I read, via Steve Rubel, that ABC News has relaunched its web site, with new features that allow citizen journalism.  I think that's a good thing, but it's not what I want to talk about at the moment.

Steve notes that most of the comments on the relaunch concern the design of the page, as opposed to the citizen journalism features.  I think that's because most readers are concerned about finding and being able to read the content they want, while too many web designers are focused on the 37 pieces of flair (many of them ads) that get in the way of that content.  Users don't want scrolling news tickers and they don't want fancy, slow loading pages.

Here are just a few of the negative comments users made to the ABC News redesign:

It stinks. Every page is slow-loading, even with cable internet. The look is cramped and cluttered. Browsing through headlines takes forever, due to the necessity to constantly switch pages.

***
Why can't you just leave it the way it was. So simple, you just opened it up and picked the head line you wanted to read. Now it's like everybody else, you have to search and decipher everything before you can find what you want.

***
I liked the simplicity of the old design and used it as my home page. Did the designers/developers of this new format get ANY input from users in the 35+ age demographic?

It's pretty easy to tell what readers want.  It's harder to explain why web designers refuse to give it to them.  One reason is because the more page views it takes to get to and through a story the more ads get served in the process.  People realize that ads are the price of admission, at least where old media web distribution goes, but there are limits.

Readers will ultimately refuse to click through 5 pages to read one article.  They'll simply find someplace else where they can get the content with less hassle, or they'll move to an RSS reader.

There are two other things users want.

One, for the page to display properly on their screen, regardless of monitor size or resolution.  It's not an 800x600 world any longer.  Some pages that display fine at lower resolutions get jumbled up at higher resolutions, or when you increase the text size in order to read the type.  The ABC News page seem to handle increased text size pretty well.  Morningstar, one of my favorite destinations (DISCLAIMER: I have been a shareholder since the IPO), doesn't.  Bump your text up several notches and things get jumbled, ads overlap content, things get cut off, etc.  I'm not sure how to address this problem, but it should be addressed, since many users cannot read the micro-text that results from a higher resolution and must increase the text size.

Morningstar is not the only offender here, many other major destinations have the same problem.  ESPN's navigation banner becomes virtually unusable if you bump the text size.  I completely quit reading the Houston Chronicle page after recent redesigns rendered the text on the front pages molecular (thank goodness for RSS feeds).  For an example of how to handle large text size the right way, see Wikipedia.

Two, for the pages to be designed in a way that allows you to find what you're looking for.  I have always thought the CNN page was far too busy- and so I don't visit it much.   At least the USA Today page looks something like a newspaper, which allows readers to navigate it something like a newspaper.  Google News has the most usable design precisely because it has the least amount of bling.  Techmeme rules the tech-related blogosphere for the same reason.  Tailrank, which for a while was on the verge of bling-overload, seems to be moving back the other way, which is a good thing.  Digg has a relatively simple and easy to navigate interface.

Compare those pages to Fox News, for example.  My head starts hurting before it's finished loading.  I'm sure the bling imbalance has to do with the sort of media we're talking about- TV being, sadly, almost entirely based on bling.

But web pages are not TV, and a cleaner, simpler interface is better for users.  And that should be the benchmark for a good web page.  37 pieces of flair was funny in Office Space.  It's not funny on web pages.

I like SearchRank's 10 Signs That You May Be a Blog Addict post.  Before I take a look at their 10 signs, I might add one more:

11. You hire a search engine marketing company to try to move your blog up in Google search results.

Now, my thoughts about the original 10.

1. I'm guilty here.  I use Bloglines for my feeds, and if I am at the computer at home, I generally have a Bloglines tab open in Firefox.  I don't want to miss it when one of my internet pals hits a good lick.  I think it odd too that this deal isn't getting any run in the blogosphere.  Where's Techcrunch?  If one of Scoble's finger nail clippings got sold for 10 cents on eBay, TechCrunch would have a full page story on it.

2. If I told my clients I had a blog, they wouldn't know what I was talking about.  I have to use the dog ate my homework excuse.  At least a business person can visualize a dog eating homework.  None I know could visualize blogging.

3. I've never dreamed about blogging, simply because there aren't many bloggers who would find their way into my deserted island scenarios.  I've dreamed I could fly.  I have dreamed twice, in great detail, that I was a member of the Grateful Dead.  But never about blogging.  Thankfully.

