Sony‘s CES focus this year is on electronics, content and network services combining to deliver high quality entertainment anytime and anywhere. Supported by a slew of product announcements, new connected devices range from TVs, Blu-ray players and A/V receivers through to tablets, smartphones and PCs and on to camcorders and mobile music players. Sony is combining these with online services for music, video and game delivery, creating a great user experience (as they say). TVs, PCs, smartphones and tablets are key to this experience as the four main devices used for entertainment.

“Sony is committed to designing technologies for every aspect of consumer entertainment – in or out of the home, on the go, in the air, at work, at play, or wherever life takes you,” said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “When these products are combined with Sony Entertainment Network (SEN), which offers innovative services like Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited, as well as PlayStation Network, the user experience is truly unmatched and only made possible by a company like Sony.”

The Bravia TV line has been expanded in all three areas; entry level BX, step-up EX and flagship HX. Brightness and contrast levels have been increased and picture quality improved with Sony’s X-Reality and Motionflow video technologies. In particular the latter helps to reduce blur caused by rapid camera movements which is often a problem with LCD screens. Sony is sticking with the Google TV platform with a new network player and Blu-ray player featuring Google TV. Certain Bravia models will link seamlessly to these devices to provide Google TV features directly on the TV.

Sony’s Vaio range of computers will continue to be updated with more entertainment feature and new designs that fit with consumers’ needs and increasing mobility. At CES, Sony will be demonstrating new technologies and prototypes for a range of technologies including glasses-free 3D.

In the smartphone space, the Xperia brand has done reasonably well, but increasing the smartphone share in North America is now one of Sony’s highest priorities. Sony Ericsson will be subsumed into Sony Mobile Communications and all new phones will carry Sony branding. The latest addition to the Xperia line-up is the Xperia ion, Sony’s first LTE smartphone coming with an HD 720p display and aluminium body. Also new is the Xperia S which comes with 3D image capture.

On the imaging front, no less than 13 new Handycam camcorders are being unveiled. A new image stabilisation system called Balanced Optical Steady Shot has been developed that controls the complete optical path from lens to sensor as a single floating unit. This reduces handshake blur by up to 13 times compared to the previous models. There’s a new camcorder model with a built-in video projector that has improved brightness and enhanced audio. The trusty Bloggie range now has a “Live” model which will live stream HD video over a Wi-Fi connection and there’s an unboxing over at sister channel TPN.tv. Of course, Sony has a bunch of new Cybershot digital still cameras.

Finally, it wouldn’t be CES if Sony didn’t announce a Walkman or two. The new Z series of MP3 players comes with an application interface and connectivity to both Sony’s Music Unlimited and the Android Market. Content can be played from Z series devices either wirelessly using DLNA or via HDMI to Bravia TVs. To further improve the audio experience, no less than eleven new Balanced Armature earbud-style headphones are now available as well.

That’s it – a quick overview of the products on show at CES by Sony and they all look like fun.

WordPress has been around a long time and is quite a powerful web publishing platform available to virtually everyone at no cost.

I finally got around to installing the official WordPress app onto my iPod Touch and I have to say I’m impressed with the app. It quickly accepted the credentials to my own WordPress blog, and I found I could update my site directly from my iPod. More impressive to me was when I discovered the ease with which I was able to take photos (or videos) with the iPod’s camera and instantly embed them into blog posts.

Nothing is more powerful than to be able to quickly update one’s own site with not only words but images as well. The official WordPress for iOS is a free download on the iPod/iPad/iPhone/iOS App Store. If you have a WordPress blog and an iOS device, this free app is worth installing.

As regular listeners to the podcast will know, the Geek News Central website is powered by WordPress. Until now, I’ve always used the web interface to write posts. “It works” is about the kindest thing you can say about it.

Browsing the Palm App Catalog, I came across Poster for WordPress, an app that allows blogging from the Palm Pre and other WebOS devices. It had lots of good reviews so I paid up and downloaded Poster.

Poster can link to multiple blogs and obviously the first thing to do is to setup accounts for the WordPress sites that you want to access.

After setting up access to Geek News Central, Poster shows the last five posts on the site. More can be loaded if needed.

This is entire blog post is written entirely in Poster. You can embolden, italicise, underline and do all three. You can insert pictures or in this case, a screenshot of Poster’s editing screen.

When uploading images, there a four preset sizes you can choose from. Of course, hyperlinks are there too – here’s a link to the App Catalog. This doesn’t quite work perfectly in-line as the image or hyperlink seems to go at the end of the text. Not a problem if you write and edit linearly. However, if you are like me and write before editing in the pictures and hyperlinks, it’s a bit of a pain.

All is not lost as Poster offers three editing modes – Visual, Visual without images and HTML. So in this instance, you can swap to HTML view and then copy’n'paste to move stuff around.

Work in progress drafts can be saved to the blog but once the post is ready, tags and categories can be set before finally changing the status to Published and uploading it. The tags and categories are downloaded from the website itself so everything connects up.

Although I haven’t explored the app further, it also looks like you can work with comments, which could be pretty handy for the active blogger.

Overall, I’m impressed by this app and provided the end result – the post on GNC – is good, this app comes highly recommended.

Poster for WordPress by Gabriele Nizzoli is available from the AppCatalog for £1.59.

Update – I was pretty happy with way the post came out but to be upfront with the review, I added in a few extra links using the web interface and made one correction to the formatting.

My team at RawVoice this morning released version 2.0 of the PowerPress Podcast plugin for WordPress. The work committed to this update was well over 1 month of coding. I have been running the beta here at Geek News Central for several weeks, and many of you have already commented on the new video player experience as being superior to what you have seen on other podcasters websites. Now that the update has been made available to the 80,000 podcaster worldwide we are excited to watch the implementation across the web.

Folks making video will want to check out the new HTML5 video player, WebM support and Embeds feature! PowerPress 2.0 provides an optimized viewing experience for the widest spectrum of hardware/software including  web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari), mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android), and TV’s (e.g. Google TV, Roku, Boxee).

Some of the new features and enhancements include:

• HTML5 video player
• HTML5 audio player
• Embeds your audience can take with them just like YouTube.
• WebM video support
• Ogg audio/video support improvements
• MP4+WebM (for mp4/m4v video, a new alternative WebM URL field is available. This is ideal for supporting all browser based HTML5 video players)
• Flow Player Classic can now play m4a audio and mp4/m4v video
• New Video Player settings page added
• Settings pages enhanced with new options such as location, frequency and T.V. options
• Episode Entry box enhanced with new ‘isHD’ option when video entered into Media URL box
• Episode Entry box now includes option to configure video player width/height on a per-episode basis
• Upload image option added to supplement the video poster image field. Images are uploaded to the built-in image gallery in WordPress.
• Plus a number of improvements

I have created a short video on some of the coolest features and hope you will take a few minutes to overview the update. Please note that the video embed below is from the actual posting on our official PowerPress site. No longer do we need Blip or YouTube we can share our content from our sites with the embed feature.

