K.Mo's Blog

So you want to reach an unlimited audience, have complete control of a broadcast, and get free promotion? Time to Podcast! Podcasts are a natural extension of blogs. They are just another medium to spout your commentary, music, and interviews. If you’re interested in podcasting, I’ll explain why now is the best time to get started.

Hardware has never been cheaper and software has never been more intuitive. Studio-quality microphones are now just about $100. Apple has refined audio making software to the point where mere novices can produce professional-quality results via their GarageBand software. It’s even designed to create podcasts.

Here’s how I created my podcast studio:

• Samson G Track USB Microphone and Audio Interface
• 1/8 inch lineout connector
• Griffin SmartTalk Headphone Adapter with Control and Mic for iPhone

Other items I already had included Sony Studio Headphones
and a Mac with Garageband. The Samson G Track microphone gives me the studio-quality recording sound, and the Griffin SmartTalk extension enables me to use my podcast studio to make interviews possible in really high-quality. That’s because cellphones now are digital, and routing the audio through the built-in mixer of the G Track allows very little noise to enter the audio via its USB interface. Tom Keene uses this method a lot for interviewing faraway economists on his Bloomberg Radio shows. I remember being awestruck when I interviewed Bill Rock in his studio space in his home. Bill Rock is an announcer and video producer. He announced for NBC and now for Sirius XM. His studio is crammed with mixers and video/audio equipment. I just have a desk.

There are a lot of resources on the Web to help get you started with podcasting. Apple shows you how to make a podcast here. O’Reilly has an article about proper microphone usage and other tips. Of course, with all the help and easy-to-install hardware, there’s gotta be a rub. Here it is: posting a podcast is not easy. You need your own Web host, you need to edit XML files, which will be unfamiliar to many, and there is a lot of work that goes into producing a podcast. You need intro music, outro music, topics to talk about, guests (or music), editing time, and you need to promote it. Apple does help you out here though. If your podcast is interesting and good enough, they will feature your podcast on iTunes – for FREE. This is how I found a lot of great podcasts including the DJ Cruze Podcast and Adam Carolla Podcast.

In all, it’s a lot of work, but it’s an exciting hobby. With some time and creativity you can produce the type of show you always wanted to hear – your own.

Audio Commentary

Click the play button below to listen…

Filed under: New Media, Podcasting, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
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It’s a milestone for Web, Web 2.0, and the digital revolution. Facebook is now cashflow positive. Some people might think with Facebook now reporting 300 million users, it would seem impossible not to make money given the size of the user base. It might seem cheap to host a Web site, but given the infrastructure need to operate a site with 300 million users, it seems a feat to now be cashflow positive after five and a half years.

So you might think, “Hey, I’ve got a Web site, it’s not expensive to run one of those.” To run something like Facebook you need hundreds of servers, backup servers, networking equipment, engineers, lawyers, media people, PR people, a warehouse for servers, backup generators, and the list goes on. As Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, mentions, “the ratio of Facebook users to Facebook engineers makes it so that every engineer here is responsible for more than one million users. It’s hard to have an impact like that anywhere else.” I attribute the efficiency to the PHP language and open source databases like MySQL that Facebook utilizes.

Facebook is NOT using Microsoft tools or software. However, Microsoft owns a significant portion of Facebook. In fact, owning a portion of Facebook, I believe, will be their best business decision yet. Why? Growing competition from Apple, a downturn in the economy, the threat of the upcoming Google Chrome operating system, and the growing popularity of open source software.

Okay, so Facebook is running smoothly and bringing in money, what’s in store for us now and why is it important that Facebook makes money? Facebook is Web 2.0. It represents everything Web 2.0 does well. It connects people via the Web in a social way, it easily enables sharing of information, photos, videos, and ideas. Facebook pioneers new technologies like the Facebook iPhone Application, Facebook Applications, Facebook Connect, iPhoto integration, and software code to handle 300 million users and do so with speed. With Facebook staying in business, we are likely to see their vision of a unified login come to the Web – something Microsoft tried and failed at implementing. With a unified login, everything on the Web gets easier, including posting comments on this blog, shopping carts, digital IDs, and the like. The Web needs pioneers, and they need a reason to keep innovating. Finally, Web 2.0 can represent the age where the Web makes money.

Filed under: Social Media, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
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On August 12th, 2009 the Los Angeles Times became a newspaper again. They did something I always thought should happen for years – make a news site that looks like an easy-to-read  print newspaper.

