In September, Yahoo! closed down their Podcasting search service. Odeo is still languishing in my opinion. Podcast Alley is well designed and easy to use, but is full of horrible horrible content leaving me to question the voting system they have as being seriously gamed. Google’s stayed pretty much out of the game, but there is a Google custom search that’s pretty good.

So what is going on?

• Has iTunes declawed podcasting with it’s search tool and lack of features?
• Is it too hard to get current podcasts onto listening devices?
• Are we seeing a “normal” hype-cool-settle cycle?
• What about the new in-car technologies?
• Will the iPhone and wireless iPod help?
• Are podcasts inherently non-viral?

What’s even more perplexing is that our on-demand society craves time-shifted, portable entertainment. Podcatchers are the ultimate web audio “Tivo” equivalent. You can isolate items of interest and let it fill up unaided…then listen to a stream of custom audio.

The Google Trends chart to the right could be slightly misleading when it comes to the “Christmas Spikes.” Since more people have MP3 players already, the height of the spike, and thus the novelty of podcasts, will probably be shorter, but the overall trend is compelling and consistent with the premise of this post.

Wizzard.tv claims 1 billion downloads in 2007. That’s big.

My suggestions to improve podcasting include:

• Podcasters must create content people want. Please quit spewing poorly-tagged, over-hyped garbage.
• Connect podcasts to GPS and stream local content (especially for the tourism industry)
• Podcasts should STOP when there is nothing else to talk about. They are too long! Get to the point already.
• Make it easy to find podcasts based on your interests? Hasn’t behavioral targeting come far enough for this yet?
• Podcasters should prepare for their shows. I’m so sick of “I didn’t have time to get ready” type shows. If that happens. Don’t do it!
• Podcasters need an easy way to translate their shows to non-English.
• Stop with the fancy, 3-minute long intros. I don’t want to hear the tractor-pull-style hype buildup.
• We need to improve tagging and chapter marks. Podcast producers must take the time to tag their work as well as isolate sections when the subjects change drastically.
• Itunes must improve podcast search. Top-ten podcasts within a genre would be a good start. Editor’s Picks and better identification of video podcasts would help too. Someone should raise the barrier to entry into iTunes podcasting. If the podcast doesn’t get subscribers, kill it.
• Make it simpler to subscribe, right from the device. More explanation to the newbie of what’s going to happen when they click subscribe would help. Why must I surf the web for 30 minutes to find a good show? Why not let me set up my interests (ala Tivo) and just let the system fill up my podcast-allocated area on my player?
• “New Podcast Suggestion” tools need to be developed based on meta search.
• Auto-transcription systems or Human-transcribed systems will help with indexing content (though they may not be terribly useful to users as readable text) and, if well-engineered, allow “fast forwarding” to a certain point in the podcast as well as enabling translation to other languages.

Postscript:  Complete post that PodShow Podcasting Network Grew 29144% in 2007.

100%. That’s how many of my comments have been censored by local Lexington TV Stations, dropping any credibility for a real attempt to build a community online.

I wonder….If you have something “thoughtful” to say, perhaps not jibing with the bible-beltish, hyper-conservative viewpoints, would it ever be published? From what I can tell, the only thing that makes it in are “God bless our troops” or short, brain-dead “hollerin’”

All of my comments were SFW. I’m not a trouble maker, well, not really, nor am I a minion ready to “cute” my way on the screen.

“We have to keep our comments family-friendly” — oh really?

So that is why you post Santa with a M-16. Yee haa.

Let the top 10/20/30 lists begin! Here’s my top stories round-up, using information I collected as I write my latest article for Business Lexington. I’m almost certain to come back and adjust links, so bookmark me, and add your own - cause I know I’m missing some!

iPhone Stirred the Mobile Internet marketplace. While the iPhone earned raves for its interface and sleek styling, it still was designed to operate only on the AT&T/Cingular wireless network, lacked a keyboard and did not operate on 3G broadband networks. Buyers still swooped in after the device, buying one million iPhones in 74 days. The iPhone platform readily integrates a number of Internet technologies that will benefit greatly from the planned 3G version in 2008. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that the iPhone is still only around 1% of the marketshare. Later it was announced that a 3G iPhone will be available soon.

Merger and Aquisition Madness in the Search Advertising Google acquired Internet Advertising Company Doubleclick for $3.1B, Microsoft bought Ad Agency aQuantive (including Avenue A/Razorfish) for $6B, and Yahoo! bought Right Media creating a potential for conflict of interest in the web search advertising giants that some see as an unfair monopoly.

Google’s Street-Level View Google’s “Street View” solutions for Google maps allows a “virtual drive” of certain cities via 360-degree images captured by specially equipped cars. Privacy advocates quickly found people in compromising positions on some images and Google offered a “blur-out request form” on their website. Microsoft’s version garnered some attention as well, showing scenes through the windows of a race car.

(more…)

Well, in February of this year, I posted that Lexington’s CompUSA had avoided the chopping blog as the company closed half of its stores.

Well, the other shoe is falling, and CompUSA will be putting all of its stores in Liquidation.

To everyone at CompUSA Lexington, I am really sorry about this and hope you all find new gigs quickly.