Make sure you Upgrade today!

If you have a blog and are always looking for photos to spice up your posts then there’s anew site that you will want to check out.  It’s called Wylio.  It searches millions of creative commons photos to find what you are looking for.  Just use common sense about what you find, as their website states:

“be pragmatic when you decide what photo to use. If it’s painfully obvious that “flickr_user_1234″ isn’t the copyright owner for that Coca-Cola logo they uploaded… don’t use it.”

It’s free to use and sing-up is required.  To get started simply visit the website and enter your search term and see what you find.

Adding a photo is not quite as easy as right-clicking and choosing  “copy image”, though.  Instead, once you have selected your photo, you click the “get the code” button and then paste the code into your blog’s HTML.  It will add links back to the photographer.

This is one of the easier ways to find pictures, but it is NOT the easiest way to add them to a blog.  In fact, it’s downright difficult to get their code to work, at least in WordPress, which is what we use.  It’s a good resource and if you have time to play around then you’ll love it.  If you’re a casual blogger or not particularly tech-savvy then you may want to look elsewhere.

In the world of blogging, podcasting and social networking, much has been said about the so-called “long tail.” The concept of the “long tail” revolves around the idea that available content living on the Internet gets a lot of extra audience over a long period of time, as opposed to traditional print and broadcast content which has a much more limited lifespan.

As services such as Netflix gain popularity, yet another form of content is experiencing the benefits of the long tail – movies and TV shows that are available for long-term streaming. An excellent example of how the “long tail” benefits movies in particular are obscure documentaries that in the old pre-streaming days would have a limited initial audience and then end up on a shelf somewhere or be sold in consumer video release one at a time.

Now more obscure movies and TV shows that had a limited lifespan and limited impact are able to take a new lease-on life that used to simply not exist.

I am particularly enjoying streaming documentaries on Netflix. There are some real gems out there. One documentary I really enjoyed in particular that I’d never heard of before I found it on Netflix is called “Cowboy Del Amor.” It’s about a Texas matchmaker who specializes in matching up American men with Mexican women. If you haven’t seen this gem, I highly recommend it. “Cowboy Del Amor” is but one example of movies that have a very limited promotion budgets and therefore are unable to make much of a publicity splash when they are released, yet they can be absolutely fantastic movies to not only watch yourself but to share later with friends and family.

I dropped my Dish Network account in July 2010 and have not looked back. Streaming videos via services such as Netflix forces me to take a much more active role in selecting something good to watch. Having literally tens of thousands of movies and videos available for instant streaming on demand is a far superior way to find and consume commercial content.

For some time we’ve been hearing about the virtues of cloud-based computing.

Certain functions seem to lend themselves to the cloud. Online word processing, spreadsheets, etc. can seem to make sense in some situations, such as collaborating with others.

In everyday use scenarios, does the cloud really make sense in more traditional private computer-use situations? I contend that it does not.

Right now I’m typing this into Microsoft Word on my MacBook Pro. At the moment I have rather lousy Sprint and Verizon connectivity, even though 12 hours ago at this very same location I had really good connectivity from both. The only thing that changed is the time of day. If I was currently limited to using Google Docs chances are I would be unable to write this. Network demand constantly fluctuates depending on the time of day and location.

Is there enough bandwidth available? With the tsunami of smartphones that are on the immediate horizon, will the carriers be able to keep up with the average five-fold bandwidth demand increase that the average smartphone user pulls from the network? Can carriers keep up with a smartphone-saturated public all trying to pull down data at the same time?

However, for the sake of argument let’s say that mobile Internet connectivity isn’t an issue.

What if the Internet is turned off due to a declared cyber attack and all of your documents are online? What good would the network appliance approach to computing be then?

Can e-books be revised after the fact? If government can simply decide to turn off the Internet, then it’s not that much of a leap to imagine laws and regulations being passed banning certain types of blogs or even books that have been deemed dangerous or seditious. There have already been books sold such as “1984” by Amazon that were deleted from Kindles after the fact by Amazon when it was determined that Amazon didn’t have the legal right to sell it in e-book form. What if instead of banning books, they were simply rewritten to remove the offending parts? What’s to stop instant revision of e-books that have been declared dangerous?

On July 23, 2010, CNN anchors Kyra Phillips and John Roberts discussed on air the idea that bloggers should be somehow “held accountable” or perhaps regulated in some way. Here’s the video of that exchange.

It’s no secret that CNN and other so-called mainstream media outlets, both broadcast and print, have had for some time now an ongoing loss of viewers and readers. A number of traditional journalists from time to time have had and expressed an almost open hostility towards bloggers and the Internet. They perceive the Internet as a threat to their business models, and their vaunted self-appointed job as information “gatekeepers.”

If you look back over the past few years, almost every major story, particularly scandal stories, originated first on blogs. In many cases the mainstream media were dragged kicking and screaming into reporting stories. The clearly forged National Guard documents that ultimately ended up forcing CBS to fire evening news anchor Dan Rather comes to mind from a few years ago. Bloggers quickly picked up on the fact that the supposed National Guard documents had been typed up in the default template for Microsoft Word and then ran through a fax and/or copy machine a number of times to make the documents look dirty and/or old. The trouble was, Microsoft Word didn’t exist in 1973. If it weren’t for bloggers, this story would have likely never come to public light, and what is clearly a forgery and a made-up story would have passed into the public mind as the truth.

Should free speech be curbed? Should bloggers somehow be licensed or officially regulated in what is purportedly a free country? Should we be forced to get our news from “professional” or even “licensed” journalists?

How social media points the way forward for journalism. It’s a real example of how traditional media are becoming social media-aware and are using Facebook, Twitter and their ilk to get the news stories out faster and with more information.

However, what really registered with me is at the very end of the article.

There is a word of caution that goes with trusting what we read on this great “word of mouth” network.  Recent rumour mill stories on Facebook on the private lives of footballers ended up in the press and were proven to be totally wrong. So while this new technology can speed up the newsgathering process, journalists will need to make sure they do what they have always done – double check the facts.

I have real concerns about the loss of the old news media.  Obviously there’s no single cause but the rise of new media, the Internet “no cost” expectation and the “now” culture are all taking the toll.    But what will be the cost to our society when we no longer have professional journalists?

What will happen to investigative journalism?  What will happen when hysterical but unfounded rumours sweep across the social networks?  How will politicians be held to account when there is no-one to report on their mistakes?  How much more easy will it be to cover stuff up?

