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

New Shows

• Deborah Rudacille – Tech Nation (rated 3.6 by listeners). Last week on Tech Nation, Dr. Moira Gunn spoke with Johns- Hopkins’ Dr. Deborah Rudacille about scientific definitions — science now shows us that tens of millions of people do not fall into the physiological definition of either male and female. They talked about her new book: “The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights.”
• Bill Hayes – Tech Nation (3.8). Moira also spoke with Bill Hayes. You might remember him from “Sleep Demons: An Insomniac’s Memoir.” He’s back with his signature mixture of science and life experience — this time it’s all about blood.
• Carolyn Givens – Biotech Nation (3.4). And in last week’s BioTech Nation segment, Moira interviewed Dr. Carolyn Givens, the Associate Medical Director of the Pacific Fertility Center, who tells us where In Vitro Fertilization meets stem cell research.
• Non Profits Blogging – True Voice (2.6). Stowe Boyd talks with Peter Kaminski (Socialtext) and Peter Quintas (Silkroad Technology), at the American Cancer Society Innovation Summit about social networking and social media. They discuss the growing adoption of blogs and other social media, as well as coming features planned for the two technology companies’ products.
• The Future of Music – Voices in Your Head (3.9). Music-industry incumbents are threatened by new technologies of distribution. How are they reacting, and how are musicians using the Internet on their own to make more money for themselves? In this interview with two music-industry insiders, Dave Slusher discovers the current state of digital music and possible courses for the future.
• From the Labs – Web 2.0 (3.0). Hear some of the most intriguing new developments from three of the biggest R&D shops in the world: IBM, Google and Microsoft. The panel includes John Battelle (Battelle Media), Peter Norvig (Google) Richard F. Rashid (Microsoft) and Jim Spohrer (IBM). From the Web 2.0 conference.
• Jimmy Wales – Wikipedia (3.6). Rob and Dana Greelnee of Web Talk Radio interview Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.org, the online free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Started in 2001, the site is currently working on more than 500,000 articles in the English version alone. In 22 other langauages there are at least 10,000 articles.
• Ray Lane – Software: To Infinity and Beyond (too late for review). In this keynote address from the Software 2004 conference, venture capitalist Ray Lane takes a high-level but thorough view of the software industry. What’s next? Is there a new economy after all? What about the claims that IT doesn’t matter and that innovation is dead? Perhaps this is a rare period of normalcy.

From the Archives

• MGM v. Grokster – The Law and IT (3.6). This week the US Supreme Court heard arguments in this landmark case, so we’re bringing back this great show from the archives. In August, the US Court of Appeals decided that distributors of peer-to-peer filesharing software, such as Grokster and StreamCast, could not be held liable for the copyright infringements of their users. Ernest Miller discusses the decision with four leading legal analysts, including Fred von Lohmann of the EFF, who argued the case.

Other News

• Open-Source Audio Production. I think we’re onto something exciting: You might call it open- source audio production, as there are many similarities to open-source software development. It began when IT Conversations listeners pressured me into creating a tip jar on the site… [more]
• IT Conversations Sells Out. Gee, I hope not! But with being SlashDotted and BoingBoinged on the same day — more than once — we do have real expenses on the infrastructure side. Luckily it’s not just Team ITC and our community of listeners who are passionate about what we’re doing. So are a few companies with checkbooks. [more]
• Basecamp Established. Team ITC has been evaluating a whole slew of collaboration tools to manage our projects. One that grabbed our attention is Basecamp, a hosted service which we’re using in addition to our secure wiki. [more]
• Software 2005. As if this week hasn’t been busy enough, we also signed a contract to bring you the keynote presentations from one of the biggest and best conferences of the year: Software 2005. [more]
• Audio IDs. It has come to my attention that with the popularity of devices like the iPod Shuffle, there are some listeners that don’t have a display on their MP3 players or otherwise can’t easily tell which show is which…As of today, therefore, we’re now including a brief ID at the *very* start of each file. [more]

As if this week hasn’t been busy enough, we also signed a contract to bring you the keynote presentations from one of the biggest and best conferences of the year: Software 2005. The list of presidents, CEOs and chairmen includes Scott Cook (Intuit), Jim Goodnight (SAS), Scott Kriens (Juniper Networks), and Charles Phillips (Oracle).

