Scandal in Ontario!

Amidst all the serious business taking place over at the Podcast and New Media Expo, the scandal is that some as of yet unidentified fellow (described as having a t-shirt stating that he "gave rope-burns") stripped down and tied up Omaha of MacRadio.com in the middle of the LibSyn party last night. The party was later reportedly busted up and dispersed by local security.

If you iJustine reportedly has unreleased mobile phone images of it, and Mason has video that will be released later this week on his broadcast.

Seriously though, even though I was unable to attend, I had a good time hanging out with Justine, Brad, and Mason (as well as all the folks from the chat rooms). Thanks for broadcasting, guys.

/rizzn

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Podcast and New Media Expo: Day 2

Hey folks. I'm still virtually attending the PNME this weekend. You can too, if you head over to rizzn.com/pnme2007.

I'm more or less twittering everything I can about what's going on.

If I get a chance to, I'll try to aggregate my twitters and experiences into some blog posts. Stay tuned to the blog for that.

/rizzn

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HowTo: Attend (virtually) the Podcast New Media Expo

I'm (virtually) in attendance at the Podcast New Media Expo. Watching the keynotes and hanging out in the chat room is a distant second best to being there. Over the course of the day, I'm going to try to do some legwork on all the ways to attend virtually.

UPDATE: I'm building a little virtual attendance page.

Click here to join.

The UStream link has been moved to that page. If you have more ways to virtually attend, please let me know!

Join me, won't you?

/rizzn

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Video Syndication Done Right

Hey Rizzn-ites,

I've really been doing some thinking on what it takes to publicize a video venture properly. We talk a lot about the monetization aspects of video on the internet, but what we forget, or at least I do as a veteran, is that more integral than coming up with monetization is how to most efficiently market, publicize, and get those sweet sweet video views that will make that CPM based advertising possible.

As I look around at the myriad of video offerings and ventures out there, no one really focuses on that aspect of things, although a handful of content producers seem to have an inkling of how it works.

What?!
I have an advantage in the business of content production that most others don't seem to have - not many people know who I am.

Let me explain.

I'm not Leo Laporte, I'm not a Robert Scoble. Heck, I'm not even a Sean Kennedy. I don't have a huge built in fan-base that goes back a decade. I can't really even count on my friends and family to view my material simply because most of my friends and family aren't politically involved nerds, which is what the bulk of what my content revolves around.

Therefore, I've been forced to come up with inventive and even hacked together ways to drum up an audience in everything I've done in media production ever since I started at age 15 or so. What has this taught me in broad terms? You can't rely on a single medium for building an audience. It absolutely must be a broad effort across a variety of mediums.

We're focusing on video content, but let's look to the audio podcast I produce and host for a minute as an example.

As we talked about yesterday with Lee Gibbons, the me-too gotta try it days of podcasting are over. Back when podcasting started, I hosted a show called the Mark and Darrell show. The driving philosophy behind the entertainment value of the show was somewhere between Seinfeld and Andy Kaufman (a show essentially about nothing, that as long as we found it funny ourselves, we didn't care if it made anyone else laugh). If that doesn't make you wonder why anyone would listen to the show, I should mention that the most popular segment of the show was something called "Competitive Paint Drying."

My point being, not necessarily my best work. We streamed the show on RantRadio at the time, to about 20-70 listeners on the stream a week (some times spiking into the low hundreds). When podcasting came into existence, it wound up almost immediately attracting around 700 downloads an episode (running five episodes a week) without even having been listed in iTunes.

These days are gone.

If you start an even well produced podcast but do little to promote it other than put out the podcast and post the show notes, you'll be on a long uphill battle to attain listener-ship.

Get to the Point, Mark
How does this apply to properly promoting a video? Well, in the effort to create a highly listened to podcast in this age of rising levels of white noise in the New Media, I've done a number of things to raise the profile of the RizWords podcast (ignoring the basics of content production like quality, format, consistency... I'm going to assume you're an advanced producer):

• Autoplaying the podcast on the blog: This flew in the face of well established rules of aesthetics, and I'm sure a lot of you reading this now are fairly annoyed by the fact that you have to hunt for the pause button every time you pull up one of my blog posts. I've been running very detailed analytics on the blog for years, and the bounce rate has only shifted unfavorably by 2% since I've started doing this. Those that don't bounce, however, tend to stick around for an extra couple minutes on average. So what's my tradeoff for all the extra listens? Weeding out a few finicky visitors, and Tom Merritt telling me I should change it to not autoplay on an episode of Buzz Out Loud.
• Posting my player widget everywhere: and I mean EVERYWHERE! It's on my MySpace profile, it's on my Facebook profile. It's on my blog. It's on the show notes. It's on my friend's blogs. It's everywhere. WebbAlert does this as well. The trick is just finding a way to incentivize this widely for broad groups to do the same.
• Blogging and Link-Blogging to raise profile: The type of podcast we are is one that conveys information. It's not enough to be a good voice with quality content. You've got to provide tools. Look at what the A-List bloggers do. They don't just throw up the latest widgets-du-jour on their blog (at least most of them don't). They throw up job listing widgets, ways to get to popular content, link blogs, aggregators, things that their niche audience are going to find entertaining or utilitarian. If you can invade as many aspects of your audiences entertainment or information gathering regimen as possible, you'll be a whole lot more sticky.
  

I'm still not getting the connection to video, Mark...
Pay attention, this is where I bring it around town.

How can you put out a video? How many ways are there to distribute it? Like about a thousand, right? You can embed it (with about 200 different ways of monetizing it players, or popular social platforms, or what have you). You can embed as flash. You can embed as .MOV. You can embed as a result of a live broadcast you did with UStream, Kyte or Stickam or something. You can embed using the Facebook video embed tool. Or you could just podcast it. You can tailor your podcast for AppleTV. Or TiVo. Or Comcast PVRs. Or video iPods. Or a Zune.

Point being, there's a lot of ways.

Which way is best? What's the best distribution method for an independent video producer to reach the broadest audience?