I can’t think of a single other instance where it’s become acceptable for amateurs to take over the role of professionals.  Would you want an amateur doctor to treat you?  An amateur engineer to design a bridge?  An amateur firefighter to attend an emergency?  No, I want these people to study for years to become competent at what they do.  Why should journalism be any different?  Just because you can string a sentence together, doesn’t make you a journalist.

Now, you may think that it’s a bit rich coming from a blogger for a major new media site but to tie this back to the original news story, I think it genuinely points the way ahead.  We have to get away from old media v. new media, it has to be co-opetition not competition, symbiotic not parasitic, and we have to find a way to reward news organisations and professional journalists to keep doing what they’re doing.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do know is that it will be social disaster if we lose professional journalists because we were too cheap to buy a newspaper.

The Press Complaints Comission (PCC) has censured a blogger for posting unsubstantiated comments on the website of a print publication, The Spectator.  This is the first time that the PCC has censured a newspaper or magazine over a journalistic blog.

The PCC regulates the behaviour of the press in the UK and holds them to an Editors’ Code of Practice which includes accuracy, respect for privacy, non-payment of criminals, etc.

In this case, Rod Liddle made comments about the ethnic background of criminals in London, namely that the “overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London was carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community.“  Although The Spectator tried to justify the comments partly through statistics and partly through the comment being an opinion, the PCC found that Code of Practice, Clause 1 (Accuracy) had been breached.

The director of the PCC,  Stephen Abell, said: “This is a significant ruling because it shows that the PCC expects the same standards in newspaper and magazine blogs that it would expect in comment pieces that appear in print editions. There is plenty of room for robust opinions, views and commentary but statements of fact must still be substantiated if and when they are disputed. And if substantiation isn’t possible, there should be proper correction by the newspaper or magazine in question.”

Before all the UK’s bloggers get worried, first of all, there’s no danger of the PCC going round censuring bloggers.  To start with, the PCC is only concerned with newspapers and magazines who subscribe to its funding body. Secondly, it can only censure, which is largely name-and-shame, and it cannot impose fines.

However, while Britain has always had libel laws, it would appear that it’s just become a bit harder to defend (inaccurate) commentary by saying that it was an opinion and not a fact.  You have been warned.

Over here in the UK, there have been two incidents in the past week of people taking drastic action because of criticism on-line.  The first is that of Stephen Fry, who threatened to leave Twitter after being called “boring”, and the second is of a village council who resigned en masse because of a blogger’s comments.

The link to the two stories on the BBC are here and here respectively but you’ll find both stories reported on most UK news sites (with varying degrees of journalistic rigour!)  I’ll not go into the detail of each story but what I find interesting is that in both cases there is over-reaction and the recipient simply decides that the “effort is no longer worth it”.

As children, we all learn the line, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me”, but as adults most of us come to realise the power of words alone: “I now pronounce you man and wife” being possibly the most significant.  However, I find it amazing that a seasoned actor can take to heart comments from someone he’s never met.  Many of us do get vicarious pleasure following our celebrities, myself included, but even the most proficient of them does sometimes deteriorate into the humdrum.

Stephen’s medical condition probably had something to do with it but I find the actions of the district councillors even more astonishing.  Did these people go into local politics because they thought it would an easy or pleasant job?  Did they expect that arranging the Summer Fete would be the height of their work? None of the news stories that I read suggest that the blogger has done anything other than post inaccurate and offensive material and appears to be single individual.

So what’s going on here?  There’s no doubt that the Internet has allowed celebrities and politicians to interact more closely with their fans and constituents.   But have we reached a point where the closeness has become unhealthy, too personal, with the voice of the one outweighing the thousands of others who do not have complaint?

Perhaps the medium has to take some of the blame.  It’s much harder not to feel slighted when the text message comes in on your phone while you are at home.  I have to take complaints in work every now and then, but I’m sitting in the office at work.  As I walk out the door, I leave the complaint behind and return home.   It seems to me that the line between the public role and private has become too blurred, especially with Twitter.

As for the councillors, my advice would be not to read the blog.

I have been advocate controlling ones own feed for many years. In fact I was often criticized for being a vocal opponent to FeedBurner.  The hammer has fallen again for those that rely on FeedBurner, as most of us know FeedBurner is very slow to update data from your master feed additionally they have been known to strip items from feeds before so it will be curious to see if FeedBurner users will be able to use the Cloud tag at all.

Here is where FeedBurner users are going to get bent over when it comes to this new way of instant notification to those subscribers that opt in for instant notification of your blog updates.

Example: Lets say you post a blog post on a UFO landing on your yard.  In order to get the scoop of the century you rush to post the encounter on your blog. Once you hit publish it may take a considerable amount of time for FeedBurner to re-cache your feed. Meanwhile if I live next door, and control my own RSS feed like I do now the moment I hit publish my RSS feed updates my subscribers get instantly notified and I essentially beat you to the scoop of the century.

Well with the introduction today of RSS Cloud for WordPress those that control their own feeds will now be able to push information to sites and services that implement the RSS Cloud features.

Matt over at WordPress has this to say about the new feature: “Why is this important? Right now how most people interact with feeds is by checking that it updated every now and then, usually about once an hour. Can you imagine waiting an hour to get your emails? (The world would probably be more productive.) RSS Cloud is an extra element in your RSS feed that allows subscribers to say “Hey, let me know as soon as you’ve updated, kthx.””

Feedburner users are going to have a little time to bang on the folks at FeedBurner to get this implemented as  there is only one Feed Reading service that supports this today and that is River2 by none other Dave Winer. You can be 100% assured that in a very short period we will see more feed reader services, and a whole cottage industry pop up over instant notification of blog post on those blogs you follow the most.

The best thing this is through existing RSS tags and we will not be beholden to the folks at pubsubhubbub which I never fully agreed with their implementation anyway. This opens a world of possibilities and will be a very big deal!

This is as big as Twitter, mark my words! If enough sites implement this, then the so called blogging erosion will cease because in my opinion it is always better to build your brand then someone elses and to date my blog has not received a lot of Google Juice from post I have put on Twitter, sure I get great traffic from my Twitter followers but I would rather to continue to build my brand here versus someone elses.

f you’ve been around the Internet for any length of time, I’m sure you heard of Scott Bourne and Andy Ihnatko.  Both can be found at the MY Digital Life blog and podcast — at least until August 31, 2009.

Scott and Andy have been doing a podcast and blog helping listeners manage their digital life for the past six months. Everything from backups to storage and cool gadgets were discussed on their blog and three times a month on their podcast.

The last podcast, MYDL #15, was a much shorter show and Scott announced that they were pulling the plug on the podcast and blog at the end of the month. The site was sponsored by Data Robotics (Drobo) and everyone decided it was time to shut down and move on. I had the pleasure of generating the show notes for the podcast and learned a lot in the process. Scott and Andy had some great information and the show will be greatly missed. Scott and Andy will still be around but focusing on other things.

