Archive for February, 2006

I can’t stand commercial FM radio stations. Between the boring playlists, the DJs who talk too much, the incessant commercials, and the lack of a way to know what song or artist is currently playing … yuck. Which is why I’m a satellite-radio customer (Sirius, but not because of Howard Stern). But even though Sirius is oh-so-much-better than FM radio, it’s far from perfect. I find that I flip back and forth between only two stations; the rest go to waste. (Still, I find it worth the money to avoid the commercials. I really despise commercials; it’s been that way ever since I bought a TiVo and discovered I didn’t have to put up with them any longer.)

So, anyway, thanks to Steffen, I just tried out Pandora. And I’m in love with it. Wow! This is what radio should be. The service (free with commercials — though I’ve yet to hear any — or $36 a year ad-free) allows you to create your own radio stations (up to 100). Create a new station; put in a song you really like; then Pandora creates a radio station that plays songs similar to it. You can add more songs to tweak the station’s music selections, and give a thumbs-up or -down to songs as they play.

Here’s the best part: You can skip a song if you don’t like it (but only so many an hour; that’s a licensing restriction forced on Pandora by the music industry). Still, I can’t do that with Sirius. And my custom-made Pandora stations are so much more satisfying than what Sirius offers, since I guide the selection.

Of course, you can’t yet get Pandora on your car radio. But when that’s eventually possible, satellite-radio companies will have some tough competition. As it is, I’m beginning to question the value of Sirius, since (pre-Pandora) I listened to it more on my PC than in the car. My PC is now tuned to Pandora and probably will stay there. (And next on my wish list: a Squeezebox to get Pandora radio stations on my home stereo.)

Projo.com has a nice story about 8th graders as they prepare for the coming transition to high school. (That’s a topic near and dear; my oldest daughter starts high school next fall.) But check out the story’s online layout. Ugh.

The four photos of the kids profiled (all with braces! mine, too) are stationary on the page. Use the scroll bar to move down the text and they stay in the same place. Problem is, on my screen at least, you can’t see the bottom part of the lower two photos, and can’t scroll to bring it into view. Also, it’s not intuitive that the scroll bar is how you move down the narrow strip of text in the middle. (And I think the text column is too narrow to read comfortably.) Don’t do this on your site.

This one’s worth sharing. It’s been making the e-mail rounds. (Not sure where it originated, or I’d give credit.)

I love Flickr. If you’ve used the photo service (now owned by Yahoo!), I’ll be surprised if you don’t too. A great thing about Flickr is its API, which allows programmers to gather and parse data from Flickr and incorporate it into their own applications. (An example of that is on this very blog; click the Photos tab at the top of the page to see my Flickr photos within this blog.)

Michael Carole of WebMonkey has compiled his “Ten Best Flickr Mashups.” Some fun stuff here, including Captioner, which lets you put a cartoon text balloon inside a photo on Flickr. Enjoy!

“Elizabeth Vargas to Go One-on-One With Bush,” proclaims ABCNews.com. The ABC News co-anchor gets an interview with the U.S. president on Tuesday at the White House.

I hope the tone of that promotional headline is accurate, because I’d really like to see a journalist be seriously confrontational with Bush, who has much to answer for. This interview could be pivotal for Vargas’ career.

If she wimps out and throws too many softballs at George, then she’ll lose my respect. I’ve seen her in a few other interviews asking hard questions, and refraining from the dumb ones. Vargas is my favorite network anchor these days; I really hope she will take the gloves off for this one.

FOLLOW-UP: (2-28) I watched the Bush-Vargas interview tonight on ABC News, and felt she did a credible job. Hard-hitting it wasn’t. But then, Bush is a master at deflecting questions and not owning up to even the most obvious mistakes, so I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much. Vargas didn’t embarrass herself, but neither did she make much of a splash.

Is there anyone who doesn’t know that The Daily Show With Jon Stewart is a fake news program? Oh, yeah.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, went into a recent interview with Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones and had no idea that the interview was a joke. The poor governor thus comes off looking like a chump.

I always wondered where Daily Show correspondents find people to interview who seem unaware that they’re being set up. Apparently that’s not so difficult.

A colleague in Norway clued me in on Ricky Gervais’ podcast. Gervais, who played the bizarre boss in the British version of The Office, just completed a 12-part podcast show that became, apparently, the most-downloaded podcast ever. The show features a 3-way conversation between Gervais, “Office” co-writer and actor Stephen Merchant, and “unemployed radio producer” Karl Pilkington.

Considering that the show is nothing more than 3 guys talking, you wouldn’t expect much. But it’s really funny, thanks mostly to the presence of Pilkington, whose dry wit comes across in a “village idiot” sort of way — and Gervais and Merchant take great joy in making Karl look even more the fool than Karl does to himself. Somehow through all the abuse, Pilkington never gets cross.

So, after 12 free podcast episodes, the lads have decided to cash in. (Can’t blame them.) In episode No. 12, Gervais says it’s because the productions are costing them money and they need to make some — mostly to support Karl, who’s jobless. (Wink, wink.)

The next dozen episodes will cost, apparently, $1.95 each via Audible.com or Apple’s iTunes Store.

Hmmm. As much as I’ve enjoyed wasting 30-odd minutes a week listening to Gervais & Co., I’m not sure if I’ll pay. I have no problem paying for online entertainment — like $1.99 for an episode of Battlestar Gallactica or Lost — but the Gervais threesome doesn’t seem worth as much. Why don’t they just find a sponsor? Or charge a more rational fee like 50 cents? Methinks this is a mistake.

I’ve been blogging for many years, on a weblog called E-Media Tidbits, which is published by the Poynter Institute. I started Tidbits (in 2000) with co-blogger Amy Gahran to cover the new-media scene, but when I went to work for Poynter in 2001 (as senior editor), Tidbits went to Poynter, too, and we then added a bunch more co-bloggers. As its editor, I wrote more than anyone else and considered it to be “my blog.”

Now that I’ve left Poynter (February 2006) to focus on a new business, I’ve started this, my own blog, just for me. What fun! Not employed by a revered journalism institution, now I don’t need to be so careful about what I write! If a political opinion slips in, that’s OK now; blogging for Poynter, it was imperative that I remained neutral. (Journalists can’t express “opinions”; that’s for non-affiliated bloggers. 8^)

Anyway, welcome to my SteveOuting.com blog. Its content will be a mixture of stuff, but I’ll probably stick closely to my areas of expertise: new media, online news, citizen journalism, etc. I’ll often write about my experience building the citizen-media-driven sports websites of the Enthusiast Group, which are for people who are passionate about their sports. My passion is mountain biking (and also road biking, and running when I can manage it without getting injured), so I may blog about that, too.

I remain an occasional contributor to E-Media Tidbits, but this will be my main blogging outlet. Welcome!