4. I get inspirations for blog posts at all kinds of odd times.  It's the same way with songs.  Unfortunately, I generally forget both before I get home to write them down.  Maybe that greater than Twitter application Jott can help me with this.

5. There's more traffic on the stairs when my kids head off to bed than there is in my comments, so I go to where the action is.

6. This is partially true.  I talk very little about this sort of stuff in the real world, so people can definitely get more of my thoughts here than over dinner.  If someone asks me what I'm thinking in the real world, I scream and run away.  That's one of the reasons I wish I'd started this blog anonymously.  If I could talk about my real world life more freely without the fear of getting fired or slapped, I could tell some great stories.

7. I love our pets.  But people who are seriously pet-obsessed scare me.  People who aren't little old ladies who are seriously pet-obsessed scare me big time.  Like the Exorcist.

8. I used to watch my Technorati rank.  But unless you're willing to stay on the treadmill full time, the formula makes it impossible to move up or maintain your place.  It's too hard.  I gave up.

9. Nope.  We have Twitter for all those things.

10. I enjoy active Twitterers, Eric Rice and Bagadonuts being among my favorites.  I update my Twitter feed maybe once a day, but that's because my day to day activities are pretty routine.  If I had more fun and more free time, I'd update more.

I have largely stopped thinking and writing about the Gatekeeper thing, for a few reasons.  One, it's a tired topic.  Two, the return on investment from trying to worm your way into the so-called conversation is too low to be worthwhile.  The return on simply writing good posts and waiting is not that much higher, but it's higher.  It's a little like fishing.  I am a good fisherman because I am patient- something most casual fishers are not.  And third, the conversations are often boring anyway.  I just don't care all that much about what a lot of the so-called A-Listers have to say.  Many of them have turned their blogs and Twitter feeds into nothing more than a living billboard for self-promotion.

But I just can't resist it when a couple of A-Listers start a conversation about link-baiting.

Jason Calacanis started things off with a partially tongue in cheek and partially straight up post, talking about ways to get a link from him.  I chastised him the other day for not reaching out to mainstream media, so let me give a little credit where due.  This is funny stuff, even if it's true:

DON'T start the post off flaming me. Start the post off by praising me, talking about how great Engadget or Netscape are, that you love my podcast, or that you thought I was a riot at some panel (you don't even need to have been at the panel...just technorati my name and "speaking at" and you can fake it).

And this:

DO slam someone I don't like or have had a beef with. This is a long list, but getting on my side will keep me reading your post and increase my chances of taking your link bait.

Of course, scads of people immediately start linking wildly to Jason's post, dancing in the fleeting glow of inclusion.

I just about fell off of my chair when Dave Winer posted his rules, including this one for why he might not link to you:

3. Lack of reciprocity. If I observe over time that the linking is one-way, i.e. I link to you but even when I'm on-topic for you, I don't get a link from you, that will dampen my enthusiasm.

That's either the best satire I have ever read, or the biggest violation of the Goose and Gander Rule ever.  It doesn't really matter which, because Dave and Jason talking about getting links is like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett comparing their bank accounts.  It makes them feel good, but has zero relevance for the rest of us.

So what can the rest of us do?  We could fall in line, and fawn over these guys.  We might get a link every six months or so.  Or we could just sit back and watch.

Or we could leave that party and start our own. 

I don't want to spend any effort trying to figure what I need to write to be worthy of a link from some blogostar.  That promotes bad writing, and it doesn't work.  Linking should not be viewed as currency, and the fact that it is viewed that way by many is the single most screwed up part of blogging.  We're not handing out MBEs here.  We're just placing a road sign to another place someone may want to go.

So I'd rather just give links to the people I read, without making them work for it.  Here's some link-giving to some of the blogs in my reader.  Go check 'em out.

A Consuming Experience
Amy Gahran
Assaf Arkin
Be A Good Dad
Ben Metcalfe
Ben Werdmuller
Bill Liversidge
Blonde 2.0
Brad Kellett
Chip Camden
Christopher Carfi
Claus Valca
Corey Clayton
Craig Newmark
Dave Rogers
Dave Sifry
Dave Taylor
Dave Wallace
Dwight Silverman
Earl Moore
Eric Scalf
Ethan Johnson
Frank Gruber
Frank Paynter
Fraser Kelton
Haydn Shaughnessy
Ian Delaney
Ilker Yoldas
Jackson Miller
Jake Ludington
Jeremy Zawodny
John Watson
Jon Maddox
Karl Martino
Kate Trgovac
Kevin Briody
Kevin Maney
Larry Borsato
Marc Canter
Mark Evans
Martin Gordon
Mathew Ingram
Mike Miller
OmegaMom
Phil Sim
Randy Morin
Rahul Sood
Ric Hayman
Richard Querin
Rick Mahn
Rob Barron
Robert Gale
Ron Jeffries
Scott Karp
Seth Finkelstein
Stephen Hogg
Steve Gillmor
Steve Newson
Steven Streight
Stowe Boyd
Susan Getgood
TDavid
Tom Morris
Tom Reynolds
Warner Crocker
Zoli Erdos

That's it.  No link or master baiting required.  Just links to people because I read their blogs.

