Having been a listener to podcasts since Adam Curry released his initial version of the podcatcher AppleScripts with Dave Weiner, it has been amazing to watch the content explode.

Lately though, some podcasts have lost their appeal, like This Week in Tech and MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte.

Today, another MacBreak Weekly rambled on for an hour, with little to talk about other than arguing over last weeks Apple Stock saga and droning on about over-hype of the iPhone.

Leo stated for the second week in a row that there just wasn’t anything to talk about.

Nothing to talk about? Hmm, nothing happened in two weeks?

How about..

• New MacBooks
• Road testing Adobe CS3
• Apple and AT&T’s preparations for the launch of the iPhone
• Falling journalistic standards in the online Mac new community
• Unmasking of Fake Steve or Not?
• WWDC and Leopard’s imminent beta release
• Apple’s new One-on-One training program
• Announcement of Starcraft 2 for Mac by Blizzard!
• John Gruber’s excellent commentary on the stocks, security, and all thing Mac.
• Apple stretching 10.4 to 10.4.10

Those are off the top of my head. A few minutes on Google, PRWeb and other sites and I would find another 10-12 topics for discussion in the last two weeks.

Let me say, I LOVE listening to Leo, Merlin and company every week. Have done so for two years in one form or another.

It just feels like they show up with little preparation lately, and today for the first time I deleted the podcast before the end.

Perhaps these guys have a few too many irons in the fire to produce the quality they once did.

I can only hope they refocus on quality.

On a recent Gilmour Daily podcast, Steve Gilmour and Doc Searls discussed DRM.

During the conversation, the concept of triggering the memory of a commercially encumbered work in the listener, as a way of by-passing the music companies stranglehold on distribution, was suggested.

AKA. The all-too-familiar tune in my head solution.

Could you trigger the memory of the song, without actually distributing it and avoid paying the music companies.

As usual I jumped in the shower and my brain would not let go of the issue at the heart of this problem.

What if, creators were able to embed tags as bookmarks throughout a podcast? Perhaps ID3 tags as bookmarks?

Essentially, tag the podcast with what they were thinking, intending or expecting listeners to hear (feel?) at precise points in the recording.

As the podcast played, the playback application would locate the relevant track based on the tag, inserted it or play it at the intended location, and then pick-up right where it left off after the new content was inserted.

With a vast amount of content already distributed to billions of devices and households, in the form of CD collections ripped to disk and content purchased legally, why not take advantage of the material residing locally?

Player applications, like iTunes, could be tweaked to scan podcasts for these tags and pre-load/mix content before or during playback.

Syncing applications could do the same for detached devices like iPods.

Recording applications could automate the process, by creating these tags or bookmarks, as the intended material was queued during recording or in post-production.

This would effectively route-around the media industries copyright war-zone, freeing up producers and consumers to create, share and mash-up content as they like. A side benefit, this technique would save a huge amount of bandwidth.

But, what if the specified content was missing from the local device?

In the case of iTunes, a user might specify a set of rules to replace missing content with content from the artist, genre or preview of the track from the iTunes music store.

If nothing appropriate is available it might just skip over the tag, or insert a sexy english voice stating, “The content suggested is not available. Visit this podcast’s site for more details”.

Consumers and producers might want a random tag, used to insert random content by artist or genre. Thereby creating a unique experience every time the podcast is replayed.

Imagine if the consumer could specify the content for the advertising/promos in podcasts?

This would radically differentiate the advertising model emerging in podcasting from the old school media companies. Consumers selecting the type of ads or promos they want to hear, perhaps?

A whole new business could be created hosting and distribute content for insertion into podcasts, at the playback level.

Content-shifting inside time-shifted media, The next innovation in podcasting, in my opinion.

Having used mobile iTunes on the Motorola SLVR for a couple weeks, I am fairly impressed.

When syncing tracks from iTunes to the SLVR, it knows when you have partially listened to a track. This is hugely important when listening to long tracks, such as podcasts.

The big drawback comes when going the other direction, since no data it sent to your Mac regarding track location.

Here is an invention for Apple.

Automatically transfer track data from the mobile device to the Mac, kicking off the track currently playing on the phone when you are within range or initiate the sequence.

For example, I am listening to a podcast in the car, walk into the house and the device automatically launches iTunes and starts playing the track I am listening to, from the location in the track last played on the mobile device.

They could use bluetooth to send over the data quite easily, or perhaps the infrared port on the new MacBooks.