In Scott’s final comments to his listeners, he urged everyone to backup, backup, backup. Something Scott and Andy preached on every show and good advice for everyone.

In the Internet world we tend to think everything lives on forever. Podcaster fade and websites go dormant, but rarely go away. MYDL is an exception. If you haven’t been to MYDL.ME, head over there now before August 31, and check out the great content, before it’s gone forever. 73′s, Tom

Bloggers beware the FTC is about to start watching what you say and failure to disclose that you have been given a product or paid to blog about a product or service could find themselves with a FTC violation.

Disclaimer: Geek News Central and it’s writers will always disclaim in the blog post if a product has been provided by the manufacture or if any other type of compensation has taken place.

Disclaimer: The FTC has not paid for this blog post

Anyway it could get real ugly out there for bloggers who have been notorious for writing reviews of products, services and sites and never disclosed that they have been compensated. We will keep an eye on what the guidelines coming out of the FTC will be.

There are many articles comparing the pros and cons of physical print news versus the online/blogging news.  The following lists are not pros and cons but what each group has that the other side wants.  What could happen with the merging of the two?  Thanks to Tech Crunch for stirring my brain.

What Newspapers Have and Bloggers Want/Need:

1. Bloggers have less official access to many press conferences and meetings. Who gets the press pass?  How do you get the press pass?  Will it not eventually recreate a few sources for news as different agencies pick and stick with favorites?  Newspapers made narrowing it down easy.
2. Bloggers have less incentive/time to investigate and search out multiples sources. Bloggers seem to surf the web not pound the streets and interview people face to face.  Newspapers live that way.
3. Bloggers write about what interests them, not what interests others. With no boss giving assignments, who will report on those needed but sometimes mundane happenings?  Will we be stuck piecing together all of our news from 500 RSS feeds?  Newspapers make basic world, national, and local news easy.
4. Bloggers are not the one “go to” place for news. Difficult to find a local blogger.  I do not know of a single blogger reporting on news in our area of 175,000 people .  I guess I would have to look if the paper shut down.
5. Bloggers have less accountability/oversight to preserve the truth. I know, I know, that the community could police itself just like Wikipedia.  I’m not sure they will or really have the ability.  Besides, most people believe whatever they read and probably won’t go back to see any updates or corrections.

What Bloggers Have and Newspapers Want/Need:

1. Print Media has a narrow chain of command that dictates what and when news is published. It is no wonder why dictator, communistic, and extreme governments want control of the media?  Why are news agencies tending to endorse political candidates? The news has been far from fair and balanced for a long, long time.  Blogs are more numerous, yield less individual influence, say what they think, and allow more free interaction.
2. Print Media has a need to make a larger profit.  Bloggers hope to pay the bills.  There is nothing wrong with this.  It is the goal of every business owner to make money.  Why should newspapers be any different?  The problem is that it is a very low margin/no margin business that is about to go on a ventilator.  The motivation and ability to survive is decreasing.
3. Print Media has a high overhead for getting the news to the reader. Ouch this is number one.  Manufacturing and delivery is expensive.  Presses are extremely expensive, paper is expensive, labor is expensive, management is expensive, delivery is expensive.   The web does it on the cheap.  I can deliver the same news to as many people for pennies on the dollar as a blogger.  And it won’t take much ad revenue to pay for that delivery.
4. Print Media has few ways to guage how much of their content is read. The newspaper does not create a log file ever time my eyes read a certain article or ad.  Advertisers are left to subjective decisions on whether business increased because of the ad most of the time.  The web brings freedom and analytics.
5. Print Media locks down the content and its distribution. There is no open source in this land.  Republish the AP article and receive a DMCA.  Everything is copyrighted.
6. Print media now publishes old news. 24 hours is not soon enough.  12 hours is not soon enough.  2 hours is not soon enough.  What do you mean “The game was not finished as of press time”?  By the time your article reaches me 36 hours after the game, you have lost me.  I can visit a site, use an RSS reader to get the headlines, or subscribe to email updates and text alerts.  I do not even have to wait for the “top of the hour”, “quarter of the hour” news on the radio.

Enough of my opinion.  What is the real truth?  Will you, the community, let me know?  Are we really ready for this new world of news?

Hello, my name is Tom Newman (aka Fogview) and I’m the newest blogger on Geek News Central. You may ask what are my qualifications and what will I be bringing to the table. Well, I’m a geek and have been involved with tech for over 30 years. I’m a hardware/software engineer and have been involved with the micro computer revolution (that’s what we called it back in the “old days”) since it first began. I started out as a Test Engineer integrating a Data General Nova 2 minicomputer into the factory manufacturing process of the company where I worked (Diablo Systems). I spotted an article in Radio Electronics magazine talking about a home-brew computer, Mark-8, and decided to build my own Intel 8008 microcomputer. I ordered the circuit boards from author of the article and scrounged all the parts and built my bare-bones system. I finally had my very own computer at home! I hand-coded a simple program in assembly language and amazed myself by having a set of blinking LEDs marching to the beat of my very first 8008 program. I had written pretty large programs at work that could control Diablo HyType Printers, but there was something uplifting about my very own computer that could blink some LEDs.

Fast forward 30 years and here I am. I’m a Windows/PC person who has recently added an iMac and a MacBook to my collection of tools. I’m a computer consultant so I still dabble some in hardware design and programming now and then, but I find myself moving towards web designs and digital photography. I’m also very involved in Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, podcasting, etc.).

Oh, did I mention I’m a geek, just like the majority of those of you who come to Geek News Central and listen to Todd’s podcast. I’m interested in podcasting, video, photography, gadgets, software, and tips to make me and everything I use, work better and faster. That’s what I hope to bring to Geek News Central — reviews, tips, and my view of technology and this new fangled thing called the Internet.

If you want to know more about me, you can always follow me on Twitter @Fogview, or my podcast/blog at Fogview Podcast, and at Fogview Photos. Stop by and say howdy.

73’s, Tom

Someone has to pay the bill for journalism.  Whether it be in print, radio, video, or online, someone has to pay.  There is no such thing as a free lunch.  What has paid the bill for news so far?  Advertising, advertising, and more advertising.  Everything from full page ads to 4 by 6 ads to the classifieds.  Everything has been paid for by advertising.  Advertising is supposed to bring in business that makes the investment worth it.  Now that ad revenue is reminiscent of the first hill of a roller coaster, all media depending on advertising is struggling.  Newspapers are getting hit with an equivalent left right combo from the fist of George Forman.  Not only are the ads drying up, but the internet is pulling away readers at an alarming rate.  What will they do?  Robert Murdoch wants consumers to pay for the online content.  Good luck.

