WebTalk Radio with Rob and Dana Greenlee for March 29, 2005: Guest TDavid, host of Scripting School Radio and blogger at MakeYouGoHmm.com, is in the studio. TDavid offers a nice run down on the topics we discussed on the show.

We also speak with Steve Stroh, Editor of “FOCUS: On Wireless Internet Access” Newsletter and co-host of the WirelessTechRadio.com, talking about the future of wireless Internet Access.

Discussion with TDavid includes a demo of the new Sony PSP device and playing a Spiderman movie demo, Podcasting’s pioneers, will podcasters make any money or will all the profits go to the tool makers, is Google News getting drown by bloggers and The 10 Habits of Highly Annoying Bloggers. (91 min. 3.29.2005)

Listen: mp3 (27MB) and 32K Windows Stream

WebTalk Radio with Rob and Dana Greenlee talk with Karen Howe, GM,EVP of AOL/Singingfish.com about the current state of Audio and Video search online at Singingfish.com. Singingfish.com is the largest audio and video search technology provider to AOL.com, WindowsMedia.com and RealOne players.

See AOL France blended web and audio search results
See WindowsMedia.com Media Search Engine

34 min. at 48K (3.26.2005)
Listen: Windows Stream - mp3 Download
Podcast Feed: http://www.webtalkradio.com/rss2gen.xml

DVForge sent out a retraction announcing it was cancelling its $25,000 cash prize to the best virus written for Apple OS X. While I can see how this idea came about –draw out all the possible virus hackers and pay them off to expose themselves and to find the holes in OS X and is Apple involved in the contest “No”.

Even MacWorld is running a retraction story.

I must say that in the bigger picture it was a very big mistake to even offer such a contest. Once that virus exists it could easily be mutated and Apple users would have a big problem and how about the whole element of bring so much attention to the Mac as a possible target for virus writers. This is bad on so many levels.

The Apple is one of the last OS’s to miss being targeting by virus writers in any significant way. This only confirms that even good companies can come up with some really dumb ideas.

The awarded would have been given to the first hacker who could infect two Macintosh computers owned by DVForge. The company cites legal concerns for the cancellation of the contest. Duh!

I really went into the deep end and recorded an extra long 90 minute show for release next Tuesday. Dana and I spent the whole show with blogger and long-time radio show host TDavid. He writes the blog MakeYouGoHmm.com and will talk about the new PSP (Play Station Portable) device and so much more. TDavid lives close to our studio and thus is in-studio. He is great on the show as he has so much energy.

Casey Halverson of Seattle Wireless and WebTalk guest co-host Peter Yorke provide and use free wifi Internet access on a Tacoma commuter train to Seattle every morning. Casey is using a battery powered access point to provide free Internet access to everyone on the Sounder commuter train out of Tacoma. See link to Casey’s TacomaTrainNode page that shows photos of his backpack that holds this access point and Peter using his laptop on the train.

Peter Yorke is spending a couple of hours a day on the train going from Edgewood to Seattle every morning and can now work on his side project DownloadRadio.org. This is an example how productive many of us can be if wireless Internet access is available everywhere.

You can find the WebTalk Radio studio on this new feedmap.net application that enables anyone to find their favorite blogger in the real world. See WebTalk’s Blogger NeighBlogs.

WebTalk Radio with Rob and Dana Greenlee with guest Mitch Ratcliffe, founder of Persuadio, LLC at MyDensity.com and blogger for RedHerring.com “The Now” Blog. Mitch officially announces and tell us more about his new Online Link Relationship Mapping company called Persuadio at MyDensity.com; Dana calls in from Los Angeles to talk about the William S. Paley Television Festival that featured the ABC-TV Show Cast of Boston Legal and we discuss whether Google could be building an Internet OS. 50 min. (3-22-05) Listen: Windows - MP3

We also discuss places online to see in-crater photos of Mt. St Helens. Guest Host Peter Yorke, Founder of Yorke Systems - Blog. 34 min. (3-9-2005) Listen: Windows - MP3

This weeks experts show: We speak with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.org, about the largest, most popular encyclopedia on the web and its unique collaboration of editors. 25 min. (3-9-2005) Listen: Windows - MP3

Thanks everybody for the support and nice comments of our move from terrestrial radio and too shorter shows. We are breathing fresh air now without the FCC. See comments

We have no restrictions on what we can do now. Look out for the wild WebTalk gang to get wilder.

