Professor Borwankar

Nitin Borwankar was sharing some of his ideas today at a geek-gathering in Palo Alto, CA called TagCamp. I visited for a few hours and it was a good time. I gave away some of the famous Odeo t-shirts.

Posted by Biz at 10/29/2005 | 1 comments | links to this post

The Reluctant Podcaster

Fred and Esther are trying to plan their vacation before Esther goes postal. I'm not sure if the Odeo Studio is going to help them or not. I hope it does. Esther has a few classic quotes in here:

"I don't feel it's necessary to record every discussion that we have."
"Let's stop podcasting and let's start planning."

These two are funny. I hope they go somewhere fun and take lots of photos so they can tell us all about it.

Posted by Biz at 10/29/2005 | 0 comments | links to this post

Taco Cat!

I didn't quite catch the whole podcast because I was thrown by the cat dressed up as a taco. That's a snazzy costume and tough to pull off if you're a human.

Posted by Biz at 10/28/2005 | 2 comments | links to this post

Odeo Status

We've begun a blog called Odeo Status, to track the health of our system. In case you're experiencing difficulty, please take a look. Or, you could subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date.

Posted by Dom at 10/28/2005 | 1 comments | links to this post

Merlin's Song

The celebrated Merlin Mann has whipped up this short theme song for Odeo's sharing functionality currently in private beta. I like that there's a "bridge" and he lets us know when it's coming. We love you too Merlin.

Posted by Biz at 10/26/2005 | 2 comments | links to this post

The Odeo Studio

Last night, we launched the Odeo Studio as a private beta. Take a listen to Biz and Ev talk about why.

If you're a current user, we hope you dig it.

I'm personally quite excited about it, because I just joined the company and I feel like I made the right choice!

Posted by Dom at 10/25/2005 | 1 comments | links to this post

She's into it

Reuters: "'I'm all about podcasting,' Phair told Billboard. 'I'm totally fixated on it. It's what I'm into. We usually do a couple of live songs and then there are interviews. We're going to do it every Friday. It might be a little late here and there, but pretty much [it's up] every Friday.'"

Liz Phair Podcast

Posted by Ev. at 10/25/2005 | 2 comments | links to this post

New Audio Page

We gave the individual audio pages on Odeo a bit of a once-over design wise. There's a few new features. Most notably, a fancy new player that has all the stuff you'd expect (play, pause, scrubber, timer) plus a little extra (you can add a nice, big photo). Also, if you're the owner of the audio you can share it with your Odeo or email contacts. Like always, you can add the audio to your queue or download the mp3 file.

Posted by Biz at 10/24/2005 | 3 comments | links to this post

Odeo Tee in the Wild

Nice. I don't know this sharp looking kid but he's wearing an Odeo tee with a pinstripe blazer. Obviously he's going places in life.

Posted by Biz at 10/22/2005 | 4 comments | links to this post

The Good Ship Odeo

We rounded up most of our San Francisco based team and went sailing in the bay for a few hours yesterday. It was the first official Odeo offsite and yes, there were plenty of "Hey, we're shipping!" comments. Hence the Flickr tag.

Posted by Biz at 10/21/2005 | 0 comments | links to this post

Podcasting for Regular People

There are a lot of reasons to be excited about podcasting.

There's the fact that radio producers have moved to podcasting at a rapid clip and made tons of great content that was only available in certain locations at certain times downloadable and enjoyable at the listener's demand.

There's the fact that there's an explosion of new "indie" content is also available that is lighting up people's ears and minds with stuff that would never be on the radio.

And of course there's the idea that anyone can potentially create this content and find an audience in this, the "Next Generation of Radio."

All of these relate to the same principles that made the web so exciting in the early years: A profound shift in access to and distribution of information.

Applying these principles to audio is particularly exciting in my mind, because it's been such an underserved medium historically. Getting a web-like variety of content without being tied to the screen—and allowing anyone to create content in a form that has before now been so closed to independent voices—are powerful ideas. Certainly the huge momentum that podcasting has gained in such a short period of time is a reflection of this.

But I think there's more.

At Odeo, we've started to think beyond the radio paradigm that dominates today. I compare this, again, with what happened with the web. Once it was convenient enough for regular people to fit web publishing into their daily life, the very nature of web publishing changed.

While blogging can be about playing on a world stage to influence, gain audience, and, potentially, monetize (the same goals as most other media), there are millions of people who are happily publishing daily without those motivations. For them, it's more about expression, self-reflection, and communication.

I call these people "casual content creators." It's not just that they're amateur or part of the great, unwashed, Long Tail. It's that they're playing a different game.

Both approaches to publishing are legitimate—and there is certainly a blurry area in between—but the second one is underrated, in my opinion. As we learned at Blogger, it's what the vast majority of people want to do. And if you set people up with the expectation that, by publishing to the web, they are becoming a "personal publisher" and should strive to be part of the A List (an intimidating concept to most people), you'll get a very different result than if you give them a casual way to express themselves and share information.
So how does this relate to podcasting?

Well, if being a personal publisher was intimidating to many folks, being a radio star is a whole new level of unthinkableness. I don't want to take away from the people who do want to be the next Howard Stern or Ira Glass. They're out there in no small number, and I'm glad they exist. I'm going to enjoy listening to tons of new, innovative radio-like content from them. But, personally, I'm much more of a casual content creator, especially in this realm. The other night, I sent a two-minute podcast to my girlfriend, who was out of town, and got a seven-second "podcast" back that I now keep on my iPod just because it makes me smile. I sent an "audio memo" to my team a while back for something that was much easier to say than type, and I think they actually listened.

The idea of casual content creation in the realm of audio is a powerful one. And I think it's a yet-to-be-duly-recognized segment of the (potential) podcasting world.

Posted by Ev. at 10/19/2005 | 19 comments | links to this post

Merlin Mann at Odeo

We were graced with the presence of one Merlin Mann of 43Folders fame when he stopped by the office on Friday. If Mr. Mann was afraid of our giant microphone, it didn't show.

Posted by Biz at 10/15/2005 | 0 comments | links to this post

Audio Help for Your Computer

Audiohelp.info: "On the following pages we will help you test your computer's speakers and microphone. If you do not have a microphone connected yet, we will help you with that too." I haven't tried it yet but that looks like a nifty little free service.

Posted by Biz at 10/12/2005 | 2 comments | links to this post

Swag at Swig

We got our first chance to give out some of those shiny new shirts at a party last night. It was at a place called Swig in San Francisco. Studio Ray took some photos.

Posted by Biz at 10/07/2005 | 0 comments | links to this post

Odeo Tee Shirt Art

We had some shirts done up for events and such. The artwork is by my friend Phil Pascuzzo (Phil, what happened to your web site?) and we got a good deal from the fine fellahs just a few blocks away at Graphic Sportswear. We don't have a store or anything like that and there's not that many of 'em so I thought I'd just share the art.

Posted by Biz at 10/05/2005 | 13 comments | links to this post

Peter and the Words

Peter Merholz has found a favorite podcast for the daily walk part of his commute: "One podcast I've gotten to like is The Word Nerds. It's a weekly program by three high school teachers who love words. And hey, I love words, too!" Thanks Peter, that's a great find.

Posted by Biz at 10/03/2005 | 2 comments | links to this post