See how easy that was?

Is the sound of Web 2.0 sucking, at least according to Charlie O'Donnell.  Charlie has a list of 10 reasons why Web 2.0 sucks.  Go read his post for the full list, but here are my 2 favorites.

4. Web 2.0 is a conversational vacuum

No matter how many times people say it's not, we all know it is.  The effort it takes to engage the so called thought leaders in conversation is second only to podcasting in the Sisyphusian Hall of Fame.  I have always thought, and written, that the semi-closed blogosphere is a function of the cross-motives between those looking for cool and those looking for dollars.  I also think it's because blogging is a very inefficient way to carry on a conversation- Twitter notwithstanding.

10. MySpace is the most popular social network

No kidding.  If MySpace is the crown jewel of Web 2.0, then the whole movement is doomed.  As I have said many times- MySpace is Geocities II.  It was the playground of kids and amateurs the first time around, and it still is.

A lot about Web 2.0 does suck.  But it doesn't have to.  It's all in the perception and the spin.

Most of Web 2.0 has a lot more in common with fun and games than it does with big business.  Social networking, for example, is very distinct from business networking.  I realize this is semantics, but names are often descriptive.  Those who try to put Web 2.0 on the business side of the equation are forgetting the fact that fortunes are made every day on the fun side.  Just look, for example, at the top ten holdings of the Baron Partners fund (one of my favorite mutual funds; DISCLAIMER: I am a shareholder).  For archival purposes, the top 3 holdings right now are gaming companies.

You can make a lot of money being fun and cool.  Sure, people have come to believe that Web 2.0 is supposed to be free.  But it doesn't have to be.  People will pay for fun- just look at Second Life.

Web 2.0 would suck a lot less if it didn't have to wear and coat and tie and try to sneak into the big business party.

Do I have a TIVO box?  You bet I do.  A bunch of them, ranging from my first 14 hour one to the now obsolete HR10-250s HD units I paid a grand a piece for.  Obsolete, because they don't do MPEG-4.  And because DirecTV greedily killed them off in favor of its inferior PVR.

I sound bitter, only because I am.  TIVOs were one of those once or twice-in-a-lifetime technologies that changed the world the first time you used them.  Like cars.  Like telephones.  Like that magic box on Lost.

TIVO was my constant companion for a few years.  I even won a free one once by writing a song about TIVOs:

I need a free TIVO
To put here in my den
So when I want to watch a show
It will be on right then
There are lots of good shows
I never get to see
X-Files, Star Trek, Millennium
And good ol' MST

My time with TIVO was beautiful.  There were unicorns running around and I was sure the guy would get the girl (credit Andy from work for that apt description of abject optimism).

And then it ended- at least for those of us who chose satellite over cable.  All that's left of all that great time-shifting entertainment is my little TIVO man.  He lies forgotten in my kids' toy box the way my expensive and obsolete TIVOs lie abandoned in my garage and on eBay.

So yeah, I have a TIVO box.  All I need now is a unicorn and everything will be just dandy.

I really miss my TIVO.

TV Squad is reporting that Fox has canceled Drive, after a whopping 10 days.  The show didn't blow me (or apparently many others) away by any means, but it was better than most of the mind numbing, generic sitcoms that seem to fill the airways.  Plus it had Nathan Fillion from another great TV show that got canceled too soon.

It seems like the life expectancy of new TV shows is falling to moth-like levels.  Let's see: Invasion, Surface, Threshold, Skin, Deadwood, BSG (which, while not canceled yet, is obviously on life support) and now Drive.  And those are just the shows I watched.  No telling how many more five and out shows there have been that I didn't know about.

At this point, new shows are like new software versions- I'm going to let someone else beta test them.  If they stick, I'll get the season discs via Netflix.