With the wireless broadband network now available in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

Verizon Wireless customers can enjoy two prime services:

• BroadbandAccess, the enhanced high-speed wireless service that equips Verizon Wireless’ business customers with a truly untethered mobile office experience, enabling them to wirelessly access their calendars, the Internet, e-mail, and critical business information residing behind their companies’ firewalls; and
• V CAST, a consumer-oriented multimedia service that gives customers access to the most comprehensive selection of downloadable music, high-quality videos, and the coolest 3D games found anywhere.

This very, very small market is a part of the Lexington Metro Service Area, which is already covered by Verizon Broadband.

Related news

Verizon covers Penn State with Wireless Broadband.

Maine and Connecticut get wireless broadband coverage increase from Verizon.

Ok, first come first served. I have a limited (VERY) number of discount codes for Yahoo! Merchant Solutions that will give you 25% off for 6 months. NEW customers only. Existing Yahoo! Solutions Customers Excluded.

Steps:

1. Don’t sign up yet.
2. Send me an email to my task tracker requesting the code. [ info ->at<- priorityhelp ->dot<- com]
3. I’ll send you a sign-up link and a special code.
4. THEN sign up.

My firm is a Yahoo! Small Business Partner and I’m a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador, so I have a few of these.

When they’re gone, they’re gone.

As it continues to deploy in secondary markets, Verizon is lighting up Western Kentucky with over 1400 square miles of broadband coverage. This includes Paducah, Mayfield, Murray and Benton.

“Western Kentucky is a vital market with dynamic, tech-savvy business people, consumers, students, and faculty who want to stay connected,” said Greg Haller, president–Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan region, Verizon Wireless in a release. “The expansion of our broadband network here provides customers with access to the very latest wireless technology.”

With BroadbandAccess, business customers, residents and visitors can expect average download speeds of 600 kilobits per second (kbps) to 1.4 megabits per second and average upload speeds of 500 kbps to 800 kbps. This service is based on EV-DO Rev A.

Verizon Wireless was the first national wireless provider to commercially launch a high-speed wireless broadband network in the United States, which is available to more than 210 million people across the country. In Kentucky, Verizon Wireless’ broadband network is also available in Louisville Metro, Lexington and Owensboro.

Murray State University students will surely be one major beneficiary of this setup.

In a related bit, it looks like Verizon and AT&T will be converging on the 3GPP LTE technology for 4G connectivity (100Mbps wireless.) Nokia is running tests now. Expected retail availability 2012.

A cool picture of the different technologies is here.

The Sacramento Regional Transit District (RT) operates 97 bus routes and 36.87 miles of light rail covering a 418 square-mile service area. Buses and light rail run 365 days a year using 76 light rail vehicles, 254 buses powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) and 17 shuttle vans. Riders can now use Google Transit to plan their mass transit routes.

While the SRTD already had a route planning system, Google Transit offers directions on Google Maps, making for a very simple way to get around.

....Annual ridership has steadily increased on both the bus and light rail systems from 14 million passengers in 1987 to more than 30 million passengers in FY 2005. Weekday light rail ridership averages about 43,600, which accounts for approximately 40% of the total system ridership. Bus weekday ridership has reached an average of 67,000 passengers per day…..

See also the Friends of the Light Rail and Transit site.

Well, it’s WiMax World Week in Chicago, and from news reports, the attendance has almost doubled. WiMax (802.16) is a technology that works a lot like Wi-Fi Wireless Networks but has much greater range since it uses empty frequencies to provide wireless Internet just about anywhere. WiMax speeds are 4Mbit/sec at their best right now. Sprint/Nextel is setting up a service with Clearwire that will cover 100 million people by the end of next year, and demos of WiMax seem to be going better and better.

Wimax World had some buzz about demos of new technology - mostly related to compatibility and backhaul issues. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the end-devices of course. I’ll go out on a limb to say if Apple produces a Newton 2, it will natively support WiMax, and that WiMax will drive a revolution in mobile device simplification (tablets, thin clients) as well as mobile application (video, dynamic news, conferencing.) Intel showed an integrated WiMax card on a laptop at WiMax World. One thing that Sprint said was that the costs of WiMax devices and services will be like using 3G, but they won’t give out SLAs.

WiMax deployments can’t come soon enough for Municiple Wi-Fi projects, because many seem to be sinking.

USA Today provided this list…

•Cincinnati shelved its plan last week for a citywide network because the market is too unstable.

•The Silicon Valley plan for free Wi-Fi is at risk after providers decided local governments must be “anchor tenants” for the service.

•Springfield, Ill., is looking for another partner after AT&T dropped Wi-Fi plans last month.

•St. Louis is trying to figure out how to power Wi-Fi transmitters on 1,700 street lights when they’re not illuminated without spending millions of dollars.

Until then I guess we’ll need to hover around hotspots.

 

Google Transit appears to have expanded this morning to include Hampton Roads Transit (HRT).

HRT in SouthEastern VA currently serves 1.2 million people within its 369 square mile service area. Its service area consists of eight cities: Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, the town of Smithfield and the city of Williamsburg (Colonial Williamsburg). There have been proposals for light rail in the past.

photo: Hampton Roads Transit

What’s cool, is that HRT was suggested in this post back in Feb 2006. Nice to see a suggestion go to fruition. In January of 2007, Google began discussions with HRT, and shortly thereafter, HRT began using GPS systems to monitor bus positions.