Adam Curry, Ron Bloom, and money...

Ok, so I just finished posting a comment to Adam curry's blog about his opinion of podcasting and money... and I'm a little insencesed. See, I've got a big mouth, and have always been a decent speaker, so I want to podcast, but Money is making it hard to do.

After the bubble burst, I can't find a decent job, and since podcasting would be little more than a hobby right now, I neeeeed to find a way to make enough money to support any potential boom in listeners (yes, I honestly do think I'm good enough to get these things popular), but I'm always interested in making my voice heard.

Anyway, (and to let you know, I'm listening to podcasts now, so I'm probaly gonna wander around here) They seem to think that by opening another internet company, this time a "podcast portal" as it were, they will make things easier on people like me that want to put my 'cast on the wire... but no one has yet mentioned how this is going to work, and they constantly skate around the issue. They are going to make it easier... perhaps by selling space and pipe, perhaps by bringing in advertisers, perhaps just by hosting another "vote for me" site that is a little more open... what ever it is, it's isn't defined yet, but they are already talking about how this is going to put everyone on a level playing field.

Well guys, the only way I think that you can level the playing field is by making it equally easy to find and download my upcoming cast as it is dawn and drew, give me ample space, free... tools to put together my cast... free... and promotion on a equal footing. And, with the mention of you closing 6 contracts, I'm sure each of those wants money in their own way. This means that someone, probaly me again, will have to pony up yet another chunk of change. How does this level the playing field?

If Michael Goeheagen can afford to get the "gold" package, with bla bla space, and yadda yadda tools, but I can only afford the "brown" package, with limited space and availability, how does that level the field? Yes, I know that to play, you often have to pay, and for that, I'm kinda strapped as well... I have the family and home to support before I can indulge in my hobby, and since this isn't life altering yet, I can't justify any extra expenditure. But I still think my voice is just as valid as Dawn and Drew's, Tim Hensons, or anyone else's....

Ok, this is reallly rambling now, so I'll just summarize, and post a better explanation of what I mean in the near future...

1. Podcasting popularity will be determined by availability, content and production value
2. Money will be the only way to solve two, if not all three of these issues
3. not everyone can afford to play at the same cost
4. if they can't, the playing field isn't level
5. Money is killing the internet, and will kill podcasting given the proper chance
6. You are a leader Adam,
   
7. Give each troop the same weapon, and then they might have the same chance... first time someone does their show with more equiptment than someone else, you are no longer fairly able to judge that persons value as a caster.

Potential costs

1. Equiptment
2. Software
3. Bandwidth
4. Storage space
5. Broadcast license for music
6. Time

Until you can solve all those 6 items, there can be no level playing field, and to do that, you would have to be able to provide these items to ANY potential 'caster.

Sorry, but this is just how I feel....

Thanks for listening, I'll see you tomorrow....

Ta!

If you can't say something Nice, then say it to me

Since i've again started to push this blog's address out on the world, it's time to update again... well, I'm working with Flash, recreating some of my "paid" sites, and trying to drum up a little resume building work (gonna do it for free if they will let me, just have to get permisison!) Learning Action Script 2.0 as fast as I can (and man, it aint fast enough... this was a GREAT update from macromedia.). Waiting for Godot (he said he'd meet me at the bus stop downtown), and just generally nerding out.

Well, I've finally finished Half-Life 2... If you'r a fan of FPS, or HL in general, GET THIS GAME! The end has offically stolen my vote for the kewelest moment in video game history... you have to see it... it was well planned, and magnificantly exicuted. It's almost poetry. I'll come out with a formal review on the ACS homepage blog on this one, but regareless to say, it get's a 11 out of 10.

Other news... finally found a forum where the people are kinda nice... not like those hateful Pimprig idiots. Dawn and Drew, nice crowd, good topics, etc. Another check'er outer.

Finally, this is yet another excuse post, I'm putting these few things here to hold over my readers till I can finally finish my AS2 training, so sit tight people... LOTS of kewl stuff comming!~

Ta!

Falling Away (from me)

Hey everybody, it's time for another excuse post! Yippie! Again, my days and nights have been filled with work and play, and no time for anything else. Still working with my software from Macromedia, and now playing (at night, 2 hr max at a time) Half-Life 2, which by the way kicks major ass. But I'm reallllly working on getting back into the swing of things. I've got several ideas and thoughts that I need to get out here, so I'm going to be working on this soon. Like the Idea that people want a president that is "accessable" not a leader anymore... that the us is a teenager in many respects (look at our policy's dealing with other countries), and a few ground breaking ideas about cheese... But today, I have a couple meetings in an hour, so Ta Ta for Now!

I've got you, under my sin...

Hey kids, well, since I've been off for a bit trying to learn new software, I figured that it was time for me to finally put my heart back into my first love, fudge... oh wait... no not fudge, you! My friends and, well more friends. Since we got mentioned on the "Distorted View Show" this morning, I've seen a spike of 5 whole people. woo hoo! Yeah! Party!