The answer is that there isn't a best medium. The rise of video online has created so many damn outlets to release to, releasing to one and hoping that one goes viral or gets a lot of subscribers is naive.

The first thing I tell all online video clients is that you really need to pay for my marketing services, or be prepared to devote a large portion of your time to an unexpected part of the content development cycle: PR and Marketing. I'm going to give away the farm here and tell you what that entails, and if you read all the way to the conclusion, I'll tell you why I'm saying all this publicly.

• Which embedded video site do you need to publish to? All of them! This is a massive undertaking. There are around 17 kajillion video clip sites like YouTube out there right now. Aside from monetization issues, and which service is going to provide you the best bang for your CPM buck, there are essentially two different classes of services. Uploading exclusively to one or the other comes with its own issues.
  
  If you upload to a small site, you're playing in a fishbowl. Presumably if you're an advanced producer, your content is going to be king of the small pond, but at the end of the day, it's still a small pond.
  
  On the other hand, if you upload to a YouTube, Metacafe or other such site, regardless of your content quality, if you don't have a dedicated team of monkeys waiting to comment on and watch your video constantly until it hits one of the top lists, you're going to be lost in the ocean of white noise until your lucky break.
  
  The answer? Upload to all of them. This also is a form of copy protection. A common process for less than scrupulous marketers is to take your content from one site, slap their URL on it, and upload it to all the rest of the sites. Translation? You're losing visitors and repeat viewers.
• What about the podcasting thing? If I'm uploading as an embedded video, what do I need the podcast for? Absolutely, you need a podcast. Not "could use" a podcast. Need it. Why? Well, aside from the plethora of reasons why podcasts are a preferred delivery method that you can find anywhere else, lets look at some numbers.
  
  You've heard of AskANinja. Looking at the YouTube numbers for a second, viewership numbers range from 200,000 views up to 3.5 million views. Those numbers vary widely, and its quite easy to say what else does Mr. Ninja need but YouTube? How would you like 115,820 (numbers pulled today from PodFeet's ranking page) more guaranteed views for every episode. Views you can measure down to the zip code, monetize, and provide demographics for? What are those numbers alone worth at industry standard CPMs? Between $6,900 and $27,797, depending on numbers of ads, CPM rate, customer responsiveness, and show length (and that's gravy money on top of whatever your ad arrangements are with your embedded video providers).
  
  Think you can produce a video podcast on that budget?
• Okay, Mr. Genius, what else do I need to do? There are a number of other distribution channels available to the independent podcaster. Its a relatively simple process to submit content to TiVo and Comcast PVR set-top boxes, last time I checked (the information I found for it was on the PodcastAlley forums several months ago - and since then I've seen several well known podcasts make it into the DVRs). If you've got quality content, and a solid ad agent, its a whole new world of monetizable ad inventory for you.
  
  This means making sure you have podcast feeds that are compatible with the multitude of different video receptacles out there. Without researching all of them, I can think of about five or six different formats off the top of my head
  
• This sounds like a lot of work. It is. No one said it was going to be easy to be a successful internet star.
• So what else do I have to do? It's going to help to have a blog. Let's dial it back a bit towards reality, because we're not all ninjas. A crucial piece to the puzzle in terms of creating, maintaining, and developing your presence is a blog, a twitter, and a couple social networking accounts. Want a perfect example of this? Look to Leo Laporte, Robert Scoble, Ken Rutkowski and the CNet crew (I'm thinking specifically of the Buzz Out Loud crew; Tom Merritt and Molly Wood).
  
  One of the advantages of all the recent Web 2.0 apps, as well as the strength of independent podcasting, is the feeling that you've got at least a shot of engaging in real dialog (some podcasters are more reachable than others) with the content producers.
  
  Twitter provides a way to engage in ad hoc chat conversations with your fans and peers. Facebook provides a platform to distribute exclusive or complementary content as well as create a sort of VIP community for your core audience. MySpace is a great platform (due to it's trailer park approach to web design) to add folks to your listening audience (it was, after all, built by spammers).
  
  The nexus for all things, though, has to be your blog. Your blog, if utilized properly, is going to be one of the main driving forces for creating your viewership, especially in your show's infancy. Each blog post serves as a press release, a connection to your audience and an a monetizable property in an of itself.

This covers the bases of what I think is a fairly well rounded support structure for pushing forward the popularity and viability of your video ventures (at least the general concepts of it).

Why am I talking about this? Well, I'm not trying to say I'm the smartest kid in the room or anything, but I see a whole lot of spectacular productions from a lot of really great online personalities, not to mention about five video-centric startups getting funded every twenty minutes, and very few if any seem to truly grasp the power and scope of what can truly make a successful video venture. None of the startups really seem geared in a multi-pronged way towards promoting quality content up through the ranks.

I mean, I love YouTube as much as the next guy, but I tired of watching folks getting kicked in the junk back when it was called America's Funniest Home Videos in the mid-90s, and the latest star(let?) to come out of YouTube's big skill is wig and makeup application, and screaming a has-been pop star's name repeatedly. Not exactly quality content, in my opinion.

I have seen a lot of good stuff with potential podfade because they couldn't make grab a sizable audience. A lot of that has to do with the fledgling status of video monetization, true, but a lot of it has to do with there not being mechanisms in place for quality content to rise above the noise floor.

I guess what I'm saying is I'd like to apply my abilities to more quality content producers. I'd like to see a niche of companies rise out of the newest crop of startups that try to incubate these talents in the aforementioned ways. I'd like to see industrious, quality content producers apply some of these principals themselves.

Because, dangit, if I have to watch that stupid cross-dressing Britney fan become the spokesperson for independent content creators, I swear, I'm gonna explode!

/rizzn

Thoughts? Questions? Wanna hire me? Wanna fund this idea? E-Mail me. Or better yet, e-mail this to your favorite unknown content producer.

We covered a lot of this topic at the beginning of Episode 138 of RizWords. Subscribe to listen.

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Google and Facebook

Hey Rizzn-ites,

It seems that every time I gear up to do a blog post, Google or Facebook have to worm their way into my monologue at some point. Today is no exception.