If you can be there, you’ll be able to get the whole show in two days. But if you can’t make it, you’ll be able to hear the highlights over the weeks that follow the conference. Here’s an example from last year’s show: the keynote by Ray Lane.

Team ITC has been evaluating a whole slew of collaboration tools to manage our projects. One that grabbed our attention is Basecamp, a hosted service which we’re using in addition to our secure wiki. It’s a new service, and there are still some kinks to work out, but I’ve been very impressed with how easy it has been to setup and use as well as the responsiveness of their customer support. Check it out.

It has come to my attention that with the popularity of devices like the iPod Shuffle, there are some listeners that don’t have a display on their MP3 players or otherwise can’t easily tell which show is which. And soon, thanks to Team ITC, we’ll be publishing more than a dozen programs each week, thereby making it even harder to identify our shows. You can just hit the Play button and wait, but with the addition of our underwriters’ messages in the intros to the shows, this has become a bit more difficult.

As of today, therefore, we’re now including a brief ID at the *very* start of each file. The ID includes the title of the show and a bit more that will help you decide whether a show is what you want to hear at that moment.

Gee, I hope not! But with being SlashDotted and BoingBoinged on the same day — more than once — we do have real expenses on the infrastructure side. Luckily it’s not just Team ITC and our community of listeners who are passionate about what we’re doing. So are a few companies with checkbooks.

Starting today you’ll hear public-radio style acknowledgments in the intros and outros of our programs to thank those underwriters who help us cover our costs. In addition to SilkWare and nooked, who are underwriting Stowe Boyd’s True Voice series, I’m glad to welcome GoToMeeting, who is sponsoring all of the sessions from the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, which (not too coincidentally) also launches today with the publication of Clay Shirky’s terrific presentation on Ontologies.

But most of all, I’d like to extend a special thanks to Limelight Networks who delivers all of our audio files from a content-delivery network of hundreds of servers around the world. Given that we’re delivering close to 7 terrabytes of data each month, this is no small undertaking, and in the year we’ve depended on Limelight Networks, they’ve never once let us down. Our own servers may get overloaded or even crash, but we’ve never had so much as a glitch from the Limelight CDN.

I think we’re onto something exciting: You might call it open-source audio production, as there are many similarities to open-source software development.

It began when IT Conversations listeners pressured me into creating a tip jar on the site, which I did a few months ago, and the tips have trickled in steadily ever since. Next, other producers started to submit audio recordings, hoping they’d be published on IT Conversations. Most weren’t good enough due to poor content or audio quality, but some shows like Stowe Boyd’s True Voice and Rob Greenlee’s Web Talk made the cut and have proven to be very popular on the site. Then I put out the word for help on the software-development side — to date, I’ve written all the code myself — and immediately heard from three top-notch programmers that wanted to help.

But it didn’t stop there because I also had audio experts and writers who got in touch and said they wanted to help, too. It finally occurred to me that this is what listener-supported audio is all about. I had added that tag line to the web site when I created the tip jar, but I’ve since learned that among the nearly 80,000 unique IT Conversations listeners each month, there are hundreds who not only enjoy what we’ve done, but are downright passionate about it. In other words, IT Conversations has become a community of people whose lives it has affected.

Today I’m proud to announce a major change here at IT Conversations. After nearly two years of doing everything myself, I’m now getting help from a team of experts from amont the community of IT Conversations listeners. In addition to the hosts you already know (Halley, Dave, Moira, Denise, Ernest, Stowe, Rob, Phil and Scott), we’ve got a team of three developers and 11 producers (audio engineers and writer/editors) who are just now ramping up and learning how to work together to improve IT Conversations and bring you even more great content.

I’ve published the list of the Team ITC members — they’re from such exotic places as Ireland, India and Kentucky — and over time you’ll be able to learn more about them, what they do in their real lives, and so forth.

But you can do more than just check them out…

Starting today (April 1, 2005) 100% of the donations to the tip jar will go to Team ITC. This is what I think a listener-supported service is all about: people’s passions. Team ITC cares enough about IT Conversations that they want to give some of their time, skills and reputations to make it even better. And if you’re just as passionate about IT Conversations, you can say “thank you” to Team ITC by putting your money where your ears are.

