Repurposed radio programs and a number of innovative niche audio and video podcasts such as TWiT have loyal followings. But these are exceptions. Tellingly, 22 of the 25 “Top Podcasts” on the front page of iTunes podcast directory are established brands from the mainstream media world, including HBO, NPR, the BBC, ESPN, The Onion, and Oprah Winfrey. In this environment, most new and smaller podcasts have to struggle to be heard. Until the technologies surrounding podcasting are able to improve the user experience and better serve advertisers, podcasting will remain on the fringes.

(Via Why podcasting is failing | The Industry Standard.)

I have been listening to podcasts since I ran across Adam Curry’s original applescript for downloading them and still listen to them daily.

The points this article makes may be valid from author’s perspective, but I think he is missing the point.

First, just because you make a podcast, no matter how well produced or content rich, doesn’t mean anyone will find or listen to it.

Second, the barrier to entry for podcasting is so low, more of them are produced. This means more of them fail.

I think old school media people, coming from print, radio or television will be disappointed. They are used to a built-in success factor those established mediums offer and trapped to some extent by their habits.

There is a common requests I get from users all the time - I need to see more information!

A lesson I learned years ago was that users can only process so much information before becoming unproductive - in spite of what they think.

Can a user process 100 records on a page? Sure. How about a 1000? Maybe. But, how about 5,000 records per page, across 700 pages? Never.

It is why searching, tagging and other organizational techniques exist.

One of the secrets to providing any product or service, is understanding how people will use it and more importantly if a feature request really reveals a use case OR a behavioral roadblock.

In my various careers, I have observed a range of fascinating behaviors when it comes to managing large quantities of information or work.

There are five behavioral types in my opinion.

• The Worker Bee, takes the information as it arrives, processes it and then goes back for more, over and over until they are done.
• The Batcher, grabs a chunk of information, processes it and then may or may not grab a new batch.
• The Cherry Picker, spends an inordinate amount of effort skimming information for the bits they feel warrant their attention, before processing any of it.
• The Procrastinator, who will spend a lot of time contemplating and trying to understand the scope of information presented to them, before devising a plan for how best to process it.
• The Buried, who get way too much information, usually because they got what they asked for and haven’t realized they need help or to restrict what they ask for.

These are the core groups I have observed in my years of managing workflow processes in hugely different environments.

Regardless of environment the only highly productive type, that is universal, is the Work Bee.

Worker Bee behavior is the predecessor to agile development trends. Its what previous generations called “having a good work ethic”.

What type are you?

Only five percent of those surveyed said that they watch video on a TV or other video-playing device regularly. Downloading from places like the iTunes Store or Xbox Live Video to the Apple TV or an Xbox 360 make this possible without having to use an HTPC. Still, even though these solutions make it easier to watch downloaded content on the big(ger) screen, they clearly have yet to hit it big with the general public.

(Via Report: 95% of Internet video stuck looking longingly at TV.)

I always wonder about reports like these. What us the real agenda behind this one?

After all, 5 years ago it would have read “100% of Internet video stuck looking longingly at TV” or “0% of those surveyed said they watched video on a TV or other video-playing device”.

In my case, Amy and I watch the vast majority of our video using a $500 video projector in our living room. In the neighborhood of 75-85% of our video content comes from online sources, including iTunes, Hulu.com, ABC.com and Podcasts.

5% penetration in the 2-3 years that online video content has really taken off is not bad.

Having owned virtually every Apple laptop since the Duo 230c, I believe this shortage is being created by demand, not an artificial manipulation.

It might not be the iPhone, but the MacBook Air is selling much stronger than many of us would have guessed. After a full month of being on the market, the MacBook Air is still a difficult commodity to obtain in some markets…

(Via MacBook Air aflutter: demand stays strong, sold out often.)

Remember, most users consume probably 10% of the capabilities of any modern Intel-based computer.

Graphics professionals, videographers and gamers may push beyond its capabilities, but literally everyone else would be more than satisfied with the Air’s capabilities.

Think about it, 2 gigs a ram, intel processor more powerful than one a mere 2 years ago and enough storage for most normal uses.

I think quality vs. kitchen sink feature list is winning out in this case.

Was going to post about how odd it seemed to hear that e-mail is dead and Twitter, Pownce or Facebooks are the solution to everything.

At least that came out of the Future of Web Applications conference.

Why not post the thought it triggered?

In its place a brainstorm erupted that is worth millions.

Seriously.

Time to hunker down in the bat cave to prototype the idea.

Should take 90 days with any luck.

Send water, food and angle funding.

In my ongoing effort to wrangle various hosting vendors into a coherent strategy, I have come across a common problem.

Businesses don’t trust their employees.