Consumers must pay for what they consume. We pay for the meal we consume at McDonalds.  We pay for the gas our car consumes.  Consumers makes the economy go around.  The recession has put consumers on a diet and hunt for really cheap and free food.  No meal is ever free or cheap. Someone is paying.  How will consumers pay for journalism in the post-recession era?  Advertising will rebound, but businesses will refuse to put all their eggs in that basket again.

Here is my one idea to throw into the mix.  News organizations could begin to offer paid-for services to consumers that help supplement the advertising revenue.  Perhaps offering personally configured, organized home pages for a small fee.  Or maybe a PDF of your news delivered to your inbox at configurable intervals throughout a day.  The advertising from local businesses could be targeted to the consumer based on the types of news they have selected (not unlike Google).  Web 2.0 is making this all possible.  If news sites keep making us navigate through their selected structure, or read the headlines they suggest it will not be as effective as it could be.  Just an idea.  An idea that has many flaws I am sure, but some possibilities.

So what are you willing to pay for?  There are no free lunches in this world.

Blogger Louis Gray has been studying the referrals to his blog and has noticed that getting linked to by a large blog site or influential blogger doesn’t drive the same level of traffic as it used to. The move in traffic generation has been to the aggregators like Techmeme, Reddit, Digg etc. There is also a large shift towards readers consuming content through RSS readers rather than always coming direct to the website.

Both these trends are understandable to an extent. The sheer volume of content and the large number of blogs that are out there make it very difficult for people to easily find interesting or relevant content without the aggregators. This is a catch 22 situation. There is too much content out there for a user to filter it without taking up way too much time. The aggregator sites help with this by doing a pre-filter for us. This leads to a bit of group think though, where we only see the articles that algorithm’s have determined are the most important. RSS readers are also a way for us to deal with large amounts of information more easily

It is natural that a space that is as relatively new as blogging will evolve rapidly over time. The environment will continue to evolve as technologies grow and develop and as people throw ew ideas into the mix. I don’t think anyone can argue that we have the whole community information thing down perfectly yet. We have never individually had access to more information as a species and we need to work out exactly how to best process it.

I do not believe that the final solution is going to be the aggregators. This is not really a model that gives us the best information. It is the method that is easiest for advertising though, and since that is the prime method for revenue in the space this gives those sites the power at the moment. I would imagine that the future will be in more human edited content rather than algorithm generated content. For this method to succeed though a way to generate revenue directly from the content consumption needs to exist as advertising revenue is not large enough or stable enough to fund this.

Advertising also has a corrupting influence on editorial content. This is not necessarily in a pernicious way, but a subtle influence that this has when advertising is the only method with which a company gets its revenue. The people that give you your revenue are your real customers. If all you have is advertising then your business is to deliver people to advertisers, not to deliver a service to your “consumer”. Over time a couple of revenue generating models will emerge and then the game will change yet again.

If you have not updated in a while you may want to have a look at your templates and upgrade your installs. If you read the linked article don’t skip the comments.

This is another of many reasons why this site has remained on MovableType.

On a couple of my wordpress installs on other domains I have been negligent in updating the installs and have had issues in the past. It’s to bad that wordpress users continue to suffer from security holes in older versions. [Deep Jive Interests]

Over the past 4–5 years in writing this blog I have always been concerned about services that cause consumers of this content to get connected through a third party service.

As many of you I have signed up for most of the social networking services, for me anyways as more as a point of interest, that connects me with the family of consumers of this content, that I, and my team produce. If you read this blog on a regular basis you will know it is intermixed with Rich media containing Audio Podcast, Blog Post and Video.

While I realize their are a variety of ways and software tools that one can get to our content, down deep I hope that everyone comes here first. Geek News Central is, and always will be the primary point of presence for anything that I, and the contributing editors feel the need to post on.

With the invention of Twitter, FriendFeed, and several other services out their that is commanding a lot people’s attention. I have slowly come to realize that many people are only getting part of the ongoing  conversation, which in a sense is breaking the very thing I have tried to prevent over the past 4–5 years.

Part of it is my own fault for not making sure that the Twitter conversation and everything else I haphazardly post on is not also syndicated on this site.

I am torn though, as I am sure I could setup a widget and import, my flickr post, all my tweets etc..,  but I am also pretty positive not everyone wants to see all my tweets, after all why would you care that I am writing this post from LAX? You don’t but I did tweet I was in LAX, this trivial information has no added value to the content here, but at times I do have important things to say that could be carried here as well as being sent out on Twitter.

I think this is going to continue to be a hot topic for a while, as we all want the eyeballs here first, or people consuming the content via the primary RSS feeds, I am going to look into a way to easily get the content that is important onto and in this my primary content stream.

As a side note. This is one of the major things we took into consideration at RawVoice with our podcast publisher. We have built a great tool that does not de-centralize the conversation. [Loic Le Meur]

An interesting post on Wired about the way journalism is changing in the face of new media. Not that unexpected a perspective from a magazine that has morphed into something more like a blog itself. The gist is essentially that news media is becoming more of a service than a product with the major news publications being more of a consolidator that directs readers/watchers to where the news is located.

To me this is tragic, but also reveals that the old media doesn’t have the business sense to deserve to survive. The news media was caught with their pants down, thinking they controlled the market and only had themselves to compete with they became less news, more current affairs, then more gossip and speculation offering opinion over insight. Blogging came along and suddenly there was an alternative and better method for people to get their gossip, opinion and even some current affairs. Better because they could also be part of it, offering their own opinions and helping determine the relevance of particular pieces.

Faced with this, the ‘old’ media had a number of options, but by this stage was too used to taking the easy road and finding better profits down them, at least in the short term. Rather than try and re-invent themselves, use their structural difference to build some sort of differentiation from the new entrant, they tried to emulate their new competition in the false belief that they could take it over. A bit like Microsoft came into the Internet game too late and tried to take control. This will probably have the same success.

It is tragic because we have lost truly objective investigative reporting that was an important part of the checks and balance on power and privilege. It is not too late for them to change path. Corporate media cannot compete with Blogs and social networking on new media’s terms so they must find a new purpose if they are to survive, what better as a new purpose than the one they used to fill. Blogs have not been able to fill this place yet as true investigative journalism needs time and resources and does not work well to deadlines and daily posts. The gap will not be open very long though. Look at some sites like Groklaw that produces great insight on some of the legal wranglings, or some of the detailed analysis that is appearing on sites like TechCrunch. Not all Bloggers will morph into real journalists, but some have the ability to and will given time.

The past decade has taught us that when politicians and business do not fear the public eye some will test those new limits and we all are worse off for it. I’ll avoid the controversy that mention of some of the political ones would create but highlight things like the dot bomb, Enron, and the current mortgage crisis. All of these might had been avoided if there were investigative journalists still around rather than gossipers and mouthpieces.

