Dec 2007
26
Episode 17 – December 26 & 29, 2007
Posted by Dan Misener under Episodes
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Note: As part of Spark’s holiday programming, segments from this episode have aired previously. Think of it as a remix.
On this episode of Spark:
- Spark listeners watch TV on demand
- Matthew Cashmore on the shared experience of television (full interview)
- Nora mentions Amazon’s Kindle
- Nora and Cathi Bond watch a giant outdoor television
- Another story of email sender regret
- Nora asks, “Do you ever email yourself?”
- Peter Rukavina explains living with a Nabaztag WiFi-enabled rabbit (full interview)
- Anand Giridharadas explains outsourcing 2.0
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- “Oslodum 2004” by DJ Dolores
- “airtone/sp2-tr4/”>sp2 tr4″ by airtone
- “38486 potroub beatave7” by potroub
- “100707 beatbox 01” by Nurykabe
- “The (New) Call of the Freaks” by Luis Russell & His Orchestra
- “Lavender Hip Mob” by Lee Rosevere
Download the MP3, or subscribe to the podcast.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Firstly, happy New Year to all the Spark crew.
In the spirit of “on demand”, however, have you considered partitioning your online published mp3 files, and your podcast, into individual segments? This would allow listeners to access individual sections/topics of the program “on demand”. Yes I realize that it requires a little more work on the part of the webmaster and/or podcaster, but I think it would benefit listeners who are trying to find a particular item within an episode, greatly.
There is even a preceedant: the Quirks and Quarks podcast is available both in full episode and individual segment forms.
Great show one and all! Keep up the good work, and I look forward to lots more of Spark in 2008.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:26 am
Happy New Year!
I enjoyed this episode. It was fun to listen “on demand” on my mp3 player. Just as the internet changed ways we all commnicate and inter-relate, “on demand” delivery is going to change the way we experience the arts and culture.
I’m interested in what will become of the “watercooler”, both in virtual life and non-virtual-life, as we all expand into so many niches for media.
January 1st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Gurdonark, I can’t tell you how many people have told me how much they enjoy being able to listen to the whole show on demand. It’s been great to offer it. I know what you mean, though, Charles. I remember before we launched the show, we talked about the ‘Quirks’ model. I’ll mention it at the next story meeting, and see what the scoop is.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
Hey Charles,
We had a chat about posting individual segments. What we’re hoping is that people can use Dan’s ’show notes’ to navigate the show. Each full item is about 5 minutes long, and Dan lists them in the order they appear on the show, so if you’re interested in a particular item, you can scroll through that way. Ideally, it would be great to post each item separately, for sure, but we have to think about the most effective use of our limited resources, particularly since we’re hoping to expand our web presence in the new year. Hope that helps! ny
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
I wanted to share a few thoughts on Amazon’s Kindle.
As you mentioned, it does seem odd to try and produce a better reading technology for e-books, when it seems like so many people are so happy with good old’ paper books. However, as someone involved in book digitization and libraries, I want to just mention that there are a host of other benefits to e-books, such as: full text indexing of content for discovery, availability of content to researchers, and new forms of research using data mining and analytics. Albeit, the Kindle is not about these types of use, but I just wanted to differentiate some of these other uses associated with the infamous e-book.
Another area that I think is interesting to watch is relationship between our cultural content (in this case books) and the technology through which it is delivered. This relationship seems to be having some interesting effects on the creation and distribution of content. For example, business models like the Kindle’s lock content to a proprietary delivery ecosystem. The biggest complaint I have come across has little to do with the reading or navigation functionality of the Kindle, and more to do with the rights management and content restrictions. Much like the ipod, the Kindle allows you to conveniently buy, store and read content at will, but is less than open when it comes to interoperability and transferring your content to other devices or services. I also wonder why Amazon didn’t go further and incorporate audio and visual content. It almost seems like they rushed the Kindle to market before sorting out some of these other business/content issues. (Of course, with Google lurking in the background with its digitization of about 20 million books in the next 6 years, Amazon must be a little bit nervous about their future role in e-readers and mobile content delivery).
Love the show.
Sam Generoux
February 16th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
[...] edited version of the interview will appear on Episode 17 of Spark. Click above to listen to the full interview, or download the [...]