Inside View

New Feed for Senior Blogger

ONE OF THE first Irish bloggers returns. She's Canadian, rescues dogs, and writes for mainstream media. Her feed is below the fold.

---

Subscribe here: http://www.techno-culture.com/?feed=rss2

x_ref1256

Why I Left MyBlog Log

YAHOO HAS BANNED Jeremy Shoemoney from MyBlogLog (MBL) for exposing some security flaws in the product. In support of Jeremy, I’m boycotting MBL, by not using my log-in, until they reinstate his profile. Like Andy Beal, I think "community means more than just a collection of avatars, it means supporting those bloggers who support you."

---

Andy Beal -- "Boycotting MyBlogLog"
Jeremy Shoemoney -- "MyBlogLog Trick: How to Surf the Web as ShoeMoney"

x_ref1256

In English

CONN O MUINEACHAIN: "After 18 months and more than 230 podcasts, this is my first in the English language!" Conn talks to Michael Byrne on the customer experience.

---

Get the 45-minute MP3 podcast.

x_ref261763

Help Digital Download Movement

IF YOU BELIEVE there is merit in digital downloads and you want to underscore your point, please consider buying the track "Mine Again" by indie band "Black Lab" from iTunes on Thursday the 22nd of March 2007. This is an international initiative to demonstrate to the recording industry that one of the most viable channels to market is from people downloading music. If thousands buy the track--you should if you like the sound of U2--more than Geffen and Sony/Epic will notice the power of social media. Those two labels dropped the band. The RIAA knows the story about Black Lab and about digital downloads. But the RIAA does not respect the power of the community behind the digital downloading movement.

Unruly Podcasts

MORE THAN THREE years of podcasts lie dormant on my removeable hard drive and shifting them to DVD will free up needed space. I've listened to some early podcasts done by people without mics. They simply talked at their computers and uploaded the noise. I've listened to Adam Curry for more than a year before Podshow was born and now listen to people who think Podshow isn't the right channel. Dave Winer thinks "we don't need a record industry-like advertising agency in the middle of PodcastLand. It's not a good fit." Marc Hunter thinks the advertising model sucks the life out of independent podcasting. Winer believes "podcasting is much less rulable, it doesn't need a central entity like the one (Ron) Bloom envisioned, or Odeo, or even Apple." Winer has offered some teasers about what he believes lies on the horizon but I can't figure out his main point, even after listening to Morning Coffee Notes. He promises more information today (Thursday 22 Feb 07), perhaps during the public radio conference he's attending. I'm interested in where he's taking the idea.

---

x_ref261763

Foldering and Tagging

JON UDELL recalls the conventional wisdom around tagging items in your digital stash. "People could never be bothered to invest effort in tagging their stuff. What del.icio.us and then Flickr and then a host of other web applications showed is that people will invest that effort if the activation threshold is low and the reward is immediate." That's what works for me. I like seeing tags converge on travel destinations, professional events, and family albums. If you tag it with a shared term, others can find stuff without knowing where the stuff is located. Data from the opt-in software quality metrics (SQM) feature — which relays anonymized usage data to product teams for analysis — says a lot of people voluntarily tag their stuff. People are using tags to keep big collections--like photos or music--better organised.

Commercialising Global Warming

DIESEL'S SUMMER collection comes with print advertisements that show the effects of global warming on prominent fixtures. For example, that's Mount Rushmore on a beach in the picture. Other advertisements have Manhattan half-submerged in water, Paris as a steamy jungle and Dublin with gondolas (just kidding). No need to worry about the post-warming life because how can life be worse with more beaches? Diesel's models are dressed fashionably and they lounge amid this hip dystopia in glamorous unconcern, fanning themselves or applying suntan lotion to one another's tawny backs. Stop into your local Diesel shop and ask for the images stamped: "Global Warming Ready."

---

Libby Copeland -- "High-Water Marketing: Climate-Change Clothes, a Little Smug on the Hip"

journal

Related articles

• No Need to Panic About Global Warming (usapartisan.com)

Viacom Licenses Joost

IN A SIGN that Viacom understands the need to stay front-and-centre in the pop culture feeding chain, Viacom signed a deal to license its programming content to Joost. This means Viacom can continue to issue take-down orders to YouTube without worrying about offending members of an online audience. The arrangement should bring television and theatrical content from Viacom's brands--which include MTV Networks' Comedy Central, as well as Black Entertainment Television and Paramount Pictures--to the Joost software upon its full launch.

Pseudonyms

I HAVE at least five pseudonyms so when I read that some  European governments want to prevent me from keeping my identities separate by different aliases, I started to wonder why they would want to stop people from taking on names to fit specific purposes. The New York Times reports on a piece of European legislation "to require companies to keep detailed data about people’s Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive. In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal. A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring phone companies to save records of a caller’s precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation."

Back Up from CD

I HAVE A BOX of CDs that prove very helpful when transitioning from one computer to another. Even though some of the programs may be a little old, they work well. And even though some of the music isn't everyone's style, the tracks I burned onto CD work well. If you have an iTunes subscription, you should be backing songs up to CD. If something happens to iTunes, you simply re-import them from your backup CD collection. Good backups mean being able to tick over, even if it may mean with audio of somewhat reduced quality.

---

Thinking of Adrian Weckler when writing this.

x_ref125mw07 hacks