While we are all sad and shocked at the massive loss of life with the South East Asia Tsunami. I am amazed at the power and energy released by the 9.0 earthquake. Here are some links to some interesting animations and information about the huge Tsunami.

- DigitalGlobe.com Tsunami Images
- Massive Sumatra 9.0 Eathquake Tsunami Wave Animation 1 & 2
- Sumatra 9.0 Eathquake Data Sheets
- NOAA Data Sheet on Sumatra 9.0 Eathquake
- Magnitude 8 and Greater Earthquakes
- Largest Earthquakes in the World

We mentioned this cool vidblog on the show this week and messed up the url on-air. RocketBoom is a very cool daily vlog with Amanda Congdon. Amanda is doing some very cool things with her videos and is even supporting Bit Torrent distribution via Torrentocracy.com.

The buzz and hype around podcasting is continuing to drive a shift away from streaming for Internet radio programs that are streaming and podcasting.

Podcasting WebTalk Radio has not bumped up the number of total show listeners. What I have seen is an erosion of streaming listeners because of podcasting, as people are streaming less and downloading via RSS enclosures more.

Podcasting programs without mp3 player listenership tracking will erode sponsor revenue and drive up bandwidth cost without the use of Bit Torrent P2P distribution. As I have written before, advertisers do not value downloads the same as streams at this time.

I want to apologize to those that follow the show and this website. I have been pulled away by many things this past week. Those things include some family issues and client overload. I hope to be able to get back to a normal content contribution rotation on the site by this weekend.

I have also extended the deadline for our holiday software giveaway to the 18th of December. I am still giving away Gmail accounts to listeners who sign-up for our enewsletter.

I was all set to attend the Seattle Weblogger Meetup on Weds night. I wish that I could have met TDavid and Robert Scoble and all the other meetup folks tonight, but I needed to do something with my 17 year-old son tonight. I also noticed that the Tacoma Weblogger Meetup has meeting on the same night and time of the Seattle Meetup. This needs to change as I would like to attend both in the future.

I spoke with Chris McIntyre of PodcastAlley.com recently and he is working very hard to make that site the best podcast directory online. Chris surprised me with his earlier than expected update to his site. I am amazed his two week update turned into a 2 day update turnaround. Nice work Chris.

Everytime I visit the site it has some new feature that is significant. Chris decided to drop the display of the vote count and did drop it from the site, but noticed today that the vote counts are back and I think that was a good move as it gives the searcher more info about a podcast. Chris is still displayed the quality star ratings, but I have felt that the star rating system pop-up should default to one star and not five stars, so the voter would need to raise the number of stars in the vote box and then press the vote button.

While you are browsing around PodcastAlley.com, please vote for us under the technology category and leave a comment about our show. Please help the show get back in the Top 10.

I do like PodcastBunker.com as well. Go checkout both sites.

I think it is crazy the criticism of ethical violation with the Marqui sponsorship. I think it is black and white. Mitch Ratcliffe at RatcliffeBlog is doing nothing wrong and is going over the top with his disclosures. Mitch it is grand that you are willing to disclose so much about your business relationships. I just don’t think you need to do it. Most people trust you enough to read what you post and evaluate the validity of it. The only danger is if you post positive about Marqui in a major way without disclosing the sponsorship. I do have to say that it is unnatural to think that Mitch would post negative criticisms about a sponsor. I would never think to do that on my WebTalk radio show.

I think we are mixing the concept of objective product review and advertising. This is the ethical dilemma. By mixing the possible good and bad review into the advertising message you are assuming that any exposure is good exposure and that the sponsoring company gets value from the open criticism and discussion about the sponsors product or service. It is an interesting way of looking at sponsorship, but one that is driving questionable value to the sponsor.

I think that Marqui is going to get great exposure and value from the sponsorship of these blogs. But, the next advertiser will get less value from it as the buzz of it will be less.

Everyone needs to climb down from the mountain of ethical purity and Zen. What is going on with blog sponsorship is not really all that ground breaking, but an extension of an already accepted media sponsorship practice.

The combination of sponsor blog posts, banner ads and possibly audio mentions in podcasts will be the ultimate path for sponsoring and funding blogs. My show WebTalk has all those pieces right now. My WebTalk blog is not as popular as the blogs being sponsored by Marqui, but I could start mentioning sponsors in my blog. I don’t see why a double standard exists with people in relation to blogs and sponsorship. Blogs are just another content distribution method like radio, newspapers and TV. They all run biased promotional mentions all the time. Look at PaidContent.org as they are a practicing case that is walking the ethical line very well.

I think the only real change is the sponsors’ willingness to accept negative criticism of its products or services as part of the sponsorship package.