A few days ago, Mike Arrington dropped a bombshell that got a little play in the blogosphere and then evaporated in regards to Google's impending response to the Facebook phenom. We all knew it was coming down the pike, because Orkut just isn't cutting the mustard in terms of the the US market.

I immediately commented on my blog that I simply couldn't see Orkut in any way retooled as a social networking tool, and it having a chance at all to compete with Facebook. In fact, I said that "[m]y advice to Google employees whenever they've brought up the social network issue with me has always been dump Orkut!"

Shortly after the post hit the web, I received a call from a Google employee that agreed with me.

Here's what Mike said we'd see:

On November 5 we’ll likely see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut’s social graph information - the most basic implementation of what Google is planning. From there we may see a lot more - such as the ability to pull Orkut data outside of Google and into third party applications via the APIs.

Here's what I'm hearing: instead of leveraging Orkut's social graph information, we're going to see leveraging of GMail's social graph. Does GMail have a social graph? Sure it does. For those of us that aren't bleeding edge early adopters, what's the best measure of who's in our closest circles? Those that email us the most, and those we send out the most emails too. The interconnecting web of six degrees of separation can easily be determined by a little algorithm that pays attention to all the to's and from's. Google excels at both looking at our private data in new ways, as well as algorithms.

By way of significant upgrades to contact management and the enactment of profile pages, essentially, we're going to see a truly business-centric social networking system. It's difficult to find a system that's not got some sort of API or RSS feed within the Google world - it's simply a matter of connecting the dots, and making the Google widget platform interoperable.

Mike, in his original post, touches on very briefly what I was told:

In the long run, Google seems to be planning to add a social layer on top of the entire suite of Google services, with Orkut as their initial main source of social graph information and, as I said above, possibly adding third party networks to the back end as well. Social networks would have little choice but to participate to get additional distribution and attention.

Its curious that I'd been talking about this for at least a few months with Googlers along these lines and concurrent to that this has been brewing. I'm thinking of sending a consulting bill out to Mountain View (no, we don't have a big ego or anything. :-)

Or at least demanding an early peek at the gPhone.

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Podango + GigaVox: An Interview with Lee Gibbons

Lee actually told me about this a couple weeks ago. I had thought they were saving this for the Podcast Media Expo, but Mike Arrington seems to have gotten a scoop:

Podcast network and hosting service Podango is beefing up its service with the purchase of podcast publishing software from GigaVox Media. The content-management system, called GigaVox Audio Lite, allows podcasters to automagically manage the different parts that make up an audio or video podcast, including ads, intros, promotions, and other program material.

Podango, which is based in Bountiful, Utah, hosts 1,300 podcasters across 250 different stations, including Mommycast, Duct Tape Marketing, and the Apple Phone Show (which Podango produces itself). Later this week, it will launch Girls Gone Geek, which CEO Lee Gibbons describes as a “cross between the View and Motorcycle Maintenance.” Something tells me it’s going to do okay. All told, says Gibbons, Podango-hosted shows are downloaded two million times per month, which is up from a mere 20,000 downloads six months ago. He is shooting for 10 million downloads a month by next March. And you thought podcasts were dead.

I had a discussion today with Lee, which can be heard on today's podcast (episode 137), that touched on not only a lot of what new things are offered to Podango producers through this acquisition, but what he sees in the world of audio podcasting in the near future.

I know a lot of our audience is very interested in learning what's new in the world of video production and monetization, and it's important to note that what Podango can do for audio podcasters can also be offered to video podcasters to a large extent, which is why 137 is a very important episode for those types of folks.


Short Interview


Long Interview

We only had time for about 10 minutes of the interview for the show, but if you are interested in more of what Lee Gibbons had to say, I've made available the full 20 minute interview here in the blog posting.

Download the short interview here.

Download the long interview here.

Subscribe to the feed to listen to Episode 137.

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gPhone: Rumor Control.

Hey Rizzn-ites and gPhone hounds...

Several folks, most notably these guys at DigiTimes, are talking about the gPhone again.

I ran some of the theories past 'Deep Throat' over at Google (and remember, you guys named him that, not me). I'm forced to sit on some of the information he gave me for a time being, but I can comment on some of the rumors in broad generalities, as I did on the show last Friday (see episode 135). From the DigiTimes rumors:

Although market rumors previously stated that Google is likely to use an EDGE solution developed by Texas Instruments (TI) for its planned handset, recent developments indicate that Google is also evaluating the possibility of launching a 3G handset initially.

I'm still waiting on confirmation of some information from a certain American carrier regarding their technology platform, but, as I understand it, Google is past the evaluation stage in development for this iteration of the gPhone in terms of which mobile network they'll use.

Google [may] postpone the launch of the so-called Gphone to the first half of 2008 instead of the latter half of this year as expected due to the change of platform and problems related to licensing...

Obviously nothing is set in stone, as the product is still in late-stage development, but it sounds to me that the product will be released sooner, rather than later. Deep Throat didn't give me an exact date, but other sources tell me that it will be publicly released (not just demo'ed behind an NDA-wall) between 9/27 and 10/5, and released simultaneously (more or less) world-wide. I'm not dead certain on these dates (as this informant is a newer source for me, but it sounds plausible given what I do know).

High Tech Computer (HTC), meanwhile, is being marked as the manufacturing contractor for the Gphone due to the company's expertise in ODM and brand business and its mutual cooperation with a number of telecom carriers worldwide, said the sources.

Google may also try to launch a handset running on a self-developed OS, to compete with Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms, the sources speculated.

These things sound congruent with a lot of what I've heard, both from the blogosphere as well as Deep Throat. Again, I can't go into too much detail, but these bits of analysis and rumor seems on the mark. Given the fact that the story and rumors originate from a Taiwanese manufacturer, and HTC is a Taiwan-based company. Just sayin'.

If you like reading about patents, you may wanna check out this article. It's a bit tedious, but Information Week sees a pattern of patents coming out of Google that definitely signal a move towards the mobile world, too.