Obviously many nuances would need to be customizable. Such as whether to merely queue up the track to the location vs. actually playing the track, stopping the mobile device when the desktop start playing, etc.

I hope someone over at Apple is working on just such a feature in their rumored iPhone.

track Mr. Lovely rocks. You can buy her tracks or album here.

I caught it on Adam Currey’s Daily Source Code podcast.

It also turned me on to, Indieeclectic.com. Which is a pretty cool indie music site that sell DRM free music.

Listening to Jonathan Schwartz on an IT Conversations podcast, he said Web 2.0 is about distributing technology before monetizing it, where Web 1.0 was about monetizing before distribution.

The example, Sun originally charged for downloads of Solaris, now they allow downloading before receiving any money. This resulted in 3 million licenses compared to the prior model.

This new business model is actually quite old, it’s called shareware.

Share the technology, be it an application, web site or content, then count on enough people seeing value in it to pay.

All things old are new again it would seem.

While listening to Adam Curry, on the Daily Source code, the recurring topic of business white listing services came up again.

This involves large e-mail providers like Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and others requiring businesses to purchase white listing services through supposedly independent 3rd party companies to insure delivery of their messages.

For example Hotmail will not talk directly to a business. Instead expecting the business to go to the 3rd party and pay huge fees for their services.

The fees seem to range from a few thousand to 10’s of thousands of dollars.

Adam is right. Today he has no choice but to pay these fees if he wants to guarantee delivery of his businesses e-mail to these providers.

But users need to understand that free e-mail costs us all.

The costs are delayed broken communications and higher prices when businesses have to pay what is extortion in a sense.

Forget DRM, the erosion of e-mail’s usefulness and metering of internet content are the real threats to the Internet as we know it.

Unfortunately, big business doesn’t see the Internet as a universal resource for everyone. It is simply another profit center, where obvious volumes of traffic indicate opportunities.

Though, Adam has to pay for a more obvious reason. His investors would never let his business and their investment be hampered when they can throw cash at the issue.

It is hard to stick to your values when someone else holds the purse strings. When you are an up-n-coming big business.

Apple has rolled out their Multi-Pass feature for the iTMS.

It appears that only The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, from Comedy Central appear to be using the features.

Can the Channel-Pass or Season-Pass be next?

Get all content from Comedy Central for a low yearly fee?

Can you hear that sound?

Its the sound of old-school media executives keeling over.

Yesterday, on the [Gillmor Gang](http://f8p.com/34ubqr ) podcast, one participant said that any PVR/DVR devices lacking a cable tuner (ie. Mac Mini with Front Row) was DOA in the marketplace.

Steve Gillmor was as stunned as I was.

Along with countless others, I do not adhere to old-school media rules.

I don’t have a television, cable or any hardwired pipe to my living room, for them to take advantage of.

My entertainment and recreational time is random and doesn’t conform to their push mentality.

Today, it is about pulling the content you want, when you want and viewing it where you want.

Today, as I was working on the latest product for my partnership in Mactank.com, listening to the Venture Blog podcast with Jason Fried of 37 Signals, a chill ran down my spine.

Jason mentioned that 37 Signals would be releasing a CRM product and a tool to help people communicate easier online.

My mind began racing, since I have 3 products on the drawing board for ‘06, one of which may intersect with either of their forthcoming services.

At lunch, my wife asked why I was so distracted, and all I recall is mumbling something about no sleep until 2007.

But seriously, I just wanted to jot down some vague descriptions of these projects, in an effort to avoid being branded an also-ran or copy cat.

So here goes:

• Spontaneous soda packs
• Social tagged service clock
• Blog sailing

Those descriptions are cryptic for a reason, but when the projects are complete, they will make sense.

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing what the trail blazer’s at 37 signals come up with.

MacNN | Is Apple holding back the music business?

“Apple may be holding back the music business, according to a new BusinessWeek column that notes iPod sales-nearly 10 million or so expected this holiday season-have not driven sales of digital music. Apple’s closed iPod/iTunes system may preventing the market from growing as fast it could because it limits buying choices—at least according to its competitors such as Napster and RealNetworks. Citing figures from Nielsen SoundScan, the report says that average weekly download sales as of Nov. 27 fell 0.44% vs. the third quarter.”

Ah yes, this BusinessWeek column based on competitor’s claims Apple is holding back the music industry.

Why?

Because they tightly control their platform, providing a smooth customer experience from purchase to consumption.

Cheese with your w(h)ine guys?

Seriously, competitors whine and the best they can dig up is that weekly downloads fell 0.44%?