I no longer trust the networks enough to invest my time in a new show that likely won't be on next week, or the week after.

I wrote the other day about my experience with MediaMaster.  I said I liked it, and that I was in the process of testing the claim that there are currently no upload limits.  Here's an update.

I uploaded around 5,000 songs into my account, thereby effectively confirming that there is no current limit.  I can't tell you exactly how many because the album cover-only library interface doesn't give you this information.  As I mentioned the other day, the library interface needs a major overhaul.  Badly.

While the songs sound good over the internet, the system doesn't handle huge libraries very well.  I constantly get a message stating that "a script in this movie is causing Adobe Flash Player 9 to run slowly...."  Slowly as in not at all.  Since I doubt the MediaManager business plan was based around people like me putting thousands of songs in their libraries, I can look past this problem.  But it does limit the service's usefulness as a backup plan for large libraries.  I have around 27,000 (legal and unshared) songs on my music server.  It would take approximately the rest of my life to upload the rest of them.

I tried out the widget on Newsome.Org for a while, but the interface is (hopefully) a work in progress and it interferes with page navigation and scrolling while it loads.  So it's gone, at least for now.  On a related note, unless Blonde 2.0 revisits my blog to counter-balance Randy, Mathew and Earl's ugly mugs, I may have to lose the MyBlogLog widget too (I get those guys back by plastering my ugly mug on their pages every chance I get).

All of this is not to say that I am disappointed in MediaMaster.  I think it is a neat service that will probably get better over time.  It's not (yet) a place where audiophiles can store and access their entire library, but it is a great way to store and access portions of your music.  And it would be a great solution for those with more moderate music collections.

I like MediaMaster a lot now.  I hope it gets even better.

When a mainstream or even semi-mainstream publication wants to cover something Web 2.0 related, particularly when it is something owned by your crony, take the reporter's call.  You are not a Rolling Stone and they are not The Rolling Stone. 

You are a blogger for crying out loud.  You are some guy who's current claim to fame is that you write an online diary and have some other friends who write online diaries too. 

In other words, you need them much, much more than they need you.

They get interviews from people a lot busier, richer and more famous than you all the time.  If you won't accommodate them, they'll just move on.  Or maybe embarrass you and then move on.

I learned a long time ago that there are more of me than there are reporters who want to talk to me for background and/or get a quote from me.  The law of supply and demand taught me to welcome the opportunity to be cooperative with the press.

Sure, I've been misquoted a time or two.  Once badly.  But I have also built brands and netted a lot of business by being accessible and cooperative with reporters.

The rules of business, marketing, supply and demand and common sense apply to the blogosphere.  To fail to recognize that is just another reason why so much of the real world doesn't take the blogging culture seriously.

I have been waiting for a reasonable place to find and search song lyrics.  Since Lyrics.ch was shut down by the greedy publishing industry years ago, the only way to find song lyrics has been to google the song and visit one of several ad and pop-up infested lyrics sites.  Now Yahoo has tried to come to the rescue.

Through a deal with Gracenote, a company I am not fond of due to its conscripting for profit the formerly open source CDDB, Yahoo can now allow legal, centralized lyrics searches via it's Yahoo Music page.

I should have been suspicious when I first visited the search page and saw mostly photos of artists I either don't recognize or don't like.  But I soldiered on hopefully.  The search engine is fast.  I think I know why- because the database is so small.

I tested it first by searching for "my feet are too long" to see if it would return John Prine's Dear Abby.  No luck.  I tried "Dear Abby" and found a song by George Strait.  No Prine.

Next I tried "no senator's son" and found CCR's Fortunate Son.  "We can share the wine" returned the Dead's excellent Jack Straw.  "Never leave Harlan" found no results, even though a song search found Darrell Scott's excellent song of the same name.

"Killed John Wayne" did not find the Guadalcanal Diary song, thereby proving that Mathew Ingram is a better lyrics source than Yahoo.

"Muskrat Love" found neither the Captain and Tennille version I was expecting nor the Willis Alan Ramsey version I hoped for.

My conclusion is that the lyrics database might be fine for the casual music fan who likes current hit songs and middle of the road oldies, but this is not the one-stop shop for true music fans I hoped it would be.  In fact, I was pretty disappointed.

It would be so much better to have some open source, Wikipedia-like database for lyrics - which could also be ad supported.  But that old greed thing once again stands in the way of logic and usability.

There are also a couple of things about the interface I don't like.

