

Roland offers some examples, including Flickr and bubbleshare. I’d add Podcast Spot to the list. Even though we just launched last night, a lot of what Roland says resonates with me. We use Amazon S3, and I would say we have a great idea and a great implementation. Now we just have to work on becoming profitable 🙂

Perhaps it is fair to say that Web 2.0 companies are harder to do in Canada, but a little challenge never hurt anyone right?

Read: Roland Tanglao

Podcast Spot is LIVE!

Post ImageI don’t even know what to say – I’ve been wanting to make this post for so long! Okay, Podcast Spot is now live and ready for you to use. And you’ll note we’re not in beta either; we are not hiding behind a label. You shouldn’t run into any problems on the site, but if you do, let us know. And please send us your feedback too!

For those of you that don’t know, Podcast Spot is a hosting service for podcasters. We’ve been working on it for about two years now. Actually, exactly two years ago last Thursday was when I launched BlogosphereRadio, my first foray into podcasting. You can say that Podcast Spot grew out of that project – I realized that podcasting could be somewhat difficult, and took far too much time and effort. Dickson and I realized we could make things easier, and thus, we set about creating what eventually became Podcast Spot. And while the code might have changed quite a bit in the last two years, our goals have always been the same:

  • To make becoming a podcaster and enjoying podcasts easier and more enjoyable
  • To eliminate the need for technical knowledge, and reduce the amount of time required
  • To empower podcasters and their audience with features designed specifically for podcasting

I’m proud to say that Podcast Spot is a big first step towards accomplishing these goals. That said, it’s just the first step, and there’s still a long way to go. We’re eager and excited to continue improving the podcasting experience, with Podcast Spot and other products too.

Dickson and I recorded a quick little introduction message earlier this evening, which you can listen to at Podcast Spot. Even if you don’t want to be a podcaster, I encourage to check the site out! If you have comments or feedback, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on one of our blogs, post to our forums, or email us. And if you’re going to be at the Portable Media Expo later this week, come see us in booth #408!

Read: Podcast Spot

Notes for 9/24/2006

Time for my weekly notes again!

  • We’re launching tonite! Yay!
  • Congratulations Chu and Michelle on your engagement! Here are some photos from our small get together the other day.
  • Andrea and Felicia are in London. They are travelling Europe for a month. I’m not jealous. No really.
  • Apple to trademark the word podcast? What a bunch of morons. I wonder if their PR department will do some damage control this week.
  • What a cool way to visualize the blogosphere!
  • I got a postcard in the mail from the fine folks producing the Jackass 2 movie a couple weeks ago. They wanted to know my shoe size, so I emailed it to them. And to my surprise, they sent me Jackass 2 shoes! Coolest swag ever! You can see them here.

Quick Update!

Wow, long time no post! I’ve been pretty busy getting Podcast Spot ready for launch, among other things, so my apologies. Things should return to normal on Monday. Though I might get around to posting some stuff later tonight or tomorrow.

You know the saying, “you learn something new every day”? Well it’s true. And over the last few days in particular, I have learned that Safari is an incredibly buggy browser.

Wired News gets Odeo all wrong

Post ImageI think the staff at Wired News must have missed the memo about Odeo. In a list of Web 2.0 Winners and Losers published today, they included Odeo on the winners list. They praised the service, saying that Odeo “breezed in and de-mystified the podcast.” Huh, is that really what happened?

Not according to Odeo co-founder Evan Williams, who when giving a talk last week said Odeo failed for five main reasons:

  • “Trying to build too much”
  • “Not building for people like ourselves”
  • “Not adjusting fast enough”
  • “Raising too much money too early”
  • “Not listening to my gut”

De-mystified the podcast? That would explain why the vast majority of the population doesn’t know what a podcast is. They certainly know what MySpace or YouTube is though, yet MySpace appears on Wired’s losers list.

In some ways, the list that was voted on by Wired News readers is much more accurate – Odeo doesn’t appear on either list. This is the wisdom of the crowd at work! I don’t think they can be described as winners or losers yet, because Odeo seems to be finding their way still. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, to wait and see if they can turn it around.

The funniest part of the Wired article is this:

In the interest of brevity, I’ve chosen five sites from each category. The web services industry certainly has more than five winners and five losers, so we’ve only highlighted the exemplars.

I’m not exactly sure what reporter Michael Calore considers the definition of “exemplary” to be, but I am quite certain it’s different from my definition. And probably different than the dictionary’s definition too. The first five that came to mind for me certainly didn’t include Writely or Odeo (mine would be Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube, MySpace, and digg).

Read: Wired News

White and Nerdy

Post ImageWeird Al has done it again! If you haven’t seen the video for his new song, “White and Nerdy”, you must. It’s really that good! Well as long as you understand the jokes I suppose. You can watch it on YouTube.

Most of Weird Al’s stuff makes me laugh, but this one especially. I’m definitely not a trekkie or anything, but I still think he covered all the “nerd” bases, except possibly being a cultish Mac lover. Where was that one Al? Other than that, great song and video 🙂

Read: YouTube