Of course, we've known about for a while Google's intention to spend in the neighborhood of $4.6 Billion to move to the 700mhz wireless spectrum. Channel 4 UK talks about what looks like a British bid for the mobile market by Google.

...on Thursday the UK communications regulator Ofcom announced a proposal to take some of the airwaves currently used by O2 and Vodafone and make it available to new bidders.

...

This remains a remote possibility at this stage, but the idea of a Google-branded mobile service is now a distinct possibility.

And in news that holds tertiary relevance to this (another story we talked a bit about on the show Friday), Google plans to build its own data network are under the Pacific Ocean. This from Mashable:

The project to lay cable, called “Unity,” would involve several other telecommunications companies who would aim to have it operational by 2009. The move would give Google a leg up on other US companies looking to deliver content to Asia, since they would have their own dedicated cable.

I hope it's becoming clear to those in the network-providing establishment: we will not stand for non-network-neutrality compliance. There are a number of strategic moves contained within all of these moves, but the largest bit of this that can't be ignored is that Google is moving towards an environment where they don't have to worry about network neutrality (as I discussed with Greg Blonder last week).

At any rate, stay tuned to this blog and podcast. As soon as I'm released to talk about the details, you'll definitely want to be here to hear them. They're juicy. Mighty juicy. It's killin' me to sit on 'em.

/rizzn

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Irrelevant Conversations: Ahmadinejad and Social Graphs

No disrespect to Winer and Scoble, both of whom who have been debating the finer points of the difference between Social Graph and Social Network, but a debate over semantics on a new Web 2.0 word seems a little silly to me.

That's just me, though, it would appear. Just about everyone else in the blogosphere is talking about that one. What's not getting enough attention, in my mind, is Scott Adams' nearly anti-Semetic diatribe about Ahmadinejad. At first, when I read it, I wondered if it was just me being a bit over-sensitive, as I spent a number of years working for a Rabbi, and my anti-Jew-language radar is fairly finely tuned. I forwarded it to my favorite NoCal Jew (without citing the author) for comment. This was his response:

could be [Muslim-apologist, or anti-Semetic], sounds like an angry arab college kid who feels disenfranchised in the us vs. them set-up of affairs in the middle east. His arguments miss alot of important points about Ahmadinejad.

I'm going to send you over to the original blog post to read, but I want you to come back and comment... but before I send you there, I want to explain what I feel is fairly obvious (despite several folks on the web who are seemingly missing this)... the article is written tongue-in-cheek. He's not writing from the perspective of someone who is anti-Iran... he's trying to display what he feels is the absurdity of the arguments against letting the president of a terrorist state speak freely in America.

OK. Go read it and come back.

Now here comes the part where I anticipate some of your comments and attempt to preemptively respond.

Q: Uh...did we just read the same thing? Where is the antisemitism?
A: First of all, the whole thing is written tongue in cheek. Secondly, in that context, he's defending the idea that there was no holocaust. As well as defending the re-definition of Ahmadinejad's destroy Israel comments.

Q: Did you read what he wrote after that?
A: Yes, but he's re-writing history based on comments he's received. If I were to believe that post, I'd have to ignore what he previously wrote.

Q: Well, if you want to get upset over a cartoonist, go ahead man.
A: Point being, he's a widely read blogger. As widely read as any other political or technical commentarian. Doesn't matter how he got there. I drew cartoons for my high school newspaper and yearbook. It's how I got my start in Journalism. Doesn't mean what I have to say means any less or more. It's incidental.

Q: And assuming I ascribe to your preset terms of him being widely read, I suppose that would make him mainstream .. and if he is mainstream, why does this surprise you?
A: I don't think you're paying attention then.

Q: I am.
A: No, follow my reasoning a second. Last week, Daily Kos admits basically hating the troops. Hillary is on the verge of being publicly revealed as a ponzi-schemer in a way that can't be denied. And today, a leading left political and tech blogger basically says that Iran and Ahmadinejad are cool in his book. It's the grand unveiling of true left motivations happening all around us. They can't keep up the masquerade any longer. Its not that all the folks that are against the war are anti-American, but that a lot of those that form liberal agenda engage in very wrong-headed thinking.

Essentially, the emperor has no clothes, and they finally can't deny it anymore. My hope is that by drawing attention to this fact, it will cause folks to re-examine why they think a lot of what they think rather than follow the herd of liberal thought.

---

As I'm writing this, Mahmood Aquavelva is at Columbia University, speaking to America. I don't believe that we should have let the head of a terrorist state even into the country, regardless give him an open platform to speak.

No, let me amend that. The man is head of a state that regularly sends folks to Israel to blow up themselves in Israel in the efforts to kill innocent Israeli citizens. We should put this guy in Gitmo, and put a Justin.TV cap on him, and let him pontificate from a jail cell.

I'm shocked by a couple things, as I've watched and listened to Mahmood Aquavelva and the crowd at Columbia. First of all, the President of Columbia has not once tried to get Mahmood Aquavelva to actually answer a question, and let him just meander all over the place with his answers. In so meandering, Mahmood Aquavelva has denied the holocaust, he has denied wanting WMDs, he has denied calling for the destruction of Israel, and he has denied that Israel has a right to exist (by way of saying that the Palestinians are correct in their desire to destroy Israel), and he denied that homosexuals exist at all in Iran.

The only thing that attracted boo's from the crowd was that homosexuals don't exist in Iran.

The other thing that shocked me is that there was an actual PRO-America protest outside the Columbia proceedings today.

In watching the proceedings, it occurred to me: why can't we tase Mahmood Aquavelva until he starts making sense. We do that for college students. Why not visiting dignitaries?

Just a thought on Columbia's (and University of Florida's) commitment to 'free speech.'

/rizzn

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Google to be 100% Open

Mike Arrington says he's talked to four of several folks who attended a super-secret meeting over at the Googleplex that more or less say:

The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. They’ll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google’s personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Gtalk and other Google services over time.

Here's basically what Mike thinks that means: "On November 5 it is likely we’ll see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut social graph information - the most basic implementation of what Google is planning."