Have you ever been to a news site and wondered what’s  the top story? You never had to guess in print editions. They always had large, bold type and a large photo. I’m glad to see this change. News must be prioritized. For years, newspaper Web sites tried to look like Web sites instead of online newspapers. For hundreds of years, printers and publishers fine-tuned fonts and colors and typfaces for maximum readibility. It seemed that when newspapers first went online all of that knowledge escaped into the digital ether.

There are many stand-out features of the new site. The large, classic typeface of the masthead in black gives the site a sense of authority. It’s fairly unobstructed and the technology of the Web doesn’t seem to impede the news. The date is large and easy-to-read. Something new to me – the time stamp. On the Web, time matters because news changes constantly. Photos are especially crisp and detailed. Ads are well-placed. Navigation and section headers are black and white. The footer contains quick links that are nicely organized.  I like the font buttons that allow you increase or decrease the font. That’s not a  new feature on the Web, but a lot of news sites don’t include it or they don’t place the buttons well. This LA Times blog post by editors further describes the major changes.

The new latimes.com site also features the Web 2.0 tools necessary for promotion – social boomarking / linking, send to a friend, article comments, etc. Via comments, letters to the editor are now instant. Others can comment on your comments in real time. URLs contain story titles and keywords to make them easy to index by search engines. And while these are not “new” features, it’s usually the implementation of technology that separates good products from stellar products.

At first glance of other news sites like nytimes.com and chron.com, you seem lost. Where is the information hierarchy? In fact, the Houston Chronicle doesn’t even go by the name Houston Chronicle on their own Web site. It’s called chron.com. The masthead and fonts are different. The colors lack authority. It seems like there’s no brand. What the Houston Chronicle does get right, however, is recognizing their audience.

Looking at the Los Angeles Times Web site, would you think LA County contains a 47% Hispanic population? The Houston Chronicle has articles in Spanish and English. Even a Hispanic blogger. To be fair, I haven’t read all Los Angeles Times’ online articles over the years, but looking around the site it didn’t seem apparent there are any or a portion of the articles about Hispanic culture that reflect the demographics. As a white person who works in Hispanic marketing, I can tell you companies are eager to market to Hispanics and recognize their buying power and influence on American culture. Companies know they are behind in marketing to Hispanics, and it seems time newspapers do the same. Of course, given the that Tribune Company is on its financial knees, I understand the business decisions for this choice.

With so many competitors in the online news space, I can’t see one that competes with latimes.com. The designers and editors seem to have implemented everything that makes the Web powerful as a medium while harnessing the visual and hierarchical qualities that make print editions appealing. Which leads me to write something I never thought I would: long live print.

Filed under: New Media, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
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When two people I know died and I witnessed the online support of friends and family that followed, I realized that social media can create a sort of digital cemetery. In real life, visiting a cemetery can be a social activity. With social media Web sites like Facebook, activities like visiting a cemetery can be mimicked.

When you create a Facebook Group, you enable family and friends to share stories, photos, and discuss the deceased person with others. With the United States being so large and people spread out in cities all over the world, it can be challenging to visit a cemetery. Like other tasks with social media, visiting a digital cemetery is very fast. Where else can you visit a cemertery 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Certainly visiting a digital cemetery isn’t scary at night.

While the permanency of Web sites can be debated, there’s no reason to assume a digital cemetery should be any less permanent than a real one. Gravestones in real cemeteries wear out and the text can become illegible. Placed flowers will wilt and die. Digital flowers and text never get blown away, discolored or vandalized. All digital cemeteries need are a Web host and a miniscule amount of storage space for photos and text.

Social media sites enable you to have so much more than a gravestone. You can present a photo of the deceased person as they looked in their prime. You can support causes the deceased person supported in life, like the Red Cross. You can post video, literally bringing the person back to life.

A co-worker of mine was recently murdered. Friends built him a Facebook Group page, and my company asked my to build a custom blog where employees could share stories. On the blog I linked to the Facebook group, and the Facebook group linked to blog I created. Friends also created a Facebook Group to help track down the murderer.

I encourage you to create a Facebook Group or similar site for passed loved ones. Harness the evergreen capabilities of the Web to honor people you care about and create a lasting impression of someone’s life.

Filed under: Social Media, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
Tags: « Facebook »
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