First, the results are not in any kind of alphabetical order, and they are not sortable.  They should be sortable by artist, song title, genre and year.  Additionally, you have to manually select lyrics search for every search, because the search box selection defaults to "All" (which includes artists, albums, songs, videos and lyrics).  This is an unnecessary irritation.

And the biggest pain in the ass: you also cannot copy (as in copy and paste) the lyrics once you find them.  This is idiotic and shows once again how little the music business trusts or respects its customers.

In sum, Yahoo's lyrics search is a nice attempt to provide a much needed service. But it's not ready for prime time.

Not by a long shot.

One of the great things about YouTube is all the music videos you can find.  Here's almost all of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, perhaps the greatest rock record ever made.

Rocks Off
Rip this Joint
Shake Your Hips (w/Bluesberry Jam)
Casino Boogie (by Dead Flowers, a Stones cover band)
Tumbling Dice
Sweet Virginia
Torn and Frayed (not available, which is a pity)
Sweet Black Angel (cover by Jose Butez)
Loving Cup (my favorite song on the record)
Happy
Turd on the Run (amateur music video)
Ventilator Blues (by Smoking Stones, a Stones cover band)
I Just Want to See His Face (not available)
Let it Loose (Lost mashup)
All Down the Line
Stop Breaking Down (cover by The White Stripes)
Shine a Light
Soul Survivor (not available)

In an exchange that mirrors the blogosphere at large, Guy Kawasaki asks Seth Godin 10 questions, while we get to read along.  I thought it would be fun to once again pretend that we're all part of the blogosphere and give my own answers.  Try this at home- it's fun.

I have to pretend, of course, that I wrote a book about dips.  I know some dips, so that should be easy.  Here we go.

1) Other than hindsight, how does someone know when it's time to quit?

When the fun you're having or reasonably likely to soon have no longer outweighs the effort it takes to do what you thought was going to be fun from the start.  Like golf.  I played golf for years.  I got better for a while, then stopped getting better, then started getting worse.  Eventually, it dawned on me that golf was an elitist sport that was unfit for a deep thinker like me, so I took up drinking.  It's pretty much the same cycle, but the clubs are more fun.  Later I gave up drinking and started blogging.  There are clubs there too, but it takes more than a $5 cover to get in.

2) If I'm in the middle of a dip, how do I know if it's worth gutting it out to get to the other side?

I generally try to avoid dips.  It's relatively easy to avoid the blatant dips.  They generally move in slow packs and attack one at a time, like the bad guys in a movie.  It's harder to avoid the unknowing dip, who is a dip but hasn't figured it out yet.  Avoiding Starbucks is a good start.

3) Is there a place for the intrinsic value of learning a skill - for example, playing hockey or the violin - even though you know you won't be the best in the world?

Absolutely not.  There should only be one hockey player, one restaurant, and one blogger.  We're pretty close on the blogger part.

4)  What if the market is not established so there's no way to know if it even exists and if it's worth dedicating/rededicating to?

This one is easy.  Just put some ads up and give your company a goofy name that is vowel challenged.  Next thing you know, Google will buy you for millions.

5) How can a company quit a product and not give the incorrect signal that it's quitting the market?

See my answer to question 4.  If you have ads, you don't need a product.  Products are so old school.

6) What's more powerful: a short-term pain or long-term gain?

It depends on whether you're long or short.  But neither is a powerful as this.

7) Do most companies quit too early or try too long?

It could be worse.  They could quit too long or try too early, like a lot of Web 2.0 companies who put their web pages up the day after they registered their goofy vowel challenged name.

8) Should Microsoft quit the MP3 player market?

Who cares?

9) Should Apple quit the personal computer market?

See my answer to question 8.

10) Should America quit the Iraq War?

Shouldn't we quit the Korean War first?  I don't know if we should quit the Iraq war or not.  But I know that you can't dump a war like you do a girlfriend or boyfriend.  The reject by neglect approach to breaking up with a war didn't work in Vietnam, and I doubt it would work now.  What we need is a decision maker. 

For years I have used two start pages to organize my internet activities.  The Home Place, my hand made page, and My Yahoo.  I have tinkered with Netvibes a little as well.  But I prefer the tradional My Yahoo look and feel to the Ajaxy look and feel of Netvibes and its newer competitors.

The biggest reason why is text size.  My primary monitor is a 24 inch Dell running at 1900 x 1200.  Most pages look really good.  But the text size on Netvibes is tiny.  Less than tiny.  Sub-tiny.  Until recently, text size on My Yahoo was fine.

