Aztec Media

The Podcast & New Media Expo (PNME) 2007 slides from the "Getting Started With Audacity" session have been posted. 

Some notes:

• These slides are a PDF output from Apple's Keynote. 
• There is a QuickTime movie version of the presentation that will be posted soon but it will not have the audio recorded during the presentation sync'd in.  The movie version has all the screen casts used during the presentation.
• The audio for the presentation is still under the control of PNME. If you were a conference attendee then you should get a link to the audio as part of your conference fee. Ultimately the audio for all the sessions will get posted over the next 8-9 months to Gigavox Media's Podcast Academy channel.
• Sometime in the future, complete screen casts of each topic will be produced and posted.
• More information on the PNME Forums and previous AztecMedia.net post.

Feedback, comments, suggestions, etc. appreciated: [email protected].

It is probably a good sign that you are on to something when the Wall Street Journal has a front page article published on Oct. 6, 2007 examining short Lego animation "brick films" being created and posted to sites like YouTube.

The first one they highlighted was called "Cognizance" and it is a short 3 minute story of a hit man making a key decision as a song from Coldplay plays in the background.

If you check out the link above you'll find more Lego movies on YouTube.  I also found several Star Wars ones over at Blip.TV.

Here is a first round of post New Media Expo (NME) 2007 pointers:

• Technorama's "Remember When Segment" from Computer History Museum
• Chuck Tomasi will co-write the 2nd edition of Podcasting For Dummies [video, farpoint media]
• Steve Riekeberg @ GeekCred is now a member of FriendsInTech.com
• Flickr Photos
• Friends In Tech Roundtable: audio and/or video

In case you missed it, two mainstream media icons have released new podcast material: SESAME STREET and 60 Minutes.  It is great to see these groups going after audiences in a way that is outside traditional methods.

If you don't quite get Second Life, then there are two new books that are coming out that might help:

• secondlife: the official guide (coming Jan. 22, 2008)
• creating your world: the offiical guide to advanced content creation for second life (coming Oct. 22, 2007)

According to Future Tense Podcast there are now two organizations that have recently started up to help define how future advertising should be integrated into downloaded media like audio and video podcasts.

The groups are:

• Association of Downloadable Media
• Association of Podcasters and Online Media Producers

There are some interesting related comments from Eric Rice and Podcast Brothers.  I think the concept is good and something that should be monitored for those interested in taking advertising for their new media content.

There is also a very interesting thread related to this topic called "How To For New Media Makers" that has some interesting ideas worth digging into.

I really enjoyed VentureCast#21 that included reviews of Web 2.0, NAB, and an update on what is going on at Six Apart.

I also have to recommend Chris Gondek's Invisible Hand Podcast interview with Philip Meza about his book "Coming Attractions: Hollywood, High Tech, and the Future of Entertainment".

An article in the business section of the San Diego Union-Tribune for Sat., May 5, 2007 had a pretty detailed summary of the recent news that Microsoft & Yahoo are reportedly in close negotiation to work together to combat Google's online advertising leadership.

The article sited the following from a research firm called eMarketer that I thought was interesting.  In 2006, for everly $100 spent in online advertising: Google got $25, Yahoo got $18, and Microsoft got around $7.  In addition, eMarketer is projecting that in 2007 Google is poised to raise their take of that $100 spent to $32.  Wow!

PC World for April 2007 had a round down of some current and near-future WI-FI enabled media players that competes with the Music Gremlin that I thought was interesting to note:

• SanDisk Sansa Connect with support for Zing
• iRiver (player name TBD) with support for Rhapsody
• Archos 604 Wi-Fi and the Archos 704 Wi-Fi
• Polaroid (player name TBD) with support for Polaroid's DEC1000 media server
• AOL (player name TBD) with support for Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo

The article also noted that Microsoft Zune has limited Wi-Fi features that could be opened up for more functionality.

Seagate's Digital Audio and Video Experience (DAVE) looks like an interesting mobile media player  on paper.  You can get see a video demo over at Gizmodo.

Core features: wirelessly share media via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi; storage up to 20-GBs; form factor of 3.5-by-4.7-by-0.5-inches; and an estimated cost of $150.