My advice to Google employees whenever they've brought up the social network issue with me has always been dump Orkut!

Orkut is only good if you're in South Florida or South America. Other than that, GMail is your ultimate social networking tool. Tool up GMail, tighten up it's integration with iGoogle, and ad the widgetizing feature to both to allow real-time social network via the oldest internet social tools in existence: email and chat.

I can't be the only person who sees this, can I?

/rizzn

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MarryOurDaughter.com: An Interview with John Ordover

Earlier this week, I posted about MarryOurDaughter.org. At the time I thought I was breaking some news, then I checked the dates on some of the blog postings... turns out it was about a week old.

Still, quite interesting stuff. Check out this clip of the interview of me with John Ordover, the man behind the site and the viral campaign that ended up getting millions of hits to the site over the matter of a couple days.

Download the interview here.



Subscribe to the feed to listen to Episode 132.

/rizzn

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Don't Taser Me Bro

Hey Rizzn-ites...

It's not often that you'll see a blog post from me that agrees, more or less, with the Huffington Post (and don't think that doesn't make me more than a little nervous), but I've got to chime in on the 'Civil Discourse turning UnCivil' down at University of Florida.

In case you missed it, here's a video link:


Every time I watch it (and this is a different version than what I originally saw), I have to stop and think of what could possibly be running through the five or six campus cops' minds while they're tasing and wrestling to the ground a student for exercising his first amendment rights.

I certainly don't agree with most of the fellow's politics. The guy clearly has some moonbat tendencies, as is evidenced from some of his writings on his website, but is this a reason to use such force in quieting him? He barely had 30 seconds to get out his question before they called time. I believe it was a minute and thirty seconds into his series of questions when they cut off his microphone. Less than a second later, they were physically restraining him. About 40 seconds later they had him wrestled to the ground. Seven seconds later, he was in handcuffs. For the next 15 seconds, he was repeatedly tasered.

All the while, Senator Kerry keeps going as if nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. According to the New York Times, "...[l]ater, he said that he had not been aware until afterward that the student had been shocked with a Taser." Watch the video again and tell me if you think that. In his statement, he also said:

I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but again I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention.

I asked the police to allow me to answer the question and was in the process of answering him when he was taken into custody.

There was a later post from a staffer on the blog named Brian Young that went a ways to try to explain away some of Senator's aloof-ness. It fell short. It is impossible for me to believe that he couldn't hear the fellow yell at the top of his lungs: "Don't tase me, bro!"

Students are ineffectually protesting at the UF Campus the use of tasers, completely missing the boat on what's wrong here. Given the fact that most of the folks I've been personally involved with over the course of my life from UF have been screaming leftists that would rather follow the herd of liberal thought than analyze for themselves what's politically right or wrong, this doesn't surprise me.

Another thing that doesn't surprise me is Fox News' immediate willingness to ignore the larger story here and start an all out effort to make the law enforcement look blameless in this by saying the whole setup was likely a hoax from the beginning, attempting to further poison the well of public opinion. As evidence, they cite a couple comedy videos found on Andrew's website. I'm sorry, but after perusing the website, I'm more inclined to believe that it wasn't a hoax, simply because his political philosophy leans moonbat.

Here's the point I'm coming to in all of this, a point that I touched on during today's show: Why does everyone in the establishment (and by this I mean government and Old Media) pretend as if truth can be established by spinning the facts? Between the two or three videos available on YouTube of the event, it's more or less as if we were all there. We could see what was going on from about three major angles. We all know John Kerry was paralyzed with indecision. We knew he was about to try to spin the answer to the question to avoid answering the Skull and Bones question. We all know that the campus cops were acting way above their pay-grade and were not simply doing their job, as their public statements say it. We all know that this set of YouTube videos of this incident does not fit the profile of the other videos available on Andrew's site.

Why the lies, folks? How stupid do you think we are?

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Utterz

In the midst of all the TechCrunch 40 coverage, it's easy to miss some other new startups that are coming out around us. We'll talk later on this week to some of the people featured at TC40, but right now, I'm going to highlight some things that have come across my inbox of note.

There's a host of interesting new audio-related blogging tools out recently. We talked about SpinVox on the show recently, and of course Adondo is about to release a new version of PAL that is customized to Bloggers called Phone Portal.

Today, though, a new tool called Utterz was released. The release came to us this morning by way of Greg Blonder. Using Utterz, anyone can use all the capabilities of their mobile phone – voice, video, pictures, and text – to make themselves heard, any time, by instantly posting from their cell to their web pages with no special phone client or software. They now have a mobile tool that gives them the ability to instantly update their blog, using not just text, but voice, pictures, and video. For example, bloggers can now provide:

* On-the-spot reporting from or about events;
* Daily updates during road trips;
* Instant movie reviews while still at the theater;
* Exclusive video footage and pictures from the scene of any event;
* Comments on political or social hot topics as soon as they happen.

We'll hopefully be getting a chance to speak with the CEO Michael Bayer on the show tomorrow, but in the mean time, I'll speak a bit to my initial impressions.

It reminds me of a mashup of SnapNPost and r.Podcaster. Essentially, you are able to take text, video and pictures - SMS them to the Utterz phone number, and it'll show up in the posts area of certain blogs (actually, only LiveJournal currently). I'm not sure the future intentions of the company, and whether they plan to implement the functionality of what's currently available for LiveJournal users for Blogger, MoveableType and WordPress users. If you select those options, you're given a JavaScript widget to embed.

Based off the current functionality set it displays, I'd give it a three of five stars. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it, but it's not quite up to snuff, and the direction of the company seems a tad bit ambitious for what it is.

Let me explain: I'm all about applications that make life and connecting the real with the online life. Transparency is key, and the less barrier to entry there is to moving data from concept to hard 1's and 0's, the more productive we are. The site seems to be centered, however, around building a community and Yet Another Social Network.

In the age of MySpace and Facebook domination, and the ability to leapfrog a Facebook app or a Ning community into an instant social network, the value of Yet Another Social Network is significantly diminished. I don't want another community I need to keep track of, I want utility that tries to integrate itself into what I'm already doing.

