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April 29, 2005
iPod glory-daze
Podcasting Killed the Radio Star
The popular audio distribution method is about to take to the airwaves.
A failing talk-radio station in San Francisco is about to be converted
to an all-podcast format. By Xeni Jardin.
Posted by roymond at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
Open Media Network
OMN - A free public service network was launched today to give users worldwide access to public television and radio programming, movies, podcasts and video blogs, while fully protecting the producers’ copyrights.
The Open Media Network is powered by Kontiki Grid Delivery technology. Kontiki provides a secure, commercial alternative to BitTorrent. Kontiki has been deployed by many producers for delivery of authorized content.
Posted by roymond at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2005
Searches unveiled
Tech-Recipes offers some Google search strings that
dig up music that might be hard to find otherwise. One such string goes straight into FTP locations storing music
files. I probably wouldn’t share this if it were overwhelmingly piratical, by in experimenting with this string I found
a lot of content that is being shared via the Web. Using the string bypasses the gunk of Web pages and goes straight to
direct download locations. Here is what Tech-Recipes recommends:
-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” mp3
This string works only to find FTP locations left unprotected by password. The negative “inurl” tags force
Google to ignore matches occuring on regular Web pages, and the “index of” string is very common to FTP directories. Of
course, the string may be further modified, and MP3 may be replaced by other file types. Speaking theoretically, one
could add a band name to the string and turn up unprotected songs. One question surrounding the ethics of this type of
sharing would be whether an unprotected FTP directory represents an invitation to download, or whether doing so is
stealing (bandwidth, not the music). In some cases the answer is provided by winding back through parent directories
until you arrive at a Web page, which might turn out to be a music-sharing page—just as were so common and
controversial in the pre-Napster era.
(Thanks to Search Engine Journal.)
Posted by roymond at 06:16 PM | Comments (1)
World Music
A NY Times article by John Pareles about the
bustling indie world-music scene is mostly about newsly released CDs, but also excavates three online destinations that
any fan of the genre should know about. Two offer downloads at 99 cents per track, and one is a richly informative site
with gorgeously produced streaming audio documentaries.
Calabash Music: Hi-fi samples, 99-cent downloads, and am MP3 blog. The most
commercial of the three site listed here. MP3.
Smithsonian Global Sound: The Smithsonian’s digital collection of
archival recordings. Small but growing inventory of 99-cent tracks. Academic sorting system divides music into regions
and instrument classifications, but don’t let that put you off. MP3.
Afropop Worldwide: Just African, but that’s saying a lot. A current hour-long
documentary features Bonnie Raitt travelling in Mali and voicing her impressions of the music, with plenty of extended
samples recorded live. Damn. This should be a DVD.
I’m no fan of iTMS store, as any casual reader here knows, but I do love the niched spinoffs that take the business
model and apply it to music (without DRM) that is hard to find elsewhere.
Posted by roymond at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
Searching Podcast content
Podscope: Keyword Search of Podcasts
An amazing development in the evolution of podcasting—or, at least podcast-hunting—has been launched in beta by a company called TVEyes. TVEyes uses proprietary technology (that probably involves voice-tio-text recognition, but I really have no idea) to instantly index audio content, making it searchable by keyword. TVEyes uses its systems to index television content, and license access to the index. Only recently has the company turned its attention to podcasts, and the result is Podscope, the first and only keywork search engine for podcasts. Type in the name of a favorite indie artist, and get back a quick list of podcasts that mention the name. This is not a music search engine; it is a language engine. Results might not have the music you’re hoping for, but there’s a good chance that with indie artists you will find some music. Search results include 10-second audio clips that play directly from the Web page and include the keywords your searched for. It’s amazing, and it’s fast. Try it.
Posted by roymond at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
Curious twist on Radio and Podcasts
Infinity Broadcasting, a division of Viacom, is converting the format of a San Francisco AM radio station, KYCY, to what is calles “open source radio” that will feature programming contributions from listeners. Specifically, all podcasters are invited to submit their shows for consideration; the station will even pay licensing fees to include some music content. The new stations will be appropriately renamed KYOU. The station will not podcast the shows, or even archive them on its Web site, but neither will it claim any ownership rights. So the contributing podcasters will continue enclosing the programs in their feeds as normal.