The discussions about PPP over the past weeks have me thinking about how Bloggers can turn their effort into reward.  The difficulty that smaller bloggers have in monetising their blogs is no secret, and while there is no reason that any blogger should be able to make money from their content it would be better if there was some link between quality of content and reward.

I understand there is some link, major blogs like Engadget, BoingBoing and GigaOm did not get to their position by luck, but by recognising the potential early and acting on it with good content.  They are getting rewarded for the past quality of their content.  It is hard for new entrants to work their way up the chain and become a new Engadget.  Second tier blogs seem to be able to make enough to get by, although I have not been able to find much info on the sorts of revenue they can pull.  For a new entrant, even if you have a good level of content it is hard to get commensurate reward

This was brought into focus for me when Scott Adams announced he was cutting back on his blogging.  The main reason being that it was not rewarding him in relation to the effort he was spending.  The Dilbert blog has a huge readership, a selection of easily defined and great to target demographics and regular content for 2 years.  If these advantages were not enough to turn a buck then what hope the rest of us?

I believe that the key lies in post quantity.  Even with its regular daily posts, the Dilbert blog is best read with an RSS reader.  This is much more convenient for the reader as they get the updates from multiple sites at once.  While easier for the reader it reduces the ad displays and therefore clickthroughs, compromising that revenue model.  I see this on my own site, where most of my traffic comes from RSS readers, but most do not click through to the actual site.

The major blogs and blogging companies have multiple writers and many posts per day.  I cannot keep up with sites like BoingBoing in my RSS reader, I end up missing too much. It’s better for me to go to the site itself.  The money making sites become those that offer enough content, and wide enough coverage of news to become destination sites.  If you do not, or cannot attract people to actually come to your site you are less likely to make money from your content.  Without RSS though, few people would even bother reading your content.  The thing that gets you noticed is also what limits the value you can claim.

In my opinion this is going to drive two trends.  The first is more and more alternate revenue models like PayPerPost and the like. Some bloggers want/need to make money from what they do and there are companies out there who would like to make a cut for enabling that.  The second is greater consolidation of individual blogs into networks.  The meta sites don’t cut it as the content sources are too unpredictable for bloggers to rely on.  The future is probably networks like Weblogs Inc or GigaOM, where multiple bloggers team together to create location blog networks.  This may happen organically or via large company buy-outs/employment of smaller blogs.  Hopefully GNC can become one of these network locations.

Tonight while getting ready for my Podcast I removed a RSS feed from my regular reading list because of excessive advertising in the feed. I’m serious — the stupid ad TechCrunch has after every article in the feed measures 612 pixels in height.

Nothing like being stupid and making me see it after every article. This is abusive and I refuse to read his feed with that crap in it.

It appears there was some serious mis-communications in regards to Michael Arrington’s appearance at Blogworld. One of the reasons I attend some of these events is that I come to hear specific people speak. The mix up in Michael and several others that did not show did not concern me but I was somewhat surprised and others were disappointed.

This was not the case with BlogWorld I went to meet bloggers, potential and existing podcasters and make business relationships. Overall I am very happy with the three main reasons I went to blogworld expo.

One thing that did disappoint me was some of the sessions that I attended were made up largely of those that had booths at the event. Surprisingly company reps that had booths there were sometimes on more than one panel.

While could not attend all sessions there was a fair amount of pitching going on those I did attend. I think Roxanne Darling said it best in a Twitter of mine while I was live blogging and providing commentary on Twitter.

She said at some conferences attendees would be holding up yellow Bull Shit cards that Attendees are given, when something crops up in a session that is obviously false or when we are being pitched versus taught something valuable.

From now on I am going to walk out of any conference that has sessions in which I get pitched and not taught actually taught something in relation to the session topic that my valuable time and dollars that I invest in the event expects.

So here is how I grade the event.

• Vendor/Exhibitor Area B+ for First Year

I was flabbergasted that companies like SixApart did not have a booth and the only time we saw major blogging company reps was when Anil Dash was given some time during Leo Laporte’s keynote where he talked about Open ID. How is the blogging world going to continue to support these companies if they do not show up at events where there end users are. Really sad and SixApart was not the only blogging company that was not there.

• Sessions C-

One of the questions I was asked by people sitting around me is who is this person, and in fact even I had to Google some of the panelist that were in podcasting sessions because quite frankly I have never heard of them before, and I thought I knew everyone in the podcasting space.

There also some to be a lot of emphasis on direct marketing type activities in the sessions I went to. Their were even what I consider highly un-ethical practices being promoted by panelist. While it was good to see what the mentality of these companies were it disturbed me the length some people will sell there souls to earn money.

• After Hour Event A-

The after hours event at the Hard Rock was great, food was great, drinks were over the top, the only bad thing was the music was to loud for a social event and the biggest comment I heard is what kind of music is this. 

My advice to anyone working in the Blogging and Podcasting Space in putting on events like this. Make the break out sessions a commercial free zone, make them interactive not death by power point and moderate pimping of ones product or events.

Simply by putting a session moderator in the room that can stop a session and chastise a company for pitching will stop the activity once and for all.

If I want to be sold your services or hear your elevator pitch I will find you on the show floor. A general introduction is cool but don’t continuously sell me your product during the sessions it lowers the value of the conversation.

Finally: If you are a company and you are going to quote some supposed facts in a session that go against logical thinking of other experts in the field, be prepared to defend those comments in the blogging space. As soon as the audio archives of this event is available I am going to share with you some incredible statements made by company representatives, that I am going to expect them to back those comments up. But I want the Audio clips to get their statements quoted back accurately before I proceed with the hammering away at the commentary.

Ok folks here we go for day two of the Blog World Expo. Thus far my impressions is that even though the organizers had tracks for podcasting the folks exhibiting and in the sessions appear to be bloggers looking at podcasting.

The number of podcasters here are hard to say but with Libsyn, Podango having booths and of course me here from RawVoice I think we guessed that the number of actual podcasters number under 100.

I think though this show has huge possibilities.

08:45
-Change Anil Dash is gonna go before Leo Surprise Speaker

-He is talking about open standards and about giving people being able to control who gets access to read what one post in regimes where people write in fear of being prosecuted by the government. This discussion into a pitch for OpenID and SixApart being one of the companies playing in the space.

-I really hate it when organizers drop in different speakers and eat up time of the other speaker. I came to hear Leo not Anil. Anil and MovableType has largely not been listening to the community, thus why should he be given time to talk here.

-Hopefully, Anil will hang out long enough to chat with people about MT. I wonder if MT is here today because the wordpress folks got some big press yesterday. Once again they are not here supporting the community with a booth. Very sad blogging company not supporting a blogging conference.

