(Hear the MP3, which contains far more detail.)

New Shows

• True Voice: The Profession of Blogging (rated 2.9). In this premiere show, host Stowe Boyd talks with professional bloggers Darren Barefoot and Jeremy Wright, who originally met by selling their blogging services via eBay. What does it mean to be a professional blogger? How is blogging distinct from journalism or corporate PR? What are the ethics of professional blogging?
• Clark Aldrich – Simulations and the Future of Learning (rated 3.6). Clark is the co-founder of SimuLearn and the author of, Simulations and the Future of Learning. He recently lead the team that created Virtual Leader, the first ever learning experience to follow the development cycle of a modern computer game. It has been sold to some of the largest enterprises in the United States.
• Search is a Platform. Where is it Going? (rated 3,3). Search is an application that binds the web’s economic, interface, and partnership landscape. Through search, companies like Google and Yahoo have built extraordinarily scaled platforms that have evolved into next generation web-based applications like mail, hosting, and, some claim, an entire OS. John Battelle moderates a panel of search-engine experts who explore the future of search as an application platform.
• Kent Seamons – Negotiating Trust (too late for rating). How do you establish trust between between strangers on the Internet? Identity federation is one way to create a community of trust, but it relies on establishing the trust domains before the interaction. That doesn’t work for many Internet transactions. In an all-new IT Conversations series, Phil Windley interviews Professor Kent Seamons who exploes in depth some specific ways of solving this problem.
• David Bodanis (too late for rating). This week on TechNation, Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with David Bodanis, a writer for Popular Science and the author of Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity. This time around he’s explaining man’s fascination with electricity — from entertainment in the courts of French Kings to the modern day.
• Sir Roger Penrose (too late for rating). Moira also speaks with Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Professor of Mathmatics, Oxford University. He shares the Wolf Prize with Stephen Hawking. They’ll discuss his new book, Road to Reality — A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe.
• Tim Cook (too late for rating). And in this week’s BioTech Nation segment, Moira speaks with Tim Cook, managing director of Isis Innovation. Tim tells us how university scientists view industry, and vice-versa.
• And one of my favorite shows from the archives: Ito and Zuckerman – Emergent Democracy Worldwide (rated 3.9!) While we’re building great new tools to build communities, we’ve done very little to ensure that people around the world have access to them. And even when we’ve made it possible for people in developing nations to speak, we’ve done little to ensure that anyone listens. How do we ensure that the “Second Superpower” Jim Moore proposes includes the poor as well as the rich? When a new democratic structure emerges from highly-wired westerners, how do we ensure it’s fair and just for those currently unwired? The answer is more complex than bridging the so-called “digital divide” – it involves bridging countless cultural divides. Emerging technologies make it easier than ever to bring first-person perspectives, as well as images, movies and music to people in other nations – is this enough to bring cultures together and ensure they care about one another?

Other Stuff

• Help Wanted: Producers, Editors and Engineers. Help produce IT Conversations and make some spare change, too.
• SXSW/ETech Double Header. You’ll be able to hear both events here on IT Conversations.
• The Washington Post on Podcasting. IT Conversations was mentioned briefly in the Washington Post in an introductory article by Leslie Walker.
• ITC in the Dow Jones Online Retail Report. We’re mentioned there, too.
• Christopher Lydon Returns to Radio and Podcasting. It was listening to Chris that got me started.