Posted by roymond at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
P2P
Streamcast Looks to Creative Commons for Legitimacy
After winning the first round of their battle with the music industry, Streamcast is acting to bolster their argument that P2P networks have legitimate uses and are not merely tools for massively multiplayer copyright infringement. Their newly released Morpheus 4.5 incorporates several features designed around the Creative Commons intellectual property license. Their motives are certainly suspect, but the end result could very well be the beginning of good things. More...
Posted by roymond at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2005
Home made Films score big
Technology turns average Joes into mini-Spielbergs
The pinnacle of do-it-yourself financial success: the hit movie Open Water, produced by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau for $120,000. To make the shark thriller, the New York City-based husband and wife team invested $6,000 on two Sony "pro-sumer" digital camcorders, aimed at serious hobbyists, and $10,000 on an Apple Power Mac G5 dual processor computer, with Final Cut Pro editing and special-effects software.
Kentis and Lau did all of the camera work, and Kentis did all of the editing at home on his Mac G5. The film earned $31 million in U.S. theatrical release last fall, and is expected to more than double that in DVD sales and foreign screenings.
Posted by roymond at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)
April 20, 2005
Public Broadcasters Podcasting
Podcasting by public broadcasters - A sampling
Posted by roymond at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
CC Mixter - The remix family tree
This is a community music sharing site featuring songs licensed under Creative Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.
Posted by roymond at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
MusicBrainz lives
MetaBrainz launches to support MusicBrainz
MetaBrainz, a nonprofit foundation, was launched today to support the user maintained music database project MusicBrainz.
Let's find player manufacturers that support alternative meta data sources!
Posted by roymond at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
Podcasting Tools
New Podcasting Application - Propaganda
MixMeister Technology has introduced Propaganda, a Windows program designed to include everything needed to record, assemble and publish high-quality podcasts. The application includes tools for recording, mixing, previewing and publishing podcasts.
"Our research showed that the current podcasting landscape falls into two categories: (1) high-quality podcasts made by technically adept people, who use half a dozen different software programs just to record, edit and publish a show, and (2) lots of people who feel the urge to get into podcasting but don't know how to get started, or have made attempts they aren't satisfied with," notes MixMeister's Dave Sampson. "We developed Propaganda to help the first group achieve a much better workflow using a single tool, and to provide an emerging group of podcasters an easy path to start producing professional-quality shows.
Posted by roymond at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
Floydcast Interview
The Fake Science Lab Report, a podcast that reports on the music industry in the digital age, is featuring an interview with Nick Mason, drummer for the seminal rock band Pink Floyd.
Mason made time on his press tour to have a candid chat about his new book, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, and the future of the music industry. Mason is one of the first major music industry figures to give an interview on an independent podcast.
"It was a great opportunity for me to meet one of my personal heroes as well as a step towards legitimizing the medium to an audience outside of the podcasting community" stated Chris Walcott, also known to listeners as 'Cedub'.
Posted by roymond at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2005
Public Radio Podcast Listing
PublicRadioFan.com - Podcast directory
PublicRadioFan.com features program listings for hundreds of public radio stations around the world. Follow the audio links to hear your favorite programs and discover new ones.
Posted by roymond at 09:23 AM | Comments (1)
April 14, 2005
BBC Internet Radio returns
The BBC
is relaunching its internet Radio Player to make almost every BBC Radio
program available live and on-demand for seven days after broadcast,
creating a massive, ever-changing library of music, talk shows, dramas
and documentaries.
Posted by roymond at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)
Text to Podcast
FeedPod 0.2, a text-to-speech RSS1, RSS2, and ATOM 0.3 syndication feed
reader, has been released. FeedPod can play a feed over the Web using
HTTP streaming and a ShoutCast-style playlist, or generate a Podcast
feed for syncing to your portable MP3 player.
Posted by roymond at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
Forester Research Study on Podcasting
Podcasting News: Forrester Calls Podcasting "The Future of Digital Audio"
Forrester Research has released a new report, The Future Of Digital Audio,
that focuses on podcasting and satellite radio. According to the
report, 20.1 million U.S. households will listen to satellite radio and
12.3 million U.S. households will use their MP3 players to listen to
audio podcasts by the end of the decade.