09:00
-Leo Laporte on Stage and he is surprised by the number of normal people in the audience and he is happy to see aka mainstream people here

-He is not going to focus on podcasting, but instead all new media. He does say everyone should be doing all three mediums Bloggers need to Podcast/Videocast and Podcasters need to be Bloggers as well. This is a point I have been harping on for the past three years sadly most podcasters ignore the important aspects of the blogging portion of building their audience and following.
Leo Laporte Keynote

-Leo is moving 40-60TB a month and did $250,000 in advertising last year. I am feeling WAY good about how my show stakes up!

-The thing that has changed in the media is we are in a two way conversation. Unlike this conference which is a traditional conference the shows like podcamp etc are two way conversations. But I must say that some of the podcamps are morphing into death by PPT which suprised me at Podcamp Boston as some sessions we were talked to and their was not always a conversation.

- The thing that is changing though about the online new media via blogging and podcasting and I agree with Leo, its about the conversation, why do you think I spend 20 minutes on listener Voice mail and Email on my show. My audience is part of my community.

-Video aka TV stimulates our Monkey Mind aka stimulates the emotions.
-Blogging reaches the Cerbal Cortex makes your think
-Podcasting is intimate and your in their ear and talking to them.

-This is why Audio Podcasting is about engagement where the audience really engages and this is why podcast ROI advertising has been so over the top.

-Leo says we have hit the wall in numbers of Podcast listeners and as listeners grow podcasting space will grow. He says his biggest show has about a 120k listeners.

-In my position I know what the numbers are for a lot of podcast and I think Leo may be on to something here as many shows peak to a certain level and barely goal.

-To grow we all have networks and the goal is to be the center of your network and to do well you participate in other hubs. AKA communities. This is why TechPodcasts.com and our communities are thriving.

10:15
-Advanced Blogging Monetization Session

-Ted Murphy from PayPerPost is here give me a break run this guy off the stage get me some some eggs to throw at this guy. Can’t wait for the question and answer.

- Neil Patel is up.. Ohh boy he is selling us some snake oil, says to sell text links and put them in your content, not on the sidebar. Disclosures??? He is also saying to sell memberships because people forget to cancel. He says run a false ad campaign and then approach their competitors to get them to sign? What? I don’t want anything to do with this guy and if he in fact is working with the top 100 bloggers then we are in trouble

- Next sales oil salesman is Blogitive – they pay bloggers to write about press releases they pay $5.00 per post GAG!!! I am sitting here in disbelief.

- I think i will have a statement versus a question in that I am going to say that their is no way I would do business with any of these companies.

-Next up is Kontera with in text advertising and the pop up advertising which most of us really hate. He is claiming that some of the clicks are

- PayPerPost is up, there are actually 20+ bloggers in this room that raised their hand and said they are working for them. The say they have 85,000 bloggers and 11,000 advertisers. They say that they are now requiring disclosure.

- Blogitive does not require disclosure and but encourages it. Sorry you can’t have it both ways. I guess if bloggers want to sell out, and not disclose that they are getting paid to play and that is extremely unethical.

-Now several panelist are trying to JUSTIFY some of the tactics they use. I have heard the word honest at least a 100 times.

- Neil Patel is saying you don’t have to follow the rules. He says he will pay triple if people do not disclose

-The Blogitive CEO says it is not his companies responsibility to essentially set a bloggers ethics policy. They do not want to dictate whether a blogger discloses or not. I will say straight up that RawVoice will always have a full disclosure statement on ANY ad deal we do where podcasters and videocasters are compensated to do so would go against every ethical fiber in my body.

15:00
-Bloggers for Hire/Hiring Bloggers

-This session has a huge number of people that are blogging for a living. I am surprised but he did not break it down into whether those that are blogging have any other supporting income.

-They have stated that Blogger Networks don’t pay well

-Short Job Description of a Blogger for hire- Writer, Videocaster, Livecaster, Podcaster

-35-55k a year Bloggers making salary similar to Corporate Communication Specialist which is about 40k a year which in my opinion is crap

- A company here no name on badge says her company has hired 10-15 bloggers that blog on their own daily, but they have to post articles about said company x times monthly no-disclosure and get paid $1500.00 each. This is simply amazing!

-Companies are spending a lot of money to get their Google Ranking up

15:00
Mark Cuban Keynote

- As many know mark started blogging because of injustice in a article but the response was that the newspaper could no longer just say anything.

-The response was the motivating factor in that he got feedback.

- Blog Comments has made him realize so far as the mavericks go how the fans were and their passion. I hope i got the quote right in regards to Maveric fans “I dont own the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas and Fort Worth does, I’m just the care taker”

- Mark says you have to brutally honest in your blogs. “I Agree”

- You have to stay brutally honest and resist the temptation to pander for audience numbers.

- You have to put in the time in blogging. If your not part of aggregation network you have to work much harder and do the work to stand out! Note: This is why Podcast Networks work and sometimes people have to realize they cannot do the work all by themselves

-He says honesty is number-one and if your not honest people are going to see straight through you in your blog writing.

-Mark says Blogging is turning into a corporate network and you have to understand where you fit in

- Then a decisions has to be made whether you are full time, if you do and your working for someone else you will loose ability to be 100% honest

-You have to resist being combative with those that attack you, the Internet is forever and the wars of today will not be important later.

-He thinks his using facebook and his blog helped drive votes for dancing with the stars but has no real proof as only one person knows what the votes totals where.

-Mark Cuban Google’s job applicants but it is not so much that but you have to remember the Internet will define who you are in the future.

-He writes his own blogs because it’s faster he does not have anyone write for him.

-One of his Goals when he starts a business he wants to know his business and industry better than anyone else.

-Question: How far are we away from having the disparity on blogs today on High Def Today? He says never and it because of simply the lack of bandwidth. But until we get 1gb to the home we will not have the disparity of content.

-He is going after YouTube now saying Google is hiding behind the DMCA

All finished folks

Live Blogging Blog World Expo

08:44
-First thing huge number of Bloggers and No Power Strips
-Keynote area is going to be standing room only

08:54
-Matt from WordPress is is rehashing how WordPress got started I am not sure why a bunch of bloggers need to be told about the wordpress history are we not all bloggers and supposed to know this stuff.

-18 WordPress Staff support a 100 million impressions across there hosted solutions I wonder how many servers it takes to run that.

09:14

-BlogWorldExpo needs a back channel lots of bloggers but I am not seeing tweets or many blog post.

-Matt says get your User Model before you get your business model While I do not agree a 100% their is a need to make sure that when you are launching a web property you need to think about the users.

-Political Blogger wanted to know how to monetize, the short answer start planning two years in advance. But a side discussion has broken out on the ethics and disclosure of those political blogging and the harm it could cause to the blogging space.

