Welcome to the New Media, Pt 3

This is the third in a three part series. We've covered how we can now listen to music and how we can listen to podcasts. Where do we go from here?

Most people who know me will be able to tell you that I'm a pretty avid reader. I'm constantly reading some book while I have two or three waiting in the queue to be read after finishing the current one. If I don't have something waiting to be read when I finish, I can always go back and read through a book or a series that I've already read before. I have no problem reading a book multiple times if it was a quality book. However, there are places where I haven't traditionally been able to read books. I don't usually read in the car since audio books are too expensive and I'm too lazy to go to the library and find them. I also can't read while I'm shoveling out from under a foot and a half of snow. Well, at least, I couldn't until now.

There's a growing trend among some authors to adopt the "try before you buy" mentality that I wrote about previously with music, and these authors aren't merely allowing you to read sample chapters. They're offering you the majority of the book. Through one of the podcasts to which I listen, I heard about a site called Podiobooks. The point of Podiobooks is to allow an authors to promote themselves by letting the reader get to know their work. They record the books (sometimes mildly abridging it for space) and upload it to Podiobooks. When a "reader" comes to the site, they can peruse the works available in the genres. When they find a book that piques their interest, they can listen to a sample or subscribe. When they subscribe, they are given the option of how frequently they want the work to be released (daily, monthly, etc) and they are given a personalized feed for their podcast catcher (the program which is tasked with downloading the podcasts). The user is then able to listen at their leisure. Admittedly , the choice of genres is currently a bit small with most of the works being of the fantasy/sci-fi/horror realm. Keep in mind, though that this is still a fairly new concept and that the works are mainly tailored right now for the early-adopter crowd. We saw this with podcasting as well where most of the early, popular shows were tech/geek related, but they've since broadened out to include a wider range of shows. The same will most likely happen with podcasted books. After you have enjoyed a book, you are encouraged to give a donation to the author through Podiobooks. You pick the amount and at least half will go directly to the author which is significantly better than traditional royalties. Or, if you prefer, most authors make a print version of their books available.

Here's what I've listened to:

1. Earthcore by Scott Sigler - Sci-fi/gorefest - One of the first podcasted novels, this is the story of what happens when a mining company goes a bit too deep. Not for the feignt of heart as Scott puts his characters through the wringer and no one is safe.
2. Brave Men Run by Matthew Wayne Selznick - Sci-fi - The author discribes the work as what would happen if John Hughes wrote the X-Men. There are people with strange abilities among us that are refered to as Sovereigns, and this story focuses on one very interesting adolecent. Quite possibly my favorite podiobook yet.
3. Ancestor by Scott Sigler - Sci-fi/gorefest - Again, this is a Sigler work that focuses on a company that's just trying to make a buck and, in this case, help people when somthing goes horribly, horribly wrong. They thought they were bio-engineering the progenitor of the human race that could be used to harvest organs for transplant. They were wrong. Hillarity ensues. No, wait, that's not right. Horrible and, in some cases, ironic deaths ensue. This book isn't available at podiobooks since Scott has branched out with another company to be releasing his work as pocasted novels. You can find them at his website, scottsigler.net.
   
4. A Different Point of View by TD-0013 - Sci-fi - Short skits on the Star Wars universe from the perspective of a storm trooper. Very, very funny.

You know, looking back on it now, that's a lot of sci-fi. Then again, that's what I read mostly anyway. Now it's just a matter of you finding something that will interest you on Podiobooks.

Read more

Welcome to the New Media, Pt. 2

This is the second in a three part series. You can find the first part here. In that part, we covered some of the new ways that people are getting their music out. In this installment, we'll cover talk radio.

I'll admit it right now: I'm a talk radio junkie. The radio in my car is more likely to be tuned to ESPN or Fox Sports Radio than it is to music. I think it's partially my frustration with how modern music radio rarely plays anything that I actually like. I've basically turned into my father when it comes to being a music curmudgeon. Maybe that's why I'm so enamored with my iPod and the fact that I can listen to whatever music I want to (as long as I own it) whenever I want. That's also how I'm coming to prefer my talk radio. You see, along with being able to carry music inMP3 format on my player, I'm also able to bring along podcasts. Yes, I know that word is starting to fall into the same range of annoyance as "Web 2.0" when it comes to overused buzz words, but until they come up with a better name for it, that's just what we have to go with.