But My Yahoo has been moving towards the Ajaxy look over the past year or so.  Now the new beta has moved the rest of the way.  My Yahoo's new look is very similar to Netvibes.  Including the sub-tiny text size (the clip to the left is the actual size).  In fact, thanks to My Yahoo's decision to run back to the pack, Netvibes has a cleaner, neater look.  It's an easy to implement stock portfolio module away from being the better choice.

But the text sixe problem needs to be fixed.

These applications need to give users a way to permanently set the text size, preferably at the module level.  Sure, I can change text size at the browser level, but that makes every other page look too big.

The first one of these applications to give me a way to permanently set text size will become my primary start page.  I suspect there are scads of other baby boomers like me who also want and need this feature.

I don't understand why it doesn't exist.

At dinner the other night, we were trying to figure out what a cousin once removed is. Nobody was even close.

I don't understand how my cousin's child and my great uncle's child can both be my first cousin once removed.  Someone want to dumb this down for me?

(via Rob Gale)

A mother and her babies, in their nest in an oak tree in our yard.

The New York Times has an article about Twitter.  Before I dive into the substance of the article, let me note that the article is in the Your Money section of the paper.  Once again, folks are trying to divine business from cool.  This is a problem for two reasons.  One, it won't work.  Two, it insults cool.  Cool is cool.

The best thing about the article is that it almost explained to me the difference between a friend and a follower.  I'm not a read the manual kind of guy, so I still don't really know the fine points of that distinction.

Scoble gets some much needed coverage, since it's been at least 15 seconds since we last read about the Michael Jordan of the blogosphere.  I mean that in a good way (Scoble is good at the blogging thing, video camera notwithstanding) and a bad way (Jordan so dominated the NBA during his career than lots of fans got bored with it).

I also learned that Twitter was founded by Evan Williams.  I suppose George Dickel founded Jaiku.  Just kidding.

In the article, Evan sums up what he thinks Twitter should be thustly: "Twitter is best understood as a highly flexible messaging system that swiftly routes messages, composed on a variety of devices, to the people who have elected to receive them in the medium the recipients prefer. It is a technology that encourages a new mode of communication."

Doesn't that sound better than a billboard for A-Listers to broadcast a link to their latest blog post?  Don't we have RSS feeds for that?

It also sounds pretty businessly.  I agree about the new mode of communication part, but let's not forget about the cool part.

As we know, some folks don't like Twitter.  Some cat named Bruce Sterling channeled Emily Bronte and came up with this nugget:

Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite "The Iliad."

Note to Bruce: I suspect most people who fire up a CB are more into Homer Simpson than Homer the Greek.  I suspect most people who fire up Twitter feel the same way.  I also think that's a funny statement coming from a science fiction writer.  Twitter doesn't have to be all PBS to be fun and useful.

It also doesn't have to be a business, since Evan is a "serial entrepreneur who made his fortune by selling Pyra Labs, the creator of Blogger, a popular blog publishing tool, to Google in 2003."  I didn't know that, but I'm glad.  Since he doesn't need the money, maybe Twitter will survive the migration of the herd.

Unfortunately, the Web 2.0 stakeholders are still trying to figure out how to make all these hobbies into businesses.  The article ends  by wondering "whether the service can be made into a sustainable business."

Who cares.  It doesn't matter.

Om Malik points to PhotoShelter, which is offering one terabyte of storage space for $1000 a year.  I just knew someone was going to start talking about Amazon S3, and Jeffrey McManus did- in a comment.

Om then correctly points out that no ordinary person has the slightest idea how to use S3.

Saying end users should use S3 for archival and backup storage is sort of like saying that Batman is giving away free cookies at the Batcave.

I'd want some assurances on what future PhotoShelter rates would be before I uploaded all that data.  I can also tell you from my MediaMaster experiment that uploading that much data would take approximately forever.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, says that MySpace will fail in a few years, though he does appreciate the momentum behind online communities.

He agrees with me that MySpace pages are ugly, saying that they hurt his eyes.  He goes on to say "there's way too much advertising and they're not really respecting their own community."  Once again, that sounds a lot like Geocities.

I don't know if MySpace will die, but I absolutely believe its relevance will diminish over time.  It has huge relevance now because it has so much of the young mindshare in this country- mindshare that advertisers covet.  Mindshare is ferae naturae, however, and no one can lay claim to it.  Just ask AOL.

