As I move closer to commiting to Drupal for the new project, it’s time to start finding some help. If you’re an experienced Drupal developer (at any level of expertise) and you’d like to develop anything from site customization to custom modules and nodetypes to support IT Conversations, please get in touch at doug@itconversations.com. Everything we do will go back into GPL open source.

The big news in the podcasting world today is that Adam Curry and Ron Bloom have secured $8.85 million in venture investment for Podshow, and Odeo has received an unnanounced amount as well. But the most significant observation may be who it is that is making these investments. In particular, both John Doerr and Ray Lane will take seats on the Podshow board of directors.

As individuals, VCs can only sit on a limited number of boards. It’s a time-consuming activity, trying to nurse along a suite of startups. The fact that Doerr and Lane have not only decided to invest but to commit their time, means they believe there’s something very big here. What is that thing? I think they see that tiny Podshow has the potential to disrupt the entertainment industry in the same way as Amazon and eBay have disrupted commerce. Take this very seriously! With the guidance of KPCB, Sequoia and others, they’ve got to be planning to replace the NBCs, ABCs, Viacoms and major record labels of the world. Trust me. John Doerr isn’t going to waste his time on the board of some nascent startup unless they’re aiming their sights on something this big. John and Ray must believe it’s possible, and the rest of us would be foolish to think it’s not.

As for Odeo, I think Ev and Noah will have no trouble doing for podcasting what they did for blogging. They won’t displace the NBCs of the world, but they will build a business with real value that will be a healthy acquisition target. It’s almost a no-brainer for them, although I know they and the Odeo team are working their butts off to make it happen.

Podcasting is now on the radar.

That title sounds a bit too authoritative, so let me begin by saying that although I’m by no means an expert on public radio, I was involved with radio in the ’60s, I worked in television news in the ’70s, and I’ve been talking to many people in commercial and public radio over the past few months. I was initially reluctant to express my opinions on the topic because I thought they might be hurtful to people I care about. But as I’ve been stewing over this for the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize that what I think and what I’ve written here isn’t going to “make it so.” I’m merely describing what I see as an inevitable transformation. [I’ve also given given everyone mentioned in this article a chance to comment on it.]

Unfortunately, I see Chris Lydon’s new PRI show, Open Source, as the poster child for this transformation. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the show, and I listen to almost every edition on my iPod. But Chris and his team have launched what may be the last of the old-time public-radio programs, and they’ve aimed it right at the middle of the black hole that will swallow them and the rest of public radio: the Internet and podcasting. I think Open Source may be a catalyst for its own defeat.

This started for me when I blogged about Doc’s suggestion that we all call our local public radio stations and request they carry the new show. It took me no time at all to realize how little sense that made. There’s no doubt that if KQED-FM were to broadcast the show at all, it would be at some obscure time of day when I wasn’t likely to listen. No, that’s not even correct. There’s no time of day that would be good for me. I don’t plan my days around a radio or TV schedule because, quite frankly, I don’t need to. I have an iPod and I can listen to what I want, where I want and when I want. And given that there’s already more good programming than I have time for, anyone who doesn’t make it easy for me by providing an RSS feed with enclosures simply won’t make the cut. Even in my car, unless it’s just a trip to the grocery store, I no longer tune in a broadcast station.

[In response to my earlier post on the subject, Brendan Greely, one of Chris’ producers, pointed out that “there are a lot of people who would enjoy the conversation who wouldn’t otherwise hear it; these are people who might be convinced in the future to listen to a podcast, of this or any show.” His point was well taken, and I did ultimately let KQED-FM know that this was an important show which they certainly should carry.]

Two events then really drove this home for me. The first was a trip to Boston/Cambridge a few weeks ago to discuss plans for a future venture with some very smart people. Among them were Jake Shapiro of PRX and Robert Lyons and Eli Ingraham of the WGBH Forum Network. At WGBH I got a full tour of the facilities of this bastion of public broadcasting, and I was struck by two divergent observations. First, this is a very large and expensive operation. Second, it’s essentially the same as radio was in the 1960s. Robert and Eli understand this. Robert has been at WGBH for (I think) more than 20 years, and if anything, his Forum Network is one of the few really new projects in public radio that is trying to bring the community into the picture.

But they are up against the Innovator’s Dilemma. If you haven’t read that book by Clay Christensen, you really should. As it applies in this instance, the dilemma is that the established organizations can only approach innovation on the basis of protecting their current way of operating. The future of public radio may not be podcasting, but it will certainly be based on much lower-cost methods of producing and distributing most programs, and as incumbents in the industry, the WGBHs of the world are unable to cannibalize their own operations to the extent they must to survive. To do so would mean walking away from all the buildings and studios and firing 80% of the staff. Just as 3.5″ disk drives replaced the 5″ drives at a far lower price/performance ratio, so will the new public radio produce and distribute programs at a far lower cost. And it won’t be done by the same organizations.