Furthermore, content that I create (mobile-wise or not), I expect to be able to fully integrate into my online presence - something they are doing for LiveJournal (who uses that anymore?) - but not for the core blogger set. I want my content to SEO, and be monetizable. Putting it in a widget doesn't give it the emphasis that I demand.

The good news is that there is signs that Utterz is allowing for that possibility, like it's perhaps a plan B if this project doesn't immediately go viral.

Another interesting feature of the service is when you call in to the number, there's a sort of open chat line going on with people's Utterz, an auditory (and threaded) forum, if you will. This is definitely a new concept. I'm interested to see more development and application of that technology in other places (like the comments feature for podcasts I was working on for r.Podcaster before Hurricane Wilma).

/rizzn

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MarryOurDaughter.com: Dowries and Underage Marriage

Hey, Rizzn-ites,

I was actually hoping to sit on this story until Monday. A fellow best described as a part-time researcher for the show fielded a story my way that stopped me short. He sent me a quick chat message pointing me to "MarryOurDaughter.org", which I quickly relayed to my twitter to see if anyone else had heard of it.

Most of the blogosphere hasn't heard the news, other than to be repulsed by the idea of families selling their daughters off to men of questionable repute.

What?

Yes. Take a look:

Name: Kristin
Age: 16
Location: South
Kristin has a wild streak. She likes parties and has spent more time with boys than we’d have liked her to. We had a family talk and decided that it was time she settled down with a man who could meet her needs and help her fulfill her dreams of being an actor or singer. She’s a bit fiery but worth it.

Kristin is one of twenty-some-odd girls ranging from 14 to 17. The guiding principle behind the site seems to be getting underage girls into an arranged marriage with a supposed older Christian husband.

It would appear, according to several sources though, that this is a completely fake site. Color me relieved.

The whole project is a hoax perpetrated by a man known as John Ordover, a publicist behind many scandal-driven (or at least scandalous) projects, such as nude cruises and Technical Virgin, a site that caused some big problems for the actress down the road.

John Ordover used the alias Roger Mandervan on a number of FM talk radio shows around the country (including, according to the Times: Las Vegas (MIX-FM), Houston (KRBE-FM) and Philadelphia (WYSP-FM)). Of course, he didn't let the audience, or presumably the hosts, in on the gag. By all counts I've found, he didn't plan to release information on the nature of the hoax until Sunday or Monday.

Interestingly enough (and I'm awaiting confirmation on this from the source), but this seems to be the same John Ordover that is (was?) an editor at Phobos Books, a publishing firm specializing in science fiction. According to his Wikipedia entry:

He was previously an editor at Pocket Books responsible for overseeing the licensed novels of the Star Trek franchise. He is the co-creator of such spinoff series as Star Trek: New Frontier (with writer Peter David), and Star Trek: Challenger (with Diane Carey).

According to Peter David, the basic concept for New Frontier was Ordover's, as was the notion of using several already existing characters, with David having fleshed out the concept and created the original characters.^[3]

With David Mack, Ordover wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes "Starship Down". The two have story credit on "It's Only a Paper Moon", which was written as a teleplay by Ronald D. Moore.

The dots were connected for me by the last lines in his Wikipedia entry: "Ordover is also an active nudist, the founder of Clothing Optional Dinners, a dining club in New York City for nudists.^[4] On July 11, 2007, Ordover launched a nude dinner cruise from Sheepshead Bay, New York", a detail mentioned in the New York Times article on the MarryOurDaughter site.

I've arranged for an interview with John Ordover over this weekend, which if it goes off well, we'll include on Monday's podcast. The gist of the story appears to be out in the open, though not widely discussed: a women's organisation for those disillusioned with their failed arranged marriage experiences wanted a site to create controversy and discussion about not only the conflicting laws on underage marriage, but the dangers of underage and arranged marriages.

In the mean time, if you're looking for extra details on the story, check out one of the more in-depth articles below, and don't forget to tune into RizWords on Monday for words from the site's creator.

• New York Times
• Newsweek
• Dlisted

/rizzn

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Broken and Non-Functional Technology: AdBrite (part one)

Hey There, Rizzn-ites.

Broken technology, non-functional technology, things that don't work as advertised: these are the things that are the bane of my existence the last couple of days. As such, my life has been in catch-up mode, so I don't actually have a lot of time to write this article, so I'll make it a series where I talk about the different services that have completely disappointed me lately. I know I'll be talking about AdBrite today, tomorrow TalkShoe (that one is a doozy, let me tell ya!). I'll be talking about Veveo, AdSense, GrandCentral, and a couple others here in the coming days.

AdBrite (www.adbrite.com)
I recently told GoogleAds to go kick some rocks, and as you may have noticed in your browsing of the website, I've been auditioning new monetization for the blog. I've been fairly pleased with project-wonderful, and I'll be posting a better review of them later, but AdBrite has been a huge disappointment.

In terms of customisation and the types of items you can monetize, its easy to be dazzled by the dollar signs going in. Unfortunately, the ROI on your content is only marginally better than AdSense, and the advertising is several orders of ten more intrusive, doing the pop-over thing, interstitial advertising, as well as traditional text and banner advertisement.

My disappointment started with the fact that it took about four days for the ads to start running. Their pattern matching and keyword matching, once it began, was quite sub-par, in all aspects, and as such, the targeting of the ads was abysmal.

The delivery of the interstitial ads seemed completely arbitrary, even though it was set to display only after three pageviews.

As for the banner/text ads, when they finally did start showing up, as I said, keyword matching was far off the mark, and the banner ads were the variety you find on the trailer park MySpace that start screaming at you how you've won a free iPhone already!

After running for a week and a half, and after recording just over 10,000 pageviews (my guess is that it didn't start recording pageviews until some where in the middle of my run), only four clicks, and $1.35 in revenue.