None of us are in this to make a lot of money. We’re in it because we believe in the mission of bringing great programs to tens of thousands of people around the world for free. I think we have a real business model here. It’s not one that a Harvard Business School MBA would appreciate, and none of us will be able to quit our day jobs anytime soon — wait, this *is* my day job! — but I think it will work. I believe that we’re creating enough value that our community will pay enough to support a small team of developers and producers contributing
their skills part time.

Think of how the great open-source projects like Apache were built. Apache didn’t begin with an infusion of cash. It was started and has grown due to the passions of some very talented people who want to make the world a better place by doing what turns them on for an audience of their peers. That’s what a community is all about.

So please donate to Team ITC to keep the audio flowing.

Note: If you’re wondering about the IT Conversations hosts, they’re going to receive portions of the sponsorship revenues, which begin officially today as well. The tip-jar funds will go only to the team of developers, engineers and writer/editors.

As I’ve been blogging about recently, I’ve been struggling with the use of a Creative Commons license for IT Coversations content. The best example occured a week ago when someone — an honest person — told me that he planned to create his own site using the MP3 files from IT Conversations. He pointed out that so long as it was non-commercial, this was allowed by the CC license on our site. I wondered why he would do that. Was he going to include the photos, descriptions, listener ratings and the AAC/M4B files as well as the MP3s? No. He just wanted to present all the shows in a big list and host them on his server. No editorial opinions; no ratings or other information. Was he adding any value whatsoever? No. In fact, as he willingly admitted, the presentation would be such that the user experience would be poorer than on IT Conversations.

Ultimately I was able to convince him that it would be better for everyone if he built his site as a list of links (as he had planned), but to link back to our details pages for each show. That way he doesn’t have to bear the cost of content delivery, his visitors get all the benefits offered by him (whatever they might be) and by IT Conversations, and we can include the count of listeners in our reports to sponsors and underwriters, which in turn helps us keep this thing going.

But the problem remained that it was quite legitimate to replicate the entire IT Conversations web site, adding no value, and in fact diminishing the experience. This wasn’t about remixing or mashups. It wasn’t about excerpts or fair use. It was just about trying to take something of value and give at least a partial impression that it was someone else’s.

Thanks to some great advice from Denise Howell and Lawrence Lessig, I checked out the new Sampling License from Creative Commons, and that’s the license I’ll be using for the forseeable future. In addition to fair use, copying for convenience, etc., which Larry suggested was implicit in the fact that we offer the MP3 files for download to begin with, the Sampling License allows others “to sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for commercial or noncommercial purposes.” In other words, you’re free to excerpt the interviews and other recordings, combine them with your own content (or not) and create a new work that adds value to what we’ve already done. That’s what the remix culture is all about: not ripping off content, but being able to take what others have created and to make something new and different.

Whle even the CC Sampling License isn’t perfect, it’s quite clear that the benefits of publishing under a CC license far outweigh the disadvantages. And that, after all, is the whole idea behind Creative Commons: to make this simple for publishers and licensees alike.