The second event was a recent article in The New York Times about Chris’ show, Open Source. From listening to the on-air credits, I already knew that the show had a staff of perhaps 7-9 people even if not all of them are paid (much) and don’t work full time. But The Times reported that the show has a $1 million budget, and I said, “Sheesh! That’s a lot of money.” Now I’ve worked on $100+ million dollar films, and in TV news, and I know how easy it is to spend that kind of money. But I’ve also produced 600 programs and distributed them as podcasts and spent next to nothing. Even if I paid the team and myself decent salaries, my costs would be a mere fraction of Chris’ budget.

Radio and TV are going to have to adjust to a new economy: the economy in which the long tail plays a major role. The music industry is painfully making this transformation now. The movie business is fighting the change in classic innovators-dilemma style. TV doesn’t know what to do. Its viewers are leaving in droves, and the three major networks’ reaction so far is to reduce not only the cost but also the quality of programs through the reality-TV and tabloid formulas. Those are just that industry’s way of denying the inevitable trap it’s in.

In commercial radio we see the migration to the two models of talk and formulaic music. As others have said, there’s no humanity left. Commercial stations will die the same way some of the telecoms bit the dust: They’re competing for a limited base of customers with undifferentiated commodity products. It’s ironic that the broadcast spectrum is a scarce resource yet those with license to use it are writing their own death warrants by using it so inefficiently.

Public radio is on the same path. Sure, it’s made worse by the facts that the Bush administration wants to rip the guts out of it, and that NPR and the local stations are always fighting over money and control. But the real problem is coming from the fact that listeners want long-tail time-shifted content. They want to hear programs that are more meaningful to them, and they want to listen at their convenience. The entire broadcast-radio system, with its distribution, simply can’t provide what the customers want. It’s not a flaw of management. There are very good people doing the best that can be done. The problem is inherent and systemic.

Podcasting is to public radio what Garage Band and Pro Tools are to the music industry. Large recording studios are closing left and right because musicians — good ones — can produce great music in small project studios or even in their apartments. Moby is just one of the better-known examples. But more important than the stars are all the lesser-known artists. Because of iTunes and GarageBand.com, a significant portion of the market is shifting towards the long tail. The traditional music industry can only survive to the extent that it can support these new forms of production and distribution, and the same is true for public radio.

If there was one bright light on the public-radio portion of my Boston/Cambridge trip, it was my visit with Jake Shapiro at PRX. Although their short-term function is to operate a marketplace where producers and stations can sell and buy programming, my sense is that Jake and his team are acutely aware of the larger changes needed in public radio, and I think they’re worth watching to see how they might play the role of the newcomer that replaces the incumbents. They match Clay Christensen’s scenario perfectly.

As conference season ramps up, IT Conversations will be producing and publishing up to 12 programs each week, and to do this we need your help. If you would like to join Team ITC, our volunteers who produce IT Conversations progams for you in their spare time, now is your chance. We need:

• Editors who write our descriptions and process the photos, and
• Engineers who do the post-production audio editing and mixing

You’ll find more details here.

Current and upcoming series in production include:

• OSCON
• Where 2.0
• BlogHer
• Pop!Tech 2005
• Accelerating Change 2005

And many more. To volunteer, please email me at doug@itconversations.com.