The icing on the cake was that their inVideo product was completely non-functional. There is a catch in their code - it generates a JavaScript to display, but blogger (and many other popular places to display videos) doesn't allow JavaScript. After some digging, there were several ways to alter the code to make it work in Blogger or other places, but all they did was cause a flash gimmick to pop up saying there was an error in the file (you know, you probably saw it yesterday). About one in 20 loads, the video would play, but then there would be no ads displaying.

Repeated messages to AdBrite support have yet to have yielded any results.

The biggest disappointment was that inVideo really seemed like the lowest barrier to entry in terms of monetizing online video, and I would have loved to use it for my own applications, and reccomend it to clients and readers. Until improvement at AdBrite has been made on several fronts, I don't believe that can honestly be done.

As a result, all AdBrite code has been pulled from the site. Sorry about all the annoying ads interrupting your surfing experience. They're gone now!

Tomorrow, we'll hear about TalkShoe, their most recent rollout of new features, and the rolling schedule of outages they've experienced since yesterday afternoon following the rollout. If you're up for some good belly-laughs, you'll want to be here for that one.

/rizzn

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RizWords: 9/11 Edition

UPDATE: 10:42 PM CST 9/11/2007: Due to issues with Podango, the podcast hasn't hit the feed as of yet. My deepest apologies. It should hit in the next couple hours. I've got folks at all levels of Podango up way too late trying to figure out the problem.

UPDATE: 1:07 AM CST 9/12/2007: Apparently, AdBrite is having issues with it's video serving code. I'll repost it and hopefully you'll be able to once again view Ken's video. Today has been an especially trying day for Art and I in just about everything we've tried in terms of getting technology to work as advertised.

UPDATE: 2:17 PM CST 9/12/2007: The show is finally in the feed. We're now recording EP128. Ah well, always next year.

In about an hour, Art and I will be going on the air for our podcast, not to bring you the news in Politics and Technology, but to look back to 2001 and recall our memories, feelings, thoughts and experience from that fateful day.

A number of folks have contributed pieces for inclusion on the show, including Ken Rutkowski of KenRadio, Cinco of AKARadio, our own Newsguy Jon, and Frank Cotolo of the Cotolo Chronicles.

Below are the individual clips submitted to us by our friends and fellow podcasters.



The following audio clips are available:

• Jon aka Pinion Blue
• 
  
• download
  
• Frank Cotolo
• 
  
• download
  
• Cinco of AKARadio.com
• 
  
• download
  

/mark

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The Amero and the NAU

Hey, Rizzn-ites!

Update (10:47 PM CST): Bill Burke sent me a relevant link as to the origins of Sovereign Citizen Movement as to where a lot of this NAU rhetoric originates. It is from the ADL.

Over the past few days, I've been receiving more and more emails and forwards talking about the Amero and the NAU, and the growing concern that the U.S.A. will be merging very soon with Canada and Mexico.

Stay with me now, this part goes into a little bit of economic language, and may be hard to follow for some, but I'll bring it back around in a bit.

What you're looking at on the left over there is allegedly a coin obtained by a man named Hal Turner. If you enlarge it, it shows that it is minted for the Union of North America. It is alleged that on the macroscopic level, powerful financial interests such as the Federal Reserve and large hedge fund traders are intentionally devaluing the U.S. dollar because, according to Turner, Canada owns a substantial portion of U.S. debt.

Here are some direct quotes:

US Government has intentionally overspent itself for the purpose of irreversibly Bankrupting the country. The idea is that they will drive the country into economic failure, then when millions of Americans are panicking at the prospect, offer them a solution of merging the three countries as "the only possible way" to avoid losing everything.

They will force Canada into the merger by telling them the US currency they hold and rely upon will be worthless and the only way Canada can even hope to salvage any of the funds is to join the NAU.

They will sell it to the Mexican people by saying it will instantly improve their buying-power and quality of life.

Hal alleges that the coins were sent to him by a whistle blower within the department of treasury. As it turns out, they are actually fantasy coins created by an artist called Daniel Carr. I did some investigation, and it is a reputable organization.

I spoke to the designer today. He told me that he enjoys making thought-provoking coins and medals as a hobby and a profession, and does all the design, sculpting, and engraving work himself.

These Amero coins were entirely my idea and initiative.

Hal Turner took images of my coin from my web site without permission and posted
them on his web site. Complaints to them about that went unanswered.

Hal Turner says that the actual coin he obtained (and showed in a video on his web site) was supplied by a contact of his in the Treasury Department. I made that particular coin (just like all the other "Amero" coins). I do not, and never have, worked in the Treasury Department.

He went on to say that "One of my intents with these Amero coins was simply to get them out there to provoke some thought. People can make up their own minds as to whether they are in favor of a Union of North America or not."

Further throwing the claims of Hal Turner in dispute is his credibility as reported by WikiPedia and other sources:

Harold "Hal" Turner (born March 15, 1962) is an American white nationalist Internet radio talk show host from North Bergen, New Jersey. Turner's website and radio program is largely devoted to a digest of news concerning crimes committed by minorities, which Turner couches in racist epithets. He supports strict limits on immigration; advocates the hunting and killing of illegal immigrants ^[8]; promotes anti-Semitism including rounding up and killing Jews; and opposes the existence of the State of Israel. ^[9] He also authors and promotes Holocaust denial material.^[10] Turner advocates political assassination and overthrowing the government, because, he says, the current United States government is corrupt beyond repair. His website serves as a virtual meeting place for fellow white supremacists, via its comment pages.

Granted, strictly speaking, none of this directly goes to argue with his claims of a coming NAU, but anyone who believes that the Holocaust didn't happen has suspect logical processes.

Clearly, though, this coin does not, conclusively or otherwise, point towards the imminent formation of the North American Union. Tomorrow, I'll post a bit more about other related forwards I've been receiving regarding the policy of North Carolina to no longer issue State Driver's Licenses, but licenses subject to the the authority of the North American Union, as my research is still ongoing.

Have comments? Heard some disturbing rumors recently along these lines? Comment here on the blog or email me!

/rizzn

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gPhone: Vindicated!

Rizzn-ites!

(further discussion on this can be found on Episode 121 of RizWords. Subscribe in iTunes for the first scoops!)