Posted by roymond at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)
IndieFeed
Subscribe to free, independent artist music for automatic delivery to your personal music device! Music arrives one song at a time in special IndieFeed genre playlists.
Posted by roymond at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
Assoc of Music Podcasting
AMP was formed in January 2005 to unite podcasters who play legally
available independent music. The podcasters feature independent music
and provide an alternative to traditional radio. The music played is
all legal and safe to download.
Posted by roymond at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Theremin Podcast!
Podcast Directory [ Eclectic ]
Spellbound is the only regular radio show in the world dedicated to music performed on the theremin, that oldest and most exotic of electronic musical instruments. Episodes include performances in classical, jazz, avant garde, and other genres. One hour. Airs live on Sunday nights at 11PM Eastern US time on Cygnus Radio http://www.cygnusradio.com then uploaded for podcast on Mondays.
Posted by roymond at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
Lessig and Media Outlets
from the continuing-disappointment-that-is-the-NYTIMES department
So there's a view about the file-sharing debate held by most people who don't know anything about the debate. It is a view the recording industry likes most people to hold. It is a view far from anything anyone interesting is saying.
The view - call it the uninformed stereotype (US) view - goes something like this: that there are just two sides to this debate, those who favor "piracy" and those who don't. Supporters of Grokster are people who favor piracy, and who are against artists.
On Thursday, at the NYPL, I had the extraordinarily pleasure of being on stage with Jeff Tweedy and Steven Johnson, for a discussion titled "Who Owns Culture?" The evening started with 15 minutes of me and my "powerpoint" (actually, Keynote), and then a 50 minute discussion with Tweedy and me, moderated by Johnson. There was then time for questions from the audience.
It was an extraordinary evening. I had the chance before to talk to Tweedy, so I wasn't surprised. But he was extraordinary — funny, subtle, smart about the issues, and deeply passionate. Suffice it that neither he nor I (as is obvious to anyone on this page) subscribe to, or fit, within the US view. I explicitly denounced "piracy"; Tweedy -- in context -- said nothing to support the view that people should infringe the rights of other artists.
David Carr of the New York Times was at the event. He wrote a review. Everyone I've spoken to loved the piece. I think they loved it because it was a piece printed in the Times, and we're a culture that loves attention more than accuracy.
Posted by roymond at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Google Video opens its doors
You worked hard making your video; you deserve an easy way to put it in front of millions of potential viewers. That's the idea behind today's announcement of the Google Video Upload Program, which lets you upload your video to Google for free
Posted by roymond at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2005
New Podcast - Songfight!
I bring a big variety show from recent Songfights.
The audio file for today's podcast can be found here 
ADD - Systematic Panic
Teaching Willie - Punk Bartender
Minty Handy - Our Love Violates Corporate Policy
Hostess Mostess - Our Love Violates Corporate Policy
Max The Cat - Devils Live in A Quiet Pond
The Special Relatives - Devils Live In A Quiet Pond
Posted by roymond at 04:27 AM | Comments (1)
April 08, 2005
Video RSS Feeds
ANT is an RSS video aggregator and media player currently available for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.
Posted by roymond at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
PEW Numbers Stink
Pew backtracks on podcasting survey numbers - Engadget - www.engadget.com.
Posted by roymond at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2005
Pew Internet Study on Podcasting
More than 6 million American adults have listened to podcasts.
Go figure :)
Posted by roymond at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2005
Transom
How It Works
Transom.org is an experiment in channeling new work and voices to
public radio through the Internet, for discussing that work, and
encouraging more. Learn about how Transom works and how you can submit your work for consideration.
Posted by roymond at 02:52 AM | Comments (0)
Ira Glass story
Not sure when this came out, but I just found it. It's Ira Glass telling the story of his becoming a radio producer. Very interesting and great advice.
Posted by roymond at 02:27 AM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2005
Glastonbury Rave goes Silent...wirelessly
Revellers at this year's Glastonbury Festival will be able to party through the night to music as loud as they want - without disturbing the neighbours. Attendees will be provided wireless head phones. [read more]
Posted by roymond at 10:59 AM | Comments (1)