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs This Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• John Lupton (rated 3.2 by IT Conversations listeners) On last week’s Biotech Nation segment, Dr. Moira Gunn spoke with John Lupton, the CEO of MedCare Systems, Sydney, Australia, who tells us about technology which keep us healthier and out of the hospital.
• Scott Kriens – In Search of Intelligence (3.3) The Chairman and CEO of Juniper Networks talks about the challenges and opportunities surrounding networking today. How can we improve the user experience by optimizing the infrastructure between applications and users? Can we reduce the latency and increase the throughput of the network while ensuring high availability? Scott argues that the network should act as a resource and a source of intelligence to optimize the behavior and the performance of applications.
• Applications for a Mobile, Connected World (3.4) Everyday people are participating in media and it’s the Internet that has made it all happen. From the early days of amazon.com encouraging readers to post reviews to today’s world of podcasts and blogs, personal publishing has become mainstream. This panel discussion from Supernova 2005 features the folks behind the applications that let us all create our own media.
• Buzz Aldrin on Larry’s World (3.5) "I’m not interested in bungy jumping off a bridge," states one of the world’s greatest astronauts, Buzz Aldrin. At age 75, Buzz now runs a rocket design company, SCUBA dives the world’s oceans, skis, and shares his passion for space exploration, lecturing around the world. IOW, Buzz still lives life to the fullest. In this timely edition of Larry’s World, Buzz talks to host Larry Magid about everything from hearing aids to the latest technology in aeronautics.
• Adam Curry on Podcasting (3.7) He’s the Podfather: one of the creators and the leading evangelist of podcasting. Behind the scenes, he is now pulling together and commercializing many podcast-related services, websites, podcasts and directories. In this interview with host Rob Greenlee, Adam discusses his early days in radio and at MTV in the ’80s. He talks about leaving the broadcast world to pursue his true passions. Adam goes into detail about his early work with the websites webcasting, blogging and audioblogging.
• Anna Nagurney at MeshForum 2005 (3.7) What is common between web traffic and transportation? If a path always has heavy traffic, will building a bypass or an alternative path help, or will it worsen it? How do you use network theory to solve transportation and water supply problems? How is the study of networks helpful in solving complex problems in finance and economics? Anna Nagurney answers these questions in her presentation at MeshForum 2005.
• John Valliant (3.7) Dr. Moira Gunn spoke with John Valliant, a freelance writer and serial adventurer, who told her the tale of a single genetic exception: The Golden Spruce, and its encounter with man and technology.
• Susan Casey (3.8) Moira also speaks with Time editor Susan Casey about the Farallones, the islands barely visible from San Francisco, and the surprising science they’re now telling us about the great white shark. Susan is the author of "Devil’s Teeth — A True Story of Obsession and Survival among America’s Great White Sharks."
• Tim O’Reilly – MySQL Users Conference (3.9) We are moving into a new world where everything is interconnected, where the Internet is the platform and where software is a service. Welcome to the new paradigm that is Web 2.0. Tim O’Reilly uses the MySQL User Conference to present another verse of his popular O’Reilly’s Radar talk. Find out what the alpha geeks have been up to and why the future belongs to data.
• Andrew Morton – The Linux Kernel (3.9) Andrew Morton described the Linux kernel development process, how the Linux kernel actually comes to be, how features are chosen, and how the development, test and release cycle is managed. He explains how commercial Linux distributions such as Red Hat and SuSE fit into this process. Andrew also explains the motivations of kernel developers and why the Linux kernel development process (and open source development model in general) are better than most commercial software development processes.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a terrific session from the SDForum’s Distinguished Speaker Series:

• Kent Beck – Developer Testing (3.8) Developer testing is rapidly catching on as an extremely effective way to improve software quality and productivity. Kent, the father of eXtreme Programming (XP) delivered this keynote presentation at the Developer Testing Forum.

Two weeks ago I asked for your feedback regarding the audio version of the weekly IT Conversations Updates. After receiving only one comment, I decided to ask again, and this time I received nearly one hundred email messages. Of course, I didn’t expect many people who didn’t care for the audio postings would bother to send me email, but the fact that so many people did go to the trouble makes it clear that enough listeners value the audio version to make it worthwhile to continue producing it.

There was also a fair degree of consistancy of the opinions. The segment most valued by listeners is the Houskeeping and News content. Many people listen to that section only and then skip the reviews of the previous week’s shows. And of those who do listen to the reviews, many said they don’t care much about the listener ratings, because their interests may be different from those of others’.

People wrote time and time again that what they really appreciated was the personalized voice that the updates gave to IT Conversations. There’s a lesson in that for all podcasters.

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

One Week Behind. For those who keep track of such things, yes, I missed last week’s update, so this week we’ve got to cover 14 days worth of news, housekeeping and shows. And I apologize if you’ve sent me email in the past two weeks and I haven’t replied. I’ve was traveling much of that time, and there just isn’t a way to catch up at this point. Please understand if, for example, you emailed me a suggestion of a name for the new project. I was flooded with great names and couldn’t respond to each message.

New Programs This Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• Joseph Fuselier – DNA and Proteins (rated 2.8 by IT Conversations listeners) On last week’s Biotech Nation segment, Moira Gunn spoke with Joseph Fuselier, an instructor at Tulane Health Sciences Center and co-founder of Synscia. He connects the dots on how DNA relates to proteins, and why that’s important to know.
• Kurt Huang – BitPass (3.1) Kurt Huang is founder and VP of products at micropayment company BitPass.com. He discusses the growing demand among digital content providers to efficiently monetize their online content offerings like podcasts and other downloadable content. He talks about his coming new service called "BitPass Unplugged" that will allow podcasters, ranging from hobbyists to mainstream media organizations, to generate revenue from podcast content offerings.
• The Software 2005 CIO Panel (3.2) Most IT buyers would agree that software vendor behavior has improved over the past few years. Since the recession when businesses dramatically slashed IT budgets, software companies have had little choice but to improve customer relations and product quality in order to remain competitive. But this panel of CIOs says there is still much room for improvement in areas such as consolidation, pricing, quality and security.
• Mark Cuban on Larry’s World (3.3) "95% of the shows fail!" states Mark Cuban. Of course, he would know best – he’s responsible for pioneering streaming media with Broadcast.com which he sold to Yahoo! for millions of dollars. He’s also the man behind the success of the Dallas Mavericks. And now he’s trying to do the same with HDNet: bring high definition programming to your living room. Host Larry Magid talks to Cuban about everything from piracy to the special makeup required for HDTV.
• "Brand X" and the U.S. Supreme Court (3.3) Which recent Supreme Court ruling is the most important decision for the future of the Internet? According to some, it is the Brand X decision regarding FCC regulation of cable broadband. Ernest Miller interviews Susan Crawford and Phil Weiser about Brand X and Internet regulation.
• Fran Martinez – Blue Titan Software (3.4) How can the enterprise further take advantage of web services? How should developers approach, select, and deploy web service standards? In this Technometria interview Frank Martinez, the CTO of Blue Titan Software, describes how the company "infuses application semantics into the network" to enable the organization to use web services as the foundation of its enterprise architecture. Re-working the old Sun slogan, Frank says: the network is the application platform.
• David Plotz – The Genius Factory (3.4) Moira Gunn also spoke with David Plotz, the deputy editor of Slate and author of"The Genius Factory — Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank." He tells us how he uncovered the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank and offer a cautionary tale for our brave new world.
• Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales – Wikipedia (3.4) A few foundations are working on the original dream of the web: people sharing enormous amounts of information. One of these is the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the phenomenal Wikipedia. With over 500,000 articles and 350,000 categories in approximately 200 languages, there’s no doubt it’s growing. Jimmy Wales, President, explains the nitty-gritty of social computing in this short presentation from ETech 2005.
• John Thackara – Designing in a Complex World (3.6) Moira interviews John Thackara, the author of "In the Bubble — Designing in a Complex World." John is also the Director of Doors of Perception and, a design futures network based in Amsterdam and Bangalore. He says that "if we can design our way into difficulty, we can design our way out."
• Hossein Eslambolchi – Supernova 2005 (3.7) Does intelligence reside at the edge or in the core of the network? Are smart devices connecting to dumb networks or dumb devices to intelligent networks? The truth is that in the 21st century the edge and the core are converging and providing a new set of challenges, opportunities and revenue models. Hossein Eslambolchi, President of AT&T’s Global Networking Technology Services, describes the IP evolution and the wireless, on-demand, collaborative network of the not to distant future.
• Jamais Cascio – Participatory Panopticon (4.0) In the future, we will all be monitored all the time – by each other, and that future is beginning now. Learn how your camera phone is starting a snowball effect that will end not in Big Brother Watching You, but in hundreds of thousands of little brothers and sisters watching everyone and everything. This empowering and disturbing vision is articulated by Jamais Cascio in a keynote address from MeshForum 2005.
• Adam Bosworth – Database Requirements in a New Age (4.1) Building a system that is capable of handling one billion transactions a day is easier than it sounds. That is Adam Bosworth’s view and he should know because he works for Google, a company that has managed to achieve this level of scale. Adam covers a lot of ground in this presentation that focuses on the success of the web, the scalability of simplicity and the emergence of the information server.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a terrific session from last year’s Open Source Convention (OSCON):

• r0ml Lefkowitz – The Semasiology of Open Source (3.9)In his keynote presentation from last year’s O’Reilly Open Source Convention, Robert Lefkowitz says, "Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code." So begins the Open Source Definition. What then, does access to the source code mean? Seen through the lens of an Enterprise user, what does open source mean? When is (or isn’t) it significant? And a catalogue of open source related arbitrage opportunities.

And remember, this year’s OSCON, held in Portland, Oregon, begins tomorrow. We’ll bring you the keynotes here on IT Conversations, but that’s just a fraction of what OSCON is all about. It starts with two days of tutorials and includes BOFs every night. Sure, the audio is great. But it’s nothing compared to being able to rub elbows with the Who’s Who of the open-source world. And yes, we’ll be there, too!

Larry’s World and IT Conversations are featured in the Podcasts section of the iTunes store today. And not just in the “Science and Technology” section but with a larger graphic above the fold. It’s interesting to note however that we’ve seen no unusual traffic from this. Makes me wonder if iTunes is caching the MP3 files for this feed. I can’t tell from here.

Because we won their poll for Best Podcast, BusinessWeek Online has just published a profile of me and IT Conversations. They didn’t get everything right, but it’s close enough.

Via email, Ian Young pointed me to a $15 app for OS X that will convert MP3 files (and other types as well) to AAC. It claims to even update your iTunes library.