His comments about MySpace come at the end of an interview about the history of Wikipedia and his new open source search engine project.

Amy bought a cool fan.  I love retro stuff like that.

I really miss Deadwood.  Now comes word that the movies to finish up the stories won't air until 2008, at the earliest.  No BSG in 2007.  No Deadwood.  At least we get a little Mal Reynolds fix via Drive.

James Kendrick doesn't like reading one side of a conversation on Twitter.  He says it "goes against what makes Twitter so appealing."  Amen.  We have the blogosphere for one sided conversations.

I'm not sure, but it looks like Gizmodo makes people audition for the right to post a comment.  No problem.  When I was a kid most of my buddies wanted to be firemen or policemen when we grew up.  Me, I wanted to be a commenter on Gizmodo.

Dave Winer, who is probably just in a pouty mood since he got dropped from my Twitter list, aims his longbow at Valleywag, all because Valleywag had the gall to say that the podcasting boom is over and Apple won.

Are you kidding me?  Nobody won podcasting, because nobody outside of the blogosphere cares a whit about podcasting.  Does anyone who doesn't do a podcast listen to them?  There are geometrically more people getting rich by playing in the NBA than there are getting anywhere close to rich by podcasting.  And Dave wonders if the VC money will bet on podcasting?  Sure, as soon as they take a few street musicians public.  Get your Shakin' Jake Woods bonds here!

Apple won podcasting on the way to claim the bigger mobile audio prize- the same way Sherman won Kennesaw Mountain on the way to Atlanta.

The podcasting boom, such as it was, is over for me.  I tried it for a while and actually got some props for the one I did.  But the effort/reward ratio for podcasting is about as out of whack as it can be.  Fred Wilson, another of my Twitter exiles, tried it and gave it up too, for many of the same reasons.  To be worth the effort, a podcast must have a big audience.  But it's harder by far to create a popular podcast than it is to create a popular blog.  It's a recipe for abandonment.

But anyone who doesn't believe that Apple, via the iPod and its conjoined twin iTunes, has won the battle for the mind of North America (name the movie that quote came from for extra credit) as far as audio to go goes is in denial.  I know a lot of people in the real world who use iTunes.  I know no one in the real world who regularly listens to podcasts.  Yes I know about the northeast and mass transit and commute times and all that.  But what percentage of those folks choose a podcast over music?

So what if Dave invented or thinks he invented podcasting.  Put all the podcasters on one end of a room and the guy who invented Webkinz on the other end.  Set Fred down in the middle and see who he goes to.  VCs are great when it comes to cheerleading- it's the way they seed the fields.  But they get a little pickier at harvest time.  I bet more revenue has been generated from the sale of those stuffed animals in the last month than has been generated by podcasting in the last year- or maybe ever. 

There will always be some popular podcasts, just like there will always be some Tim Duncans and Steve Nashes.  But it's not the place to go looking for an easy buck.

Buying a soon to be retired Webkinz is a much better bet.

I don't get this so-called Google World in which a bunch of geeks sit around and watch some other geeks doing some nerdy and/or mundane activity.  Is this really the highest and best use for the blogosphere?  Is this the way we want to present blogging to the real world?  Next we're going to be dancing around with lightsabers and calling it a documentary.

Do we really want to watch people drive around in their car?  Sure, I did it, with a bunch of other geeks, when Scoble took his little road trip.  But I found it profoundly boring.  More importantly, I don't see any meaningful use for the permanent webcam beyond what traditional web-casting and YouTube already offer.  For one thing, the producers of meaningful content are not going to let some blogger webcast for free what they want others to pay for.  The other stuff is just (what's the opposite of glorified?) home movies.

I'm not dumping on all web-directed video.  To the contrary, I like Scoble's photo shoots with Thomas Hawk.  Mostly because I like to hear Thomas talk about photography.  But there's no reason that sort of thing couldn't be distributed via YouTube.  In other words, there's no need for immediacy that requires us to watch those videos as they happen - or soon thereafter.

If the point is that webcasting your life can be done, fine.  So can building a ship in a bottle, but neither of them are edge of your seat entertainment.  If the point is that these videos are to TV what podcasts (another geeky endeavor that no one outside of the blogosphere gives a hoot about) are to radio, well I don't buy it.  These video things are much more about the glorification of the people in them than they are about entertaining the people who allegedly watch them.