For those who don't know, podcasts are periodic audio or video content that can be delivered automatically to your computer and then uploaded to the MP3 player of your choice, or simply burned to a CD to be listed to at your leisure. The format and content come in as many flavors as there are along the radio dial. The key, however, is the fact that these podcasts are able to be targeted to a very specific audience since the expense for producing a show is relatively low, depending on the level of professionalism that thepodcast desires. There are shows that focus on technological issues (such as This Week in Tech), sports (The Fantasy Football Guys, The NBA Show), and, of course, drunken debauchery (Michael and Evo's Wingin' It and Diggnation). The point that I'm trying to make is that if you want something to find out more about, there's probably a podcast about it, and you can download and listen to it when you want to and not based on whatever schedule someone decides on. On the video side, there's comedy (TikiBar TV), video games (PC Gamer) and even a cooking show (Ctrl+Alt+Chicken).

Now that podcasting has been catching on a bit, some of the larger media players are starting to do their own podcasts. C|Net is doing a daily tech podcast that covers some of the top tech stories of the day. Wow, that was redundant. ESPN is podcasting portions of some of their radio shows (for the whole show, they provide a fee-based download) along with podcasting PTI in its entirety. "The World's Finest News Source," The Onion also is podcasting a news story every day. They make me smile. Podcasting is what you want when you want it where you want to listen to it.

The big problem with podcasting is that it is very hard to monetize . How do you prove to advertisers how many listeners you're able to deliver for each episode? How do you format the ads? After all, one of the things that people like most aboutpodcasting is the Tivo-like quality of no or very few ads, so a content provider needs to find a way to make their ads unobtrusive enough to not alienate their audiences while still bringing in the ad revenue. There are also the avenues of merchandise sales such as Teeshirts, coffee mugs and thongs. I know I've always wanted intimate apparel with my favoritepodcasting personality's logo on it.

Read more

Welcome to the New Media, Pt. 1

This is to be the first part of a three-part series that will cover the new ways that we are able to receive media.

The tavern singer gave way to the music box. The music box was follwed by the wax tube. The wax tube was trailed by the record. Then came the eight-track and the cassette tape. Then came the CD.

In the beginning was the mistral . The mistral gave way to the newspaper. The newspaper begat the telegraph. The telegraph was followed by the radio. The radio, while very nice, needed to have some pictures to go along with it since, after all, we're visual creatures.

Lastly, there were cave drawings, stone tablets, parchment and books.

The question now, though, is what comes next? That's what I'm hoping to cover the next couple of weeks.

First things first, though. I'm sure that everyone who's reading this was immediately yelling out the next step in the sequence. "It's MP3 you idiot! The next step is digital music!" Right you are. However, you might not have the full picture. We're moving on to the next format, true, but we're still being held to an old, some would say flawed, model. Allow me to explain. The large majority of the music industry is controlled by the large record companies and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA is quite frequently the organization vilified in the debates about user's rights and digital rights management. When a person purchases a CD, the majority of the money goes to the record label and only a small fraction goes to the artist. In fact, in most cases, the artist makes no money until the record company has decided that they've broken even on the album.

When many people think about having their music in a digital format, it comes in a couple of varieties. It might come in the form of having purchased a CD and then "ripping" the content of that CD onto your computer for use in your portable player or just playing from the computer itself. This model still runs into the problem of the money going to the manager of the artist (the record label) instead of the creator of the music. Also, it suffers from the fact that you just purchased an entire album of The Moody Blues just to be able to hear "Knights in White Satin" whenever you want. Now, we want to be able to go and get just the songs that we want to own. The first model for trying to do this was probably Napster and other peer-to-peer applications which allowed users to open their digital music collections to others for download while downloading selected songs from the other people's libraries. This model has one major flaw: it's very, very illegal. Yes, we have seen the chart that shows a correlation between a spike in Napster use and a corresponding spike in music sales. That doesn't change the fact that sharing music like that violates copyright law.

