http://odeo.com/channels/6265-Doc-Searls-Weblog no Same old blog, brand new place Same old blog, brand new place Same old blog, brand new place en 40 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:13:25 -0700 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:13:25 -0700 http://odeo.com/episodes/25306294-Underground-news Three days ago Jonathan MacDonald witnessed an altercation in the London Underground at the Holborn Station, between — as Jonathan reports it — a uniformed Underground staffer an elderly man whose arm had just been released from doors that had closed on it while he was leaving.  The staffer was loud and rude, while the passenger was calm and gentlemanly. Jonathan also recorded the last of the event on video — and blogged the event, video and all. Next blog post: Fast forward 24 hours and the story has run as the leader on Sky, BBC, LBC, ITN (see sample news coverage here) and on the front page of the Evening Standard. This followed thousands of Tweets and Re-Tweets (including the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, getting involved), 65,000 video views yesterday alone on YouTube and hundreds of comments on this and many other blogs. Plus, the guard has been suspended and is under investigation. All I did was see something that shouldn’t be tolerated and used the ammunition we have in ou... Three days ago Jonathan MacDonald witnessed an altercation in the London Underground at the Holborn Station, between — as Jonathan reports it — a uniformed Underground staffer an elderly man whose arm had just been released from doors that had closed on it while he was leaving.  The staffer was loud and rude, while the passenger was calm and gentlemanly. Jonathan also recorded the last of the event on video — and blogged the event, video and all. Next blog post: Fast forward 24 hours and the story has run as the leader on Sky, BBC, LBC, ITN (see sample news coverage here) and on the front page of the Evening Standard. This followed thousands of Tweets and Re-Tweets (including the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, getting involved), 65,000 video views yesterday alone on YouTube and hundreds of comments on this and many other blogs. Plus, the guard has been suspended and is under investigation. All I did was see something that shouldn’t be tolerated and used the ammunition we have in our hands – video/blogs/network. I blog almost every day so this wasn’t any different. The content of this one seemed to grab attention though, and it was this attention that made things spiral. Hence, the main reason this story has flown is due to what happened on camera. We must remember that. It’s not me. I didn’t ‘invent the story’. I just blogged, like I do, and the Twitterverse powered the rest. Although charming to be the focus of the viral activity – I actually had the smallest part. In that post Jonathan shows, with photos, how the story was played by the mainstream media. His summary: The Twitterers, Bloggers and commentators were the only people who played this right. The stories were shared and eventually the press picked it up. What we need is for Industry to learn the key techniques of Involvism that the Twitterers, Bloggers and commentators already implement. So far there are seventy comments, including pros and cons about what Jonathan (jMac there) did, and his replies. Most interesting to me about this are the stories being told, because those have always been the stock-in-trade of journalism, especially in newspapers. As I put it here, The basic job of newspaper reporters is to write stories. In simplest terms, stories are interesting arrangements of facts. What makes stories interesting are: 1) protagonists (persons, groups, teams, “issues” or causes); 2) a struggle, problem or conflict of some sort; and 3) movement forward (hopefully, by not necessarily, toward a conclusion). Whether or not you agree with that formulation, what cannot be denied is the imperative. Jonathan did his best as a witness. He also had a story to show and tell: the abuse of a passenger. That’s what he reported. As it happened, Jonathan caught the name (Ian) and the face of the Underground staffer, but only the back of the passenger (a man with gray hair in a business jacket carrying a leather bag). There are other stories to be told, of course. Read them in Jonathan’s comment thread In the old media world, freedom of speech belonged to companies that bought ink by the barrel. In the new media world, it belongs to everybody with a cell phone or a keyboard. Get used to it. Or, as Jonathan did, put it to use. Three days ago Jonathan MacDonald witnessed an altercation in the London Underground at the Holborn Station, between — as Jonathan reports it — a uniformed Underground staffer an elderly man whose arm had just been released from doors that had closed on it while he was leaving.  The staffer was loud and rude, while the passenger was calm and gentlemanly. Jonathan also recorded the last of the event on video — and blogged the event, video and all. Next blog post: Fast forward 24 hours and the story has run as the leader on Sky, BBC, LBC, ITN (see sample news coverage here) and on the front page of the Evening Standard. This followed thousands of Tweets and Re-Tweets (including the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, getting involved), 65,000 video views yesterday alone on YouTube and hundreds of comments on this and many other blogs. Plus, the guard has been suspended and is under investigation. All I did was see something that shouldn’t be tolerated and used the ammunition we have in our hands – video/blogs/network. I blog almost every day so this wasn’t any different. The content of this one seemed to grab attention though, and it was this attention that made things spiral. Hence, the main reason this story has flown is due to what happened on camera. We must remember that. It’s not me. I didn’t ‘invent the story’. I just blogged, like I do, and the Twitterverse powered the rest. Although charming to be the focus of the viral activity – I actually had the smallest part. In that post Jonathan shows, with photos, how the story was played by the mainstream media. His summary: The Twitterers, Bloggers and commentators were the only people who played this right. The stories were shared and eventually the press picked it up. What we need is for Industry to learn the key techniques of Involvism that the Twitterers, Bloggers and commentators already implement. So far there are seventy comments, including pros and cons about what Jonathan (jMac there) did, and his replies. Most interesting to me about this are the stories being told, because those have always been the stock-in-trade of journalism, especially in newspapers. As I put it here, The basic job of newspaper reporters is to write stories. In simplest terms, stories are interesting arrangements of facts. What makes stories interesting are: 1) protagonists (persons, groups, teams, “issues” or causes); 2) a struggle, problem or conflict of some sort; and 3) movement forward (hopefully, by not necessarily, toward a conclusion). Whether or not you agree with that formulation, what cannot be denied is the imperative. Jonathan did his best as a witness. He also had a story to show and tell: the abuse of a passenger. That’s what he reported. As it happened, Jonathan caught the name (Ian) and the face of the Underground staffer, but only the back of the passenger (a man with gray hair in a business jacket carrying a leather bag). There are other stories to be told, of course. Read them in Jonathan’s comment thread In the old media world, freedom of speech belonged to companies that bought ink by the barrel. In the new media world, it belongs to everybody with a cell phone or a keyboard. Get used to it. Or, as Jonathan did, put it to use. tag:odeo.com,2009-10-18,25306294 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:13:25 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog News, life, events, journalism, Places, Jonathan MacDonald, London Underground, Holborn, Holborn Station http://odeo.com/episodes/24733599-Apple-control-freakiness Apple has the best taste in the world. It also has the tightest sphincter. This isn’t much of a problem as long as they keep it in their pants, for example by scaring employees away from saying anything about anything that has even the slightest chance of bringing down the Wrath of Steve or his factota. (How many bloggers does Apple have?)  But they drop trow every time they squeeze down—you know, like China—on an iPhone application they think might be “objectionable”. I see by Jack Schofield that they’ve done it again, but this time they pissed off (or on) the wrong candidate: an app (from Exact Magic) that flows RSS feeds form the EFF. Sez Corynne McSherry in an EFF post, “… this morning Apple rejected the app. Why? Because it claims EFF’s content runs afoul of the iTune’s App Store’s policy against ‘objectionable’ content. Apparently, Apple objects to a blog post that linked to a