Archive for July 9th, 2005

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs This Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating. For descriptions, visit the IT Conversations home page.

• Shane Robison – Software 2005 (rated 2.8 by our listeners). Companies are still spending up to 70% of their IT budgets on infrastructure and application maintenance, which is impacting their ability to support new business opportunities. Shane Robison, Chief Strategist for HP, shares his company’s views on enterprise software and tells what they’re doing to support the adaptive and real-time enterprise. They are investing in open source software, web services and utility computing.
• Sir Christopher Evans (3.0) On last week’s Biotech Nation segment, Moira Gunn spoke with Professor Sir Christopher Evans, a microbiologist and the Founder and Chairman of Merlin Biosciences, the largest BioTech venture capital fund in Europe.
• Brendan Eich – Web 2.0 (3.1) If you’re not a Firefox user yet, listening to this Web 2.0 session may get you to switch, and if you are a user, you might discover many of Firefox’s greatest capabilities most people are unaware of. Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript language and one of the first people at Netscape, now at the Mozilla foundation, speaks about Firefox’s greatest capabilities, how Windows Longhorn might impact Firefox, and what the future versions of Firefox are likely to hold, such as the tag.
• Seltzer & Schultz – Endangered Devices (3.1) Add devices, gizmos and gadgets to the endangered species list. This presentation by Wendy Seltzer and Jason Schultz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation highlights technologies threatened by a climate hostile to innovation. Learn about the legislation that is threatening technology developers and find out what can be done to fight back.
• Stephane Maes – palmOne (3.2) Portable media is the new personal computer. With the PSP, iPods and Smartphones/PDAs taking over the world, people like to do everything on a handheld device: listen to music, talk to their girlfriends, play games, check their e-mail, and even watch movies. Host Larry Magid speaks to Stephane Maes, Director of Product Management for Handhelds at palmOne all about portable media.
• Mark Ramsey – Mercury Radio Research (3.3) In conversation with Rob Greenlee, Mark explains his vision for the coming Digital HD Radio platform and whether it fills a need in the radio market. He also talks about whether the improved sound quality of AM Digital Radio broadcasts are really needed and why broadcasters are deploying it, and he considers how podcasting will be embraced and how it will impact broadcast radio. Mark is a terrestrial broadcast radio consultant and audience researcher.
• Harry Dent – The Next Great Bubble Boom (3.4) Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Harry Dent, the author of "The Next Great Bubble Boom." He sees another boom coming, and he says that technology and the Baby Boomers are behind it!
• Cory Doctorow – Author, Blogger and Internet Activist (3.7) What does free WiFi have to do with revenge? And what can you do with last year’s high-tech gizmo that is worth less than a dollar today? Science fiction author, blogger and Internet activist Cory Doctorow speaks with Dave Slusher about wireless community networks, high tech art made from trash, free speech and his brand-new novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.
• Tom Standage – Technology Editor, The Economist (3.9) Moira also speaks with Tom Standage, the science and technology editor for the Economist. They’ll talk about what makes the Economist unique, as well as his new beat: The Technology Quarterly.

This week’s Doug’s Favorite from the IT Conversations archives:

• Tim O’Reilly on Open Source (4.0) This week’s Doug’s Favorite is a great session from last year’s OSCON. Tim looks at the deep trends underlying open source, and some of the cool projects and ideas that are keeping folks at O’Reilly up at night. He also presents the results from O’Reilly’s recent market research efforts, combining information from book sales patterns with other indications of technology adoption and interests. OSCON 2005 starts August 1, so register now. We’ll see you there.

I don’t normally comment on individual IT Conversations shows here on my blog, and it’s even rarer for me to take exception to what one of our guests has to say, but I found Rob Greenlee’s interview with Mark Ramsey of Mercury Radio Research so fascinating that I can’t help myself. In less than 45 minutes Mark managed to highlight almost everything that big-media broadcasting doesn’t understand about participatory media. I don’t want to pick on Mark, who I’ve never met and who is probably very good at what he does, but some of his quotes are true classics of a way of thinking that will ultimately be the demise of traditional large-scale media. Consider, the following from this show:

“[Podcasts should be] original, unique and broad-based, compelling content…Star content is what drives everything…If I podcasted with any zeal…my greatest hope and desire would be that I would be discovered by radio and put on a radio station or a network that has reach and distribution. That’s what it’s all about.”

This guy needs to read about the long tail and get a clue what makes most of us tick.

“Just because you can do desktop publishing on your laser printer doesn’t mean you’re going to replace the local newspaper.”

Don’t be too sure about that!

“Even the worst TV network doesn’t…take voluntary contributions from the audience.”

Maybe they should re-think that strategy. Listen to Rob Curley and Dan Gillmor.

We need a name for the new project. I’m one of those name-challenged people. When it comes to naming things, my imagination goes to zero. As proof, here are two names I came up with, both of which make my wife’s eyes roll just before she groans: Vox Publicus and CommonsCast. Yeah, groan.

Can you do better? If so, email me your ideas. Don’t post them as comments, because as soon as there’s a good one, some domain jumper will grab it and try and extort money for it. Instead, email your suggestion directly to me at doug@itconversations.com.

I’ve had a few recommendations such as Audiopedia, but I don’t want to limit the vision to audio. We’ll be adding video when the time is right. And think big. This is a global initiative, not limited to IT or even technology.