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

Podcasting Professor Has Website Suspended

Post ImagePodcasting and education – I think it’s only a matter of time, once the issues that make educational institutions uneasy are worked out. And to be sure, educators are already experimenting with podcasting, like communication and technology professor Robert Schrag. The problem is that he decided to charge for his podcasts, and NC State University didn’t like that too much (via Podcasting News):

Schrag had made his lectures available to students and the general public online for a fee of $2.50. The University questioned whether this practice was ethical, referring to the inconsistencies in opinion concerning intellectual property and decided to ask Schrag to suspend the Web site until copyright-issue clarifications could be made.

Besides wanting to make a small profit, I don’t know why Schrag was charging for his podcast. I highly doubt he gave the money to the university to cover his (probably very small) bandwidth costs. Interestingly enough, when he asked his class about the situation, only four of them said the podcasts should be free, and no one said the site should have been taken down.

This situation brings up a bunch of questions. As a paying student, is recording what the professor says for my own consumption any different than frantically trying to write everything down? Does the university own the content that the professor delivers, or does the professor himself/herself retain ownership? Why should I as a student have to pay extra to get an audio file of the lecture?

And perhaps most important of all, is podcasting just something universities need to embrace in order to keep up with the times? I think it might be, kind of like replacing blackboards with whiteboards or overhead projectors with digital projectors and computers. Schrag has the right idea:

“I’m not sorry I made the choice and I hope I can get back to giving the information,” Schrag said.

After all, isn’t the primary function of a university to disseminate information? We call it teaching or learning, but really, a university is just a fancy way to spread information and knowledge to the population. Podcasting then should be viewed by universities as just another tool to help them spread information.

Read: Technician Online

NewsGator Desktop Sync Beta

Post ImageToday I started using a new aggregator for my web feeds. Well, sort of. I downloaded and installed the beta of NewsGator’s Desktop Sync, and now I can read all of my feeds inside IE7 RC1. It’s beautiful! Here’s the details on Desktop Sync:

Desktop Sync is a system tray application that keeps your feeds, folders and read states synchronized between NewsGator Online and the Windows RSS Platform. This means that any application that uses the Windows RSS Platform will be automatically synchronized with your NewsGator Online account!

Yeah baby! That’s what I’m talking about!

The product is the evolution of a demo that NewsGator head honcho Greg Reinacker did back at Microsoft’s MIX06 conference.

I have now used NewsGator Online, NewsGator Inbox (formerly Outlook Edition), FeedDemon and Desktop Sync. As you can see, having the synchronization story that NewsGator provides is incredibly important. Of them all, I think I like Desktop Sync the best. It allows me to read my web feeds in IE7, which means I can take advantage of everything I have inside my browser like favelets and other tools, but without losing the sync capabilities of NewsGator Online.

The application seems really solid for a beta, give it a try!

Read: NewsGator

Apple Podcasting Site Broken!

Post ImageThe new nanos are great, Apple still rules digitial music with the iPod and all that, but they’ve broken podcasting. Well, they’ve broken their own podcasting site anyway. I went to look at the iTunes Podcasting spec, and noticed that the page can no longer be found! Seems the redesign for the new stuff broke the website. Well done Apple!

And it’s a shame too, because http://www.apple.com/podcasting was such a nice URL, wouldn’t you say?

A search for podcasting on the support site only gives the Podcasting FAQ. And the link on that page to the podcasting page remains broken. Fortunately, Google comes to the rescue. You can see cached versions of the podcasting page and the tech specs.

Maybe they are going to be updating the spec?

Notes for 9/17/2006

Damn it’s cold outside! Here are my weekly notes:

  • Winter is definitely on the way. There’s too much yellow outside already!
  • Podcast Spot is looking pretty spiffy if I do say so myself! It will be public late this week if all goes according to plan. Brad Gibson was kind enough to mention Podcast Spot in his latest Bradcast. Thanks Brad and welcome back to the podosphere!
  • Like Kyle, I attended the first Edmonton on Rails meeting on Thursday. Here’s a photo of our small get together.
  • Here in the best province in Canada (you know it’s true) we’ve experienced a 43% rise in GDP between 2002 and 2005. “That puts Alberta’s growth rate not far behind that of China’s.” Pretty crazy! China is of course far and away the fastest growing large economy in the world.
  • Cold weather means hockey! As I write this, the Oilers are beating Phoenix 3-0 at the start of the third period in tonight’s first pre-season game. They’ve got Torres, Peterson and Lupul on a line together.
  • It seems everyone is talking about the new iPod Nanos, which I admit, are pretty cool. Even more cool is that they have really good recording capabilities now!
  • You can find some very interesting stuff in China. Like this building, designed to look like a cell, complete with mitochondria and everything. Kinda creepy, no?