I am not talking about clocking in and out, blocking web sites or inventorying each paper clip allotted to the cogs in the vast corporate machine.

How many times have you been told I have to check my manager?

When I call or email with a question, I do not want to hear that someone has to check with higher management.

I want an answer.

If an employee cannot answer the question or make a commitment that will secure my business, then I do not want to talk to them ever again.

Small businesses require direct communication with authentic and authoritative people.

You will fail if you put a layer of “filter” employees between customers and decisions makers.

From the janitor to the CEO, everyone in your company makes or breaks it, every single day.

Here it comes…

I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag. This ThinkPad starts at $2,476 for a stripped-down model and at $2,799 for a preconfigured retail version with a half-size battery. The configuration I expect to be the most popular, with a full-size battery and DVD drive, is about $3,000.

(Via Price May Be Steep, But Thin ThinkPad Has Abundant Features | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD.)

On the TWIT podcast they were smacking down the Air, claiming this new ThinkPad will eat its lunch.

Even Walt admits the design is underwhelming, though it makes up for it with the additional ports and DVD drive.

They are missing the killer feature of the Air — Mac OS X.

Without the OS, the X300 and other competitors, are just a pile of commodity PC components.

Plus, anyone can get started with an Air with OS X for $1,000 less than the X300.

The X300 is simply the first in a line of also-rans that will be released now that Apple is pushing mobile computing in a different direction.

Last week I posted about having a less capable (more focused?) laptop make for a more productive environment.

Being in the market for another Mac, and on the verge of purchasing another MacBook, I decided to pickup a MacBook Air.

Why?

While at the Apple store I spent an hour actually using the Air. Not just surfing the net and drooling over the design or coolness of it, but actually downloading the tools I use every day and doing a little work.

After an hour, I came to the conclusion that it was good enough and in fact superior in important ways.

First, the screen is amazingly bright and consistent. Viewing an LCD screen for 10-18 hours a day, like I do, the LED backlighting makes a huge difference.

Second, the keyboard the most solid laptop keyboard I have used. It feels like a desktop keyboard, not the mushy or bouncy feel most laptops have.

Coupled with the amazing build quality and light weight, it is a pleasure to take everywhere I go.

After, using it for a week do I regret anything?

Nope.

It is one of the most pleasurable computing experiences I have ever had.

Is 2 gigs of memory enough? Yep.

More memory is always good, so I hope Apple offers a build to order option for 4 gigs in the near future.

Can you live without a DVD drive? Maybe. The Air’s Remote Disk feature worked fine, though it took 3 hours to install Mac OS X via my Airport Extreme.

Is an 80GB hard drive large enough? Barely. After installing all the essential applications and work tools, I have 33 gigs free, but my iTunes or iPhoto libraries add up to 26 gigs, so I am holding offer copying them over until I make sure they are not unnecessarily bloated.

What would I change?

Other than a larger hard drive, not much.

If Apple can swing a 100-120 gig drive, build to order memory upgrades for 4 gigs I would be in nirvana, not just smitten with this computer.

This week I am picking up a second laptop to work on my main project, MailTank.

I am partial to Apple laptops, given that it is our primary development platform and is lightening fast to configure thanks to its FreeBSD underpinnings, not to mention I love the built in battery backup in the event of power outages.

As I was about to pull the trigger on another Macbook, I had a thought, why not grab the Macbook Air for a few hundred dollars more?

I don’t need high-end power since it is mainly used to test configuration changes and as a backup in the event that my main Mac goes down for some reason.

It got me thinking, having less options on the laptop may in fact mean being more productive.

If its more painful to play with every new application, utility or distracting toy, will you be more productive?

Just like Merlin Mann, of 43 Folders fame, promoted the idea of a distraction free desktop for similar reason, would having a less capable laptop do the same?

I may just find test this theory out.

This morning I got a phone call from Hostmysite.com whom read about my experience with Peer1 and Rackspace.

They wanted to offer their services, because they felt they stacked up favorably. The quote I received does stack up nicely and definitely merits consideration.

This happened before, I posted about my experience with Media Temple hosting, and received a flurry of recommendations in the comments.

I think its time to consider using the blogs as the first step in the process of finding solutions to business needs.

Perhaps a RFQ/RFP category or sub-blog that pings the various trackers like Technorati.

Or, should we have a microformat for RFQs and RFPs?

I have been using Slicehost.com for several months now.

To cut to the chase, these guys rock!

They are responsive, offer a solid service and are building a great community around their business.

They have a growing array of OS choices including CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch and Fedora.

The best news is that they are testing large VPS slices, up to 15GB!

If you need a great Virtual Private Server solution, sign up here to be up and running in a couple minutes.

Be sure not to miss their podcast for news about this stellar hosting service.