10:00
Attending the Corporate & CEO Blogging session

-Corporate number 1 fear is that the corporation will criticized and that they will loose control. They also are worried about the amount of time it is going to take away from their staff to support the blog

-Kodak Rep is talking about their corporate blog and one of the things that surprised me is that they post their customers comments largely un-edited.

-HP Policy on Corporate Blogging is that the each group or person within the company can have a HP blog but their has to be a marketing or way to interact with the various groups in the specific technical industry.

-The corporate blogging session is somewhat a sleeper

-Southwest Airlines bloggers say blogging is a huge commitment, but it has been a huge media bonus for them. They are using their bloggers as conduits into the press. The goal with the blogs were the way to reach their customers and have used the blogs as a way to get focus group feedback. They talk about their handling of the Mini-Skirt issue and say that they did not do a good job. But they said they learned some lessons from that event and

-Southwest, Moderates their comments but they don’t allow personal attacks and or customer service issues. Most surprising that they also moderate all topic post. Thus they completely moderate the entire site. They have PR and Senior people looking at each post. Thus they are controlling the conversation in a big way.

From a personal perspective I cannot imagine controlling the conversation this way. While it looks like they are trying to be fair, I am not so sure that I would like having to go through corporate PR for each and every post. I wonder if this is really blogging this is more like PR controlled spin masters.

Show Floor

No Lunch visited with Vendors. The show floor has a fair number of vendors lost of ad companies. Think I made the folks at Kontarea made when I told then inline advertising is evil and users hate the pop ups piss people off

Lots of vendors and had some great discussions. There are a number of Affiliate marketers here as well along with a lot of vendors that are pushing services for bloggers.

13:30
Attending the Secrets of great video production and Vlogging

-Sorry this session is for beginners a true 100 level presentation. The Presenter is using some purple background death by power point that is boring and hard to read.

-Lots of information being put out in this session and the presenter is all over the place. Death by Power Point in this one.

-Why do presenters continue to make people think that they have to have Feedburner it really drives me crazy.

2:45
Monetization of Podcast

-Well I am not sure why I am sitting through this, but it is always nice to listen to other companies ideas.

-Be a Podcast Consultant thats the first thing that has been covered

-Jason VanOrden is pimping tele-seminars and webinars. Sounds like Network Marketing and something I would buy on late night TV

-Nice Mention with of Talkshoe/Blubrry partnership and also a nice mention from the folks at Podango very gracious

-Non Tangible rewards like swag and products to review.

-Some discussion about the need for sponsorship disclosure and through product mentions. The main point is you need to be honest and disclose. Do not be afraid to tell your audience you need to get paid for the art.

-A show got a six figure grant not a sponsorship from a pharma company.

-Recommendation from the panel to join a network and let those companies running networks to find sponsors for their podcast.

-One problem I am seeing with a discussion here, is that they think ad insertion and being able to rebuild the shows on the fly is king. But the problem is 95% of shows do not have a long tail. Thus 95% of the shows out there have no reason to use technology that rebuilds the show.

-Podcaster should have a Newsletter period.

-Steve Boyett claims his podcast does 40TB a month in traffic? Interesting

-John Havens says the landscape is changing and that things that were once free will soon no longer be free. But the problem with that is most people don’t want to pay for anything and a generation has grown up not having had to pay for anything.

I have had a few of you reach out to me on meeting up in Vegas during Blog World Expo. I will be in Vegas from Wednesday morning till very late on Friday. 

Don’t hesitate to call me and arrange a meet up time 808–741–4923

Todd

Last week I installed the Blogrush applet here on the website, and for the past week I have been monitoring how much traffic the applet is bringing to the website.

After a week of utilization and careful examination of log files and statistics I saw no inbound traffic being generated, which made me do some investigating.

What I found is that some of the sites with links on the applet don’t appear to be running the Blogrush applet on their own pages, yet somehow their articles are being listed in the Blogrush applet on my blog.

The way it is supposed to work is for each page load you have you get a reciprocal listing on another site and vice versa. I am questioning how people are getting links in my applet with no apparent blogrush applet running on their own site.

For example, this link on Mashable which showed up on my GNC applet has no Blogrush applet loading. I assumed they were getting credits from their home page or other Mashable page. When I went to the Mashable home page their was no BlogRush Applet on that page either.

In fact I looked all over the Mashable website and I did not see the applet any place. Maybe I am missing it somewhere but how is Mashable getting a link in the Blogrush Applet if they are not running the Blogrush applet on their website? I could have missed the applet but I looked at a lot of pages.

While this is just one example, there are a lot more sites like this that I came across. Are the Blogrush folks allowing people to pay to have their articles listed? Are sites abusing the system somehow and racking up credits?

I can accept no inbound traffic — that is part of the game — but it looks awful fishy to me when I can’t find the applet on some participating websites that are getting listings on my own blog.

On Oct 24th I ranted pretty hard on Movable Type not only on my blog, but also in my podcast. In my opinion, it was well-deserved. Bryne Reese at Six Apart listened and did some work on his own time to put together a podcasting plugin for Movable Type.

My schedule has been pretty crazy and I have not had a chance to test it yet, but I am pretty confident that the plugin will gets us started in the right direction. I have remained loyal to Movable Type because it simply does a lot more than WordPress does. The management of the multiple sites I run under a single installation of MovableType cannot be accomplished with any other blogging platform.

But like many other Moveable Type users I have been fairly critical of the pace of development, and their continued focus more on their pro-net developers versus listening to end users. I think they still have some work to do to get connected with their user community again.

I do appreciate Bryne and I am hopeful that he understands and the rest of the team understands that many of us remain passionate MT users and have invested heavily in development of our brand with MT, and hope that they really listen to our needs as time moves forward.

There is one more thing, though, that I completely disagree with, and this is SixApart’s continued heavy investment and promotion of ATOM. They have been trying without success to get vendors aka Apple iTunes and others to support enclosures in ATOM feeds. First of all, the public is already confused enough. But give me a break. ATOM has not been widely adopted and for the time being RSS will be the way Podcasts are delivered and indexed.

I don’t publicly display my Atom feed and in fact have not looked at the template in several years simply because RSS readers and syndication sites largely do not support it.

I look forward to the core podcasting changes and also look forward to updating my MT installation so it can be upgraded to MT4. MovableType.org

Hey folks looks like I will be headed out to Las Vegas next week for the BlogWorldExpo. I will be getting in to Vegas on Wednesday morning and will be leaving on Saturday.

If your are a blogger or podcaster headed out to the show. I would love to sit down with you and talk story about the blogging and podcasting space. If your part of the Geek News Central Ohana lets hook up. My cell is 808–741–4923

The event should be a lot of fun and well you know it’s Vegas. BlogWorldExpo.com