Gee, could it be the Christmas consumptive gorging that is keeping people from buying music?

The plethora of excellent movies in theaters?

Perhaps, its just the lack for original and captivating content from the media mongers?

A few facts seem be missing from this and other recent articles.

• Apple is the undisputed leader in this market today
• Consumers are eager to snap up iPods, at least while Microsoft leaves store shelves barren
• iPods ARE being filled with content, just not old school content

This story proves beyond a doubt, that Real, Napster, Yahoo, Walmart and Microsoft are all scrambling for the crumbs. Being envious also-rans, whom instead of duplicating Apple’s process and quality, insist on recreating the wheel.

With vanishing all-you-can-eat “subscription” models and a decidedly miniscule ability to garner the mind share Apple has, how long before we see a desperation partnership?

On that note, this week Microsoft and MTV announced the URGE content service. Delivering not-so-fresh content from MTV using Microsoft technology.

I predict Microsoft and MTV will spend a boat load of money, only to discover that there is little profit in content delivery for the middlemen.

This is where Apple is brilliant. Its profits come from the consumption platform, like iPods, iBook the rumored Mac Mini media center, or production tools like Final Cut and Quicktime, and not the content.

The Microsoft/MTV deal seems more like putting a tourniquet on a fatal head wound. The shot has long since done its damage.

The damage being the liberation of consumers from old school distribution channels.

Mr. Gates repeat after me. There are no big profits being a middle man in the content distribution business. Unless you own the pipes or platform from end to end.

Either make content (games, software, movies, music, etc.) or build the high profit end-to-end platform which produces consumer interest and loyalty.

The great opportunity here is, that while there are no big profits being a middleman, there is profit for small agile companies, like CD Baby.

If you are a listener to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code podcast or one of the Wikipedia groupies (no offense to real users), you have heard about the controversy surrounding Adam Curry altering the history of podcasting.

It has since reverberated around the Internet on blogs and podcasts.

Is he evil, stupid or just a guy who made a mistake?

Having listened to the Daily Source Code since it started, and used the first versions of Adam Curry’s iPodder to get my podcasts, I know it is the latter.

But what confounds me is this.

If the all powerful wikipedia protectors can’t handle this in a civilized manner, Wikipedia isn’t anything more than the bulletin board down at the local coffee shop. Where every moron sticks up his flyers, business cards or lewd invitations.

After all aren’t wikis supposed to handle revisions and editing?

You know, allow rollbacks and merging of versions?

To all those trolls and griefers whom are posting rude comments about this. Get a life! Adam Curry has every right to edit the Podcasting entry, as does EVERYONE who visits Wikipedia.

Its a Wiki!

While listening to the Gilmour Gang podcast the discussion, about content and generating revenue in podcasting, seemed to boil down to what is valuable enough to drive production and listeners.

New content is already generated free of the old school preconceptions.

How do existing content producers repurpose their content for this medium?

Today, content from the old school producers seems to fall into two categories, simple copies or abridged versions.

The value for old schoolers will only come when they add to the repurposed content.

The news story which ran 3 minutes on television or radio, might be 7 minutes in the podcast. The relevant but perhaps peripheral elements restored to the edited version.

They might add comments or a debriefing session with the reporter to the end of the content. Expose the process to the listeners, or perhaps the biases which influenced the content.

Elements of value which were not appropriate for the old rigid formats.

The element old school producers seems to be missing the lack of time restrictions in podcasting.

Consumers of old school media crave freeform content. This is part of what has lead to Tivo’s popularity, and why they are abandoning television and radio.

They want meat, not fat. Don’t bloat content with interspersed commercials or meaningless babble, give them meat.

If you do, they will flock to your brand.

Yesterday, on Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, he revealed the music industries decision, at least in Europe, to clamp down on the use of commercial music in podcasts.

This is a sad day for podcasting, with shows like Jan Polet’s Hit Test, no longer safe to produce.

It is no surprise this happened, with all the buzz around podcasting.

What music companies fail grasp, IMHO, is that they have more content today than can be marketed and distributed through ordinary channels.

How many Madonna, Dave Matthews or Ashley Simpson records can be sold before consumers grow tired?

Podcasting allows for micro markets to form around individual artists, thereby increasing a revenue stream.

The great news, is that several pod safe tracks Adam played yesterday were awesome! Now artists whom would never get airplay on mainstream commercial networks are going to be heard by more and more people.

The crutch of the familiar is finally gone! Lets blow this mother out!