Don't ever doubt me again! When a leak or a confirmation comes from me, you know it's true! :-p

What am I talking about? Obviously you haven't checked Engadget or your copy of the Boston Globe yet. The gPhone was demo'ed in Boston, according to Scott Kirsner, to: Dan Roth of Nuance, Mike Phillips of Vlingo, Paul Ferri of Matrix Partners, and Murali Aravamudan of Veveo. It's an interesting assortment of names, and include a lot of names and companies we talk about here on the show.

Off that tidbit, what can be assumed? Well, given that Google specializes in search, and has a considerable amount of resources devoted to video and voice recognition (GOOG-411 and Video Search), we can assume they'll be either trying to incorporate their's or other's technology into the device.

Additionally, Om Malik came out today with a number of other confirmations on things we already knew here at Rizzn:

1. Google Phone is based on a mobile variant of Linux, and is able to run Java virtual machines. We knew this to be true from Deep Throat... Linux-based kernel.
2. All applications that are supposed to run on the Google Phone are java apps. The OS has ability to run multimedia files, including video clips. We didn't know that it would have video on it, although it would be rather silly for Google not to include one of it's leading draws, currently, YouTube in the mix somehow. The Java angle makes me a bit nervous - I've never had super luck with Java Applets, although in recent years, the platform has stabilized a bit. Additionally, Java Applets running on a tightly integrated system like a mobile platform could be mean better performance for said applets than we see on the PC architecture.
3. The image (with red background) floating around isn’t representative of the Google Phone UI. The entire UI is said to be done in Java and is very responsive. Again, because of integrated design, the Java could perform much better than other real-world applications. And indeed, the image we ran with the story last week was something we simply found on Engadget, not something handed to us from Google.
4. The UI, of course has a “search box.” Derrrrr.
5. Initially there was one prototype, but over past few months Google has the mobile OS running on 3-to-5 devices, most of them likely made by HTC, a mobile phone maker, and all have Qwerty apps. The model that folks have seen is very similar to the T-Mobile Dash. Around 3GSM, there were rumors that Google, Orange and HTC were working together on mobile devices. This jives with what we've heard from folks inside the loop as well as what we've read on the blogosphere. My suspicion, based on candid conversations with folks involved with the process, is that it'll initially be on a partnership basis like the iPhone situation with AT&T, but look for it in other countries before America gets it. American carriers will be less likely to do a subsidization on the service plans than overseas. If I had to guess, I'd expect to see it in Asia and Europe as some sort of internet wireless plan separate from carriers (think 802.something), parts of middle-to-Southern Asia and middle-to-Eastern Europe as a partnership with existing carriers, or maybe a mix of both. Keep in mind this is based off my analysis, not hard facts.

Om also mentioned:

We will post more details as they come our way. I had initially thought that it could be a more viable option to the $100 PC. While that argument still remains true, I think this is a strategic move by Google to keep Windows Mobile’s growing influence in check. Microsoft has spent billions on its mobile efforts including buying companies such as Tell Me Networks.

To be honest, I think this platform is an answer to both situations. The impression I get is that Google is working very closely with select partners like HTC to tailor the hardware to the OS and software, and vice-versa. The result will be something that comes in at a much lower price point with a lot more functionality than a Microsoft or OLPC style device can deliver.

Theoretically, on certain levels, it'll compete with both products, but as with most Google products, it'll do more to carve out it's own operating niche than to enter direct competition. If it's one thing I've learned, it's that Google doesn't think, in it's tactical level, on competitive terms, but more emphasis on innovation (a term I've often heard bandied about is 'Blue-Sky R&D). As a result, they end up being mightily competitive, without having to worry about it so much.

Back to the Boston Article a moment...
Scott in his Boston Globe article said:

Google spokeswoman Erin Fors wouldn't confirm whether software for mobile phones was being developed in the Cambridge office, where there are more than 50 employees.

Going back to my conversation with Deep Throat, I'm fairly certain that development for the phone is taking place, at least in part, at the Mountain View Googleplex. Saying what gave me this impression would reveal too much about my source, but it's the impression I got.

Another interesting quote from the Boston Globe article was from Mark May, an analyst:

Mark May, an equities analyst at Needham & Company who follows Google's stock, says he doesn't expect Google to manufacture the phone itself, but rather provide an operating system and a suite of applications that "would appeal to consumers and professionals," like the mail and word processing applications it already provides to PC users.

"That's a natural extension from their core business," May says. The operating system is expected to be open not just to Google's applications, but applications developed by all sorts of other players - a real problem with many cellphones.

So, what was an absurd rumor from a blogger five days ago is now a 'natural extension'? Nice spin, MSM.

GPay? What?
As if there weren't enough angles today to the gPhone story, Google published a patent today covered by TechCrunch detailing yet another application for the gPhone or other mobile devices allowing for payment via text messaging.

When I worked for Nokia in 2000, this was one of the applications we were working on before the bust hit, and 500 people from my department were laid off. PayPal initially got funded on the idea that it could be a mobile payment system, as well. No one really has gotten traction in the market of Text Message Payment Systems, and quite honestly, Google doesn't deserve the patent, which isn't to say that this couldn't become a widely successful application for them. Integrating your wallet with your mobile computing device? Actually quite ingenius.

Of course, it'll be a matter of moments before the debate on Goog's strangle-hold on information and privacy issues are raised again (not to mention the evil-ness, or lack thereof).

How's that for something to chew on this Labor Day? I'm going to my mom's to go eat some bratwurst. See you folks tomorrow. (again, check out the show for more info).

/rizzn

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Better Design?

Hey Rizzn-ites,

If you haven't already, head over to www.rizzn.com. Tell me if you like that design. If I get enough yes votes, then I'll change all the backpages to match.

Let me know!

By the way, I'm giving AdSense the boot. I earned a grand total of $31.00 for the month of August, a time period in which we had so much traffic, Alexa ranked us as high as 82,000. Anyone have any suggestions for a replacement? Thanks in advance.

/rizzn

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