Here's the point I'm getting at:  if it's cool and fun, then let it be cool and fun.  There's not one thing wrong with cool and fun.  But all the alchemy on Techmeme can't turn cool and fun into big business.  If we want the blogosphere to be taken seriously, we simply can't act like a glorified home movie is something important or revolutionary.  It's not- and anyone who isn't in one or hoping to divine gold from one knows that.

It just seems to me that the blogosphere, and particularly that portion of it with an audience, is becoming more tangential every day, when it should be striving to become less tangential.

There are a ton of better things for bloggers to spend their time doing than Trumanizing themselves.  It wasn't all that interesting when Jim Carrey did it.

Put the lightsabers and the webcams down, and go do something useful and interesting.

We went to see Rod Stewart tonight. I knew I liked his early stuff, particularly his work with Faces- a very under-appreciated band. What I had forgotten was how many other good songs he has recorded. I like his early stuff (pre-1980) better, but I enjoyed some of his newer stuff more than I thought I would- particularly his excellent cover of Cat Stevens' Father and Son.

It was a very good show. My favorites were Dirty Old Town, from his first solo record (1969), and Stay With Me, from Faces' A Nod is as Good as a Wink (1971). He played for a solid two hours, and did most of his big hits as well as a few covers, most notably Tom Waits' Waltzing Matilda.

Good stuff.

Mike Miller over at the excellent Be a Good Dad blog tagged me in the Thinking Blogger Awards meme.  Thanks Mike.

Here are 5 blogs that make me think, with a little commentary on each.

1) Nick Carr.  Nick was like beer to me in the blogosphere.  At first I didn't like him at all.  But because all my friends read him and I thought it made me cool, I kept reading him.  Then, all of the sudden, I really started digging him.  Nick can turn a phrase like Cormac McCarthy.  Regardless of whether you agree with him or not, no other blogger writes as well as Nick.

2) Seth Finkelstein.  I admire people who show you how smart they are, almost as much as I dislike people who tell you.  I concluded a long time ago that Seth is smarter than just about anyone else.  And he is spot on most of the time.  No one listens to him, because they don't like his message.  But he stays the course.  I really enjoy his blog. 

3) Susan Getgood.  When something brilliant or stupid happens in the blogosphere, Susan's blog is one of the first places I go for a reasoned, well considered reaction/discussion.  Take this post, for example.  Plus, she is a sci-fi fan.    

4) Wally Bangs.  If Nick Carr is the blogosphere's Cormac McCarthy, Wally is our William Gay.  He is a great southern writer, and as a musician who lived in Nashville back in the 80s, his stories about that era's Nashville music scene are of great interest to me.

5) Doc Searls.  This may come across as pandering to an A-Lister, but I can't do this list and not include Doc.  He is the most insightful tech blogger to ever pound out a post.  And as good as his tech stuff is, his life stuff is better.  Doc has changed my opinion about something in a single post more times than I can count- and those who know me will tell you that my mind is not the easiest thing to change. 

For those of you I tagged above, here are the rules of participation, should you wish to do so:

• If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
• Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
• Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Here's a little link love for my current Twitter list:

BlogBloke
Brad Kellett
Corey Akula
Chris Carfi
Gabe Rivera
James Kendrick
Martin Gordon
Mathew Ingram
Miles Evenson
Randy Morin
Ric Hayman
Richard Querin
Rick Mahn
Steve Gillmor
Stowe Boyd
Susan Getgood
Warner Crocker

People I'd like to add
(If I knew their Twitter ID)

Chip Camden
Dave Wallace
Dwight Silverman
Earl Moore
Ethan Johnson
Frank Gruber
Fraser Kelton
Karl Martino
Mike Miller
Nick Carr
Seth Finkelstein
Steve Newson
Tom Morris
Tom Reynolds
Zoli Erdos

Removed per my Pink Floyd Policy:***

Dave Winer
Fred Wilson
Hugh Macleod
Robert Scoble
Steve Rubel

*** I still subscribe to all of these blogs and, with the exception of Scoble's self-Trumanization, I enjoy them.  As I discussed the other day, I want my Twitter experience to be different from the larger blogosphere- I don't want anyone talking to me unless I have the ability to talk back to them.

Google has signed a deal with Clear Channel Communications that will allow Google to place ads on Clear Channels' radio stations.

Drew Hilles, Google Audio's national sales director says:

This radio partnership with Clear Channel is a pretty big statement that Google is in the radio industry to stay and have a big impact.

Google has extended its online ad dominance by purchasing DoubleClick, and recently reached into the satelitte marke