Now, we need a solution. How do we get only the music that we want, but get it in such a way that we're not breaking the law? Enter: iTunes. Apple was at the forefront of what is the digital equivalent of the old record single. For a small fee, you can download a song in their library. You're only paying for the music that you want. It's completely legal. Everyone's happy, right? Notsomuch. We've forgotten one of my earlier points: the artist is making jack didly on all of this. Especially when you take into account the fact that the record labels are charging the artist the normal percentage of sales for loss and breakage...wait for it...on a digitally delivered song. This is a peak into the lunacy of the recording industry. They're charging people a fee for something that is a literal impossibility. It's like forcing someone in North Dakota to purchase hurricane insurance.

Now, we move beyond even iTunes. Seeing a broken recording industry, some artists are taking matters into their own hands. It's the new millennium's indi-music scene. Thanks to the wonder of modern technology, artists are able to promote themselves like never before. Many are making use of places like myspace ("It's not just for predators anymore!") to allow people to hear samples of their music and purchase CDs, Teeshirts and learn about concerts. Some are even more open.

One such artist that I've really enjoyed is Brad, who refers to himself as "Brad Sucks | The one-man band with no fans." In my opinion, if you like Beck, you'll like Brad. He has that some eccentric quality to him as Beck along with having a variety of styles all within one album and very...interesting lyrics ("I can tell by your middle finger that you're warming up to me.") Brad allows you to purchase CDs. He allows you to purchase his music through iTunes. He even has Teeshirts . All of these things he is selling himself and is able to maximize his profits without the hassle (and, alternatively, the advertising support) of the recording labels. Here's the kicker, tough: He makes his music available to download for free and send in a "tip" as the person is so lead. This allows people to take the risk and give him a shot to see if they like his music. He's also trusting that if people like his music, they'll support him. Hopefully, it's working out for him.

"Try before you buy." It's funny how such an almost ancient and nearly antiquated concept is starting to be seen at the cutting edge of music delivery.

Read more

Those Amazing Glasses

When I was in high school, I was dating a girl. We were together for just shy of four years before we broke up. During those almost four years, I got to know her family fairly well. I helped them set up Christmas lights one year (and almost got dumped out of a tractor loader that was 20 feet up, but that's another post); I spent the night on the couch after the prom; I played cards with her parents one winter day. However, every single time I see her father these days, he thinks that I'm my older brother. My brother and I have some similar facial features. However, we have different-colored hair. I have a mole on my cheek, he has a mole on his chin. Why the confusion? You see, during high school, when I cared what people though about how I looked along with the fact that I was in sports, I wore my contacts every day. My brother, on the other hand, wore his glasses every day. Now that I'm married and working (along with being lazy), I wear my glasses every day. Therefore, in my ex's father's mind, I have become my brother when I wear my glasses.

I have thought long and hard on the issue of glasses changing my identity in the eyes of someone with whom I've spent a fair amount of time. It is this which has led me to the following conclusion:

Superman has a long-lost brother named Clark that always wore his glasses while Superman went without. Therefore, it is not that everyone thinks that Superman isn't Clark Kent, but that they just think he's his brother when he's wearing the glasses.

The issue of the Superman/Clark Kent glasses issue has been covered by people much more intelligent than me. For instance, it was beautifully lampooned by Ben Edlund in The Tick. Also, there was an issue of the Incredible Hulk which poked fun at it as only Peter David can. The Hulk had all three of his personalities melded into one, so he had the intelligence of Bruce Banner, the strength of the green Hulk and the cunning of the Grey Hulk. Rick Jones, the Hulk's long-time side-kick is looking for Bruce and walks into what he thinks is Bruce's room. He sees the Hulk sitting in a chair reading a book with glasses on. Rick stammers an apology about how he thought it was someone else's room. The Hulk looks up and says, "Rick, what are you talking about?" Rick responds, "Oh, wow. I didn't recognize you. Man, I've never really believed that whole 'glasses as a disguise thing, but now..." Keep in mind that he was talking to an 8-9 foot tall green man at the time.

Maybe some day we'll find out about Superman's long-lost brother with glasses named Clark. We'll get to hear all about how he's been missing since the late-70's and wants his job at the Daily Planet back. I'm sure that there's some writer out there who can pull it off. I'm also sure that John Byrne could use the work...

Read more