For those that love us having Mitch on the program this change will be great, but if you do not like Mitch then prepare yourself.

Actually very little will really change, but a few topics and words that we have had to cut out may now slip through our editing cracks. We have been doing less editing over the past few months anyway.

Please vote for us at PodcastAlley.com again as they have changed the voting system on the site.

Thanks,
Rob Greenlee
WebTalk Radio

The poll that is on WebTalk Radio right now is showing that the html editor Dreamweaver is exploding into a lead as the preferred editor for webpages.

I am surprised the Frontpage and Notepad have not done better in the poll.

Visit the poll and vote for your favorite html editor.

Why is Dreamweaver so much better? Please leave a comment.

This weeks discussion show covers whether web users hate centralization and control of content online? We are joined again by Mitch Ratcliffe, Blogger at RatcliffeBlog - Red Herring “The Now” Blog.

Mitch Ratcliffe, Rob Greenlee and Dana Greenlee discuss whether we are all gaining or losing content control online. We also discuss whether web users love or hate centralization of information online and the coming crackdown on blogging and the morphing of radio. 33 min. (3-5-2005) Listen: Windows - MP3

WiFi Access Points are selling like hotcakes at home and in the workplace. WiFi Networks are springing up all the time all over the world. On the show we speak the guy who is plotting and mapping the location of all those hotspots all over the United States. His name is Drew Celley, Founder of WiFiMaps.com and he is going to tell us about the wifi search tool he is offering online and how and why he is plotting the locations of hotspots. 25 min (3-2-2005). Listen: Windows - MP3

The concept of developing a complete podcast archive of all podcasts is an interesting idea. Jason Scott has started saving all podcasts to huge hard drives via DopplerRadio. I think it is great that he is doing this, but a more interesting thing is making those podcasts available in an organized and searchable website that could dynamically create genre or topic based RSS feeds.

Blog post snippet from ASCII by Jason Scott:
So one day I looked at Podcasts. I liked some aspects of them, so I am downloading all of them. I am going back and swiping older ones as I can find them, but I’m still in the process of getting every single one, so it’s taking some time. I have them in languages I’ve never spoken, and I have listened to less than one tenth of one percent of them. At last count I’m at 75 gigabytes of podcasts which works out to roughly 7,500 individual files. I suspect there are doubles and many missed files, but we’ll see if that comes with time.

I’ll take a moment to describe how I am doing this. Obviously, I need some space to store all these podcasts, but space, these days, is very cheap. I watch sites that provide specials for hardware, and can purchase a 250 gigabyte hard drive for $100.

Many months ago Peter Yorke and I started building a radio show and podcast archive that is now live at http://www.downloadradio.org. It will not be an archive with 100% of all podcasts, but will create a searchable archive of most of the top shows that uses Bit Torrent for distribution, but will still display links to streams and direct mp3 download links. We are also building a paid subscription feed process for some of the shows as needed.

We are getting flooded with requests from radio shows and podcasts to be included at DownloadRadio.org. If you want to be included then submit your request and we will review your show for inclusion (send to rob@downloadradio.org).

Peter and I see big things coming to DownloadRadio.org as the big media companies are also starting to take notice.

It is not a dream, but is being built and is operational right now.

I must say that I am not surprised that many people online still want to keep new technology trends from growing up. Read this blog post by Rex Hammock about how online users hate centralization. Think about how you use the net and see if you agree with Rex or me.

Rexblog.com is the personal weblog of Rex Hammock said:
Podcasting does not want to have a “central place.” The web hates central places. I use eBay as both a buyer and seller and believe me, I hate that it’s a central place as it is now a monopoly. Knowing what we know now, would early adopters of eBay say I want there to be a monopoly running the online auction market? I wish an open, distributed alternative to eBay existed.

Podcasters shouldn’t be looking for a “central marketplace” that marginalizes them. They should be integrated into all the markets that exist today — and more. No, on second thought, don’t waste your time on marketplaces. If you had spent the past 140 days worrying about marketplaces, there would be no podcasting.

I tend to disagree that people online don’t privately like centralization. The main reason is that people or online users hate to hunt for things online and love sites that make finding things they are looking for easier. The thought that people hate centralization of services and content online is also driven by the fear of exclusion on the part of the content producer. I also think some people get caught up in online purity and that any online business models are bad.

We will see many business models spring up and help make the experience of getting and listening to a podcast simple and easy. I believe that we will see podcast directory websites and networks that provide all the tools needed to enable free and paid subscriptions to podcasts.