Anyway, thank you to all the folks who do visit our little slice of stupid this morning or over the next couple days... We are working on our own podcast, mostly because I have a lot to say, and not many people to say it to... (the dog just seems to tilt her head at me)

Well, maybe I should start by teling you what this site is about. See, I'm a computer nerd, have been since the mid 80's, so I spend most of my day working and trying to find more work. During the evening, I spend time with the Wife and our boy, so the only time I have to get on my blog is in the evening... and usually after I'm done playing a game, or surfing to find things that I don't know yet. As such, this site is generaly filled with 2am rants about this and that, interspersed with occasional glimpses of lucidity, which are more often than not the morning edits I have to put in because I made an azz of myself in the original post. But even then, I generaly leave in all the crap or "art" because I need to be reminded why I shouldn't do real work at those times in the morning.

Anyway, nice to meet 'cha, please kick up your feet and take a load off, this is gonna get weard.

Now, todays topic is about podcasting, yes again. See, I honestly think that podcasting is about to die as a public medium for self expression. When Blogs became popular, everyone and their mother began selling the software or space for them, and now it's become a pay for play medium (yes, I realize the irony of doing this on a google product for free, but stick with me for a minute or two). Anyway, let's go back to the heady days of the 90's....

See, in the early 90's, the internet was wild and free... you could put up anything you felt like, and had about the same chance as others of being seen or heard for your opinion. Owning one of the first 500 URL's made the hospital I worked for a farily HUGE inovater, and I was on top of the world. I learned HTML, which was a subset of the language I was using to put out IT documentation (good 'ol SGML), and became fairly adept at working with it. And the Porn flowed like wine.

But that was before corporations became interested, portals became the internet baby, and a new pay-for-content model of business was born... now, you can't find anything worth anything if you don't have enough money to subscribe to one of a million different services. Want good cheat codes or downloads for your favorite game? Well, that will be $9.95 a month... lessons on tuneing a drum? Another $5 spot please, even the free, home made porn has become a market, and a lucritive one at that, but there is verrry little that you can find anymore that isn't being sold.

Ok, ok, ok, yes I know, the web is still free in many areas.... IM, (some) blogging sites, news (well, the stuff thats public anyways, but even "the onion" is a subscription site if you don't go there every time you get an update). And don't get started about P2P either, because if the RIAA and movie industy has it's way, that will go the same direction as the Dodo. It's gone from being the two way communication I grew up with, to a "one-way-you'll-listen-to-what-I-sell-you" medium.

Everyone deserves to get paid, but this can be a little much, and a lot of it is because the internet went from being filled with informed computer nerds, to pedestrians on the Information Super Highway. And also, I do realize that you can still find plenty for free, but with all the comercialism, it just isn't the same anymore.

Enter Podcasting, a new free, two way medium... you speak to people, and they can respond, and even get responses back from the "publisher". I thought this was going to re-invent the internet again, but now I see that I couldn't be more wrong. It's just another avenue that will become filled with greed and money issues. Dawn and Drew are asking if you would pay to listen (sorry guys, not likely) Adam Curry is about to launch a new company that will draw more money out of the pockets from pedestrians (if it's as linked to podcasting as people think), and even iTunes will eventually sell podcasts. This is the same thing that happened with the internet, with tele-services (remember being able to get your horoscope for free from you phone company? Can you still?) And just about every other two way medium on the planet. Even the phone has been taxed up the yang, and it used to be such a nice little device.

So what are we going to do? Well, we for one are planning on selling out as soon as possible... our five year goal for our new company even includes a line about getting bought out by WalMart in that time. Yup, sell out, drop your pants for the man for enough money to make it to the death bed, and take no less than what you deserve. It's not like we're inovating (I save that for when I'm doing a "download") so why shouldn't we make the money as well?

Well, I'll tell you why, because your selling the first ammendment of other people for a monthly subscription. If you make money at this, you buy better equiptment, you get lax on your production scheadule (ah hem dawn and drew), but you put out a little bit better product, wattered down just enough to tell people the same things over and over again. Heck, even the simpsons do clip shows when they have a slow year. And because you're just a little better, the guy in his attic with a USB headset and a pc will never get the play he deserves, because he's going it "au-natural". Is this a shame or evoloution? Is it even worth your while because some of you are those pedestrians I mentioned before, with a dell computer that's never been opened except for when you send it in for 'fixin. In a word, yes.

See, you may just be a pedestrian now, but some day, you going to have a handle on what the internet really is (see the "world of ends" website) and will start wishing you could put something out to express your rage about the bad drivers in the world (working on purchasing "driveright.org" now) or the way that the republicans are about to require every adult to carry and ID card, (chipping, or implanting an RFID tag like your dog is next folks), or anything, but because there are millions upon millions of professional, pay me sites out there, you will get about as much attention as schubert at a metallica concert. You will be stuck in the same rut as millions of others, paying someone else for your hosting, and no traffic looking at your ad space to help subsidize your yearly / monthly / daily cost. And we all fall down.

So, since this is really turning into rambeling now, I'm going to cut it short, I'm sure I should come back here and edit this, add more thoughts, etc before I put it out, but I'm done for now, even with the millions of ideas in my head. Please folks, every chance you get, put up your blog, update your info, get on the internet and PARTICIPATE, don't just watch. And remember, if you really want to protect your freedom of speach, sometimes you have to say things for free.

Ta

Slow personal news week...

Ok, this is going to be REALLY SHORT... I just got new software, so till I have a better handle on it, I'm working day and night on it... (Studio MX 2004 /w Flash Pro), please forgive any lack of entertainment contained herewithin, and forward any and all requests for random rants, blather or hullabaloo to my email... I really do like getting mail.

Ta!