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

New Shows

• Google’s AutoLink Feature (rated only 2.7, but very popular!) It’s another new IT Conversations series: Sound Policy with Denise Howell, and she starts it off with a bang. Denise hosts a spirited debate about Google’s controversial AutoLink feature. Her guests are Cory Doctorow, Robert Scoble and Martin Schwimmer. Google is no stranger to providing invaluable services to users of the Web, and the Google Toolbar has been no exception. However, the beta release of the Google Toolbar 3, with its link-adding AutoLink feature, has many wondering if Google has forgotten its “don’t be evil” credo. What might AutoLink mean for Web publishers and users, and how it might be impacted by intellectual property law?
• The Telephone is a Platform! (2.4). We’ve got an amazing panel of experts to discuss the future of the telephone as a platform: Om Malik (Business 2.0), Jeffrey Citron (Vonage), Hossein Eslambolchi (AT&T), Charlie Hoffman (Covad), and Mike McCue (Tellme). From the Web 2.0 conference.
• Ourmedia.org (3.8). I drag out my own mic to interview Marc Canter and JD Lasica who have just launched Ourmedia.org. It’s only an alpha release, and the site has already been SlashDotted, so in case you can’t get in there to check it out for yourself, this interview with the founders is the next-best thing.
• John Smart (3.8). What will Windows (and the Google Browser) of 2015 look like? It will include software simulations of human beings as part of the UI. First-world culture today spends more on video games than movies. These “interactive motion picture” technologies are more compelling and educating, particularly to our youth, the fastest-learning segment of society, than any linear scripts, no matter how professionally produced. From Accelerating Change 2004.
• Henry Jenkins (3.9). On Tech Nation with Moira Gunn, Dr. Henry Jenkins explains how video games will revolutionize education. Dr. Jenkins is the director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-editor of Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition (Media in Transition).
• John Beck (3.6). Moira also speaks with John Beck, a Senior Research Fellow at USC’s Annenberg Center of the Digital Future, warns that the “Gamer Generation” is about to enter the workforce — and that means change.
• Belinda Clarke (3.3). And in this week’s Biotech Nation segment, Dr. Belinda Clarke talks about her beliefs that scientists have a moral obligation to communicate science. Dr. Clarke is Science Liaison Manager at Norwich Research Park, Norfolk, England.

And this week’s Doug’s Favorite from the IT Conversations archive:

• Dan Geer (3.7). He ran development at MIT’s Project Athena when Kerberos and X Windows were developed there, but Dan is more recently known as the guy who was fired for co-authoring a report proclaiming the security risks posed by the monoculture caused by Microsoft’s dominance of the software industry. Hear or read — yes, there’s a transcript of this one — Dan’s long-term assessment of our information security challenges. “As the threat increases the security perimeter skrinks.” But as we shift to protecting assets at the file-object level, access control will prove unscalable. The solution, Dan says, is the introduction of accountability. And yes, he tells the monoculture story, too.

Lloyd Davis was apparently so imersed in listening to Marc Canter talk about Ourmedia.org as he walked down the street, that he failed to notice “a loop of discarded plastic tape (the stuff that holds boxes of photocopier paper together).”

“BAMMM, strange floating sensation followed by face and knees scraping along pavement and then small birds twittering around my head.”

Be careful out there!

Okay, so this has nothing to do with IT Conversations or perhaps anything else that interests you, but maybe blogging it will at least make me feel better. 🙂

I’ve got an account with E*Trade bank, and I send deposits in by mail. I just noticed that none of the deposits I’ve sent in since late December 2004 have been credited, and I also just figured out why. They give you these postage-paid deposit envelopes that fit into the box of checks. The problem is, if you put a check and deposit slip into the envelope and fold it where it’s creased, the flap covers the postal address. Turns out, you’re expected to re-fold the envelope at a different point so the flap is shorter. Since it’s a pre-paid envelope, I never bothered to notice that the address isn’t visible. There’s all sorts of stuff on the envelope, and at first glance all looks well. (When I showed it to my wife, I had to point out the problem.)

Tomorrow I’ll try to get the sources to stop payment and re-issue the checks. That should be straightforward unless something else went wrong. I have no idea why the post office hasn’t found at least one envelope and opened it up. The checks have my address as well as the sources’. And there’s a deposit slip with E*Trade Bank’s address, too.

But here’s the stinker: It turns out that E*Trade Bank has known about this problem for some time. I’m not the first one to complain! So I asked the poor service rep why the bank hadn’t sent out a recall notice to eveyone who received these bogus envelopes? Of course, it wasn’t his decision, so he could only play dumb. He said that I wouldn’t be docked for any stop-payment charges (than you very much), but I asked, “What about the interest?” These are fairly large checks.

Since they knew about the problem and know (or should know) who received these bogus envelopes, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t inform their customers ASAP. Customer-relations 101 teaches you that one. Strange management style, I guess. It’s particularly strange since they need to convince customers that it’s safe to do business by mail instead of going to a local branch of a traditional bank and getting a receipt for the deposit. I think I’m now in that cateogry. These guys are going to have to work hard to keep my business.

If you’ve got an E*Trade Bank account, check those envelopes and you’ll see what I’m talking about.