It seems that I have been nominated for a 2006 Net Visionary award in three categories!
I don’t know who nominated me, but thanks. It is both flattering and humbling to be nominated, particularly in light of the quality of some of my fellow nominees.
I have been nominated in Best Social Contribution (!). I am also nominated in the Best Blogger category and finally, I am nominated in the Best Podcast category (for the PodLeaders.com podcast).
There are lots of other nominees in lots of other categories - if you haven’t done so already head on over and vote (voting is open to all).
Personally, I’ll be hard pressed to vote for myself in any of the categories the competition is that good!
Jeff Nolan is a former executive at SAP (Jeff led the Apollo Strategy Group for SAP - aka the Oracle Attack group) and recently joined a silicon valley startup called Teqlo.
I will be interviewing Jeff tomorrow for the IT@Cork pre-conference podcast series.
If you have any questions you would like me to put to him, feel free to leave them in the comments.
UPDATE - this interview has been postponed until Tuesday Oct. 10th so you still have time to get your questions in!
Apple has yet again sent in the lawyers - this seems to be a favourite tactic of theirs which is increasingly giving them a bad name (and I am a Mac fan!).
This time, Apple have gone after a company called Podcast Ready for their use of the word Podcast and myPodder (their product name).
Robert Scoble has suggested using the terms Audiocast and Videocast from now on and dumping the term podcast - however this doesn’t solve the problem for Podcast Ready (nor any potential problems Robert’s company PodTech nor my podcast/audiocast site PodLeaders might yet have). Apple have already gone after several companies for their use of Pod in product names.
Russel Shaw has a very in-depth analysis of this spat where he speculates that:
we have Apple, maker of the iPod, trying to get right with the Trademark office about achieving formal Trademark and related mark protections for iPod AND its sought-after IPODCAST applications.
Russel is probably close to the mark here - however, Apple’s over-vigilence is doing nothing but tarnishing their image.
I have mentioned Blip.tv previously but I didn’t mention their in-browser video recorder.
Today I decided to try it out and I have to say, apart from a few minor quibbles, I am well impressed. Especially since this function is still in Alpha.
What quibbles did I have? Well
- The counter counting off the time on-screen isn’t very accurate. On my first try, I finished after what the counter told me was 30 secs only to find that the recorded video was 99 seconds!
- There is no pause button - a pause button is very handy in any recording medium and this is no different. It needs one.
- The file sizes generated seem inordinately large (one minute 29 seconds - 324mb)
- I failed to get the video to upload to the site! I had to upload it using UpperBlip (Blip.tv’s free upload tool) and most disturbingly
- You can now see how far my hairline has receeded!
As I said, this functionality is still in alpha but it is indicative of the great spirit of innovation at Blip.tv. I recently published an interview with Mike Hudack, the CEO of Blip.tv, and you can tell from that interview that Blip.tv are going places.
[Non-disclosure] - I have absolutely no affiliation whatsoever with Blip.tv, I just happen to think they are cool!
After producing over 40 PodLeaders episodes, I am curious to know who the listeners are. Also, I am investigating trying to monetise PodLeaders venture somewhat!
PodTrac is a company which connects podcasters to advertisers so I am trying to determine the PodLeaders audience profile to see if the site is suitable for advertising. Just look around this site and you’ll see I don’t go overboard with advertising. Nor will I on PodLeaders.
If you have a minute or two, and you do listen to my PodLeaders podcasts, please complete the listener survey.
Thanks,
Tom.
Evoca is podcasting made simple. So simple, even my parents could do it!
What is Evoca? Evoca is a site which allows you to record and upload audio to the Internet. Think Flickr for sound.
How do you record and upload the audio? Well, there are several options. You can:
- Record the audio yourself and have Evoca simply upload your audio file or
- You can use Evoca’s built-in recorder to record (using your computer’s microphone)
- With a Pro account you can record from Skype, or even easier still
- You can ring Evoca’s server “Emily” from your phone and it (she?) will record and upload the phone call for you
This is fantastic - you are out in the car, perhaps listening to a podcast. Something in the show makes you want to respond - you grab your phone, dial the Evoca number and hey presto! your response is out there.
Or you are a journalist and a story/interview opportunity comes up suddenly - no prob, whip out your mobile, dial Evoca and you are away.
And if you want to save your phoned-in recordings as private (think company exec/journalist/legal or medical professional)? That’s as easy as toggling a switch in your account’s settings.
Evoca made this even easier for Irish users today by launching an Irish phone-in number. If you are an Evoca user and you are based in Ireland, simply dial 01-657 5601 to record your sound clip.
How much does it cost? Well, like Flickr, a basic account is free and a Pro account costs ($4.99 per month in this case). A basic account entitles you to upload 60 minutes audio while a Pro account entitles you to 200 minutes and Evoca are open to negotiate if you need more than that.
What else can it do?
- Do you want to apply a Creative Commons to your recordings? Bing! No problem, you can chose from a range of CC licensing options (including none)
- Do you want your recordings transcribed or translated? Bing! Evoca have that covered too.
- Do you want to make money from your recordings? Ka ching! Evoca have an option to allow you charge for your recordings!
- Do you want to blog/podcast your recordings? Bing! Evoca gives you the html with which to do that (see below).
Evoca is only out of beta a couple of weeks but already has loads of functionality covered. There’s a lot more I’d love to see it do - a blog sidebar plugin with the most recent 5 recordings, for example but for such a new application, I’m well impressed with what they have covered so far and am looking forward to see how Evoca develops.
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