As my main project, MailTank, continues to grow and evolve we are faced with the challenge of scaling.

We faced the decision, either expand our data center footprint or move elsewhere.

After some research, I found the top managed hosting companies to be Rackspace.com and Peer1.com

In the last week I have gotten quotes from each, but the experience was considerably different.

I contacted both companies through their web sites, within a few minutes of each other.

A sale rep for Peer1 was immediately available via chat, which I took advantage of. Jeff, a very knowledgeable guy, answered my questions via chat.

After determining that I was not some “hosting” customer looking for something a step above shared hosting and he got on the phone with me.

20 minutes later, all my questions were answered and a few hours later I had a quote for managing our infrastructure.

Rackspace was a different experience.

I sent my request and hours later got a call from a sale rep whom gauged my needs, then scheduled a conference call through Webex a few days later.

During the Webex presentation I got a Powerpoint presentation about the company and then spent a few minutes talking to a technical lead about requirements.

At the end of the meeting, he scheduled follow-up conference call to discuss the proposal.

A couple hours after the initial conference call I got their quote.

As I sit comparing the quotes, before the final call with Rackspace, I realize that Peer1 just “feels” more like a place I would like to do business.

Jeff was on top of things, didn’t need a technician to ask me the basic questions, and didn’t waste my time building the value proposition based on his company’s historical track record.

Jeff is winning in my mind for one reason. He is selling me “a solution” not his “company”.

Besides, Rackspace is considerably more expensive and the proposed configurations that don’t stack up favorably with Peer1.

For example, Rackspace is offering a database server with RAID1, while Peer1 is offering RAID 10 storage.

In the end we are probably staying in-house until this summer.

But it is quite educational seeing how they each sell.

Twitter has been on my radar for sometime, as yet-another-inbound-stream of information to watch.

I always found it useful, since the bite sized morsels were more easily digested.

I say, “I get it finally”, because I discovered the shortcuts for sending replies and direct messages recently.

These features take Twitter to a whole new level.

No longer is it about following and being followed. Now I am participating in conversations through twitter.

It took learning the shortcuts of my favorite Twitter client, Twitterrific, to finally get it.

Wow. It makes Twitter so much more valuable.

“2008. There’s something in the air.” What does that slogan mean? On Tuesday, Steve Jobs will introduce whatever it is they have lurking in Cupertino.

Could it be movie rentals through iTunes? A revamped Apple TV with DVR? Yet another, better and cooler iPod?

Or perhaps, something innovative and game changing (yeah lame phrase, but bear with me).

With laptop sales eclipsing desktops, and iPods and iPhones leading to a perpetually mobile generation, wouldn’t it make sense for Apple to push connectivity everywhere?

What if Apple released a sub-notebook with the usual suspects and “one more thing” - WiMAX.

Paired with the 3G iPhone we will see in 2008 and Back to my Mac, it would be a powerful product to accelerate their growth in this powerful market segment.

What tea leaves am I reading to think this? A curious announcement timed for this coming Tuesday.

Sprint recently announced that the company is on track to begin offering their Xohm WiMax service in April of this year…the New York Times reported that the soft launch is set for this Tuesday.

(Via Sprint to Soft-Launch Xohm on Tuesday - dslreports.com.)

Sprint did a deal with Amazon for EVDO in the Kindle, why not Apple for a WiMAX enabled laptop?

Apple’s deal with AT&T certainly said nothing about WiFI or WiMAX, but may have locked them out of embedding EVDO.

With AT&T’s CEO blowing the lid on Apple’s 2008 iPhone plans it would be sweet revenge for Apple to work with Sprint.

Apple could build a strong relationship with Sprint, while fulfilling their obligations to AT&T.

One can dream and speculate. We will know on Tuesday.

Is the desktop metaphor dead, replaced by Web services like Google and Facebook? Or is Vista so bad that it’s not worth buying?

New data points to the latter suggestion, leaving Microsoft with two options. It can either view its sagging Vista sales as a testament to the incredible work of art that is Windows XP (gag). Or it can concede that Vista is a pile of potty.

(Via Does Vista’s stunted growth hint at the death of the desktop? | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET Blogs.)

I don’t think Vista sucks and the desktop is definitely not dead.

Vista’s slow adoption is a simple business issue, Microsoft over-promised and under-delivered. Its that simple.

Coupled with a confusing pricing scheme and bungled Vista Capable vs. Vista Ready hardware marketing and you get slow adoption.

Nothing terribly difficult to understand, deeply revealing or impossible to fix.

They should release service pack 2 for Vista along side a new marketing campaign that replaces all the different versions with the Ultimate version for $99.

Everyone gets the same package, which would make it a no brainer for users and simplify support requirements.

One message. One product. One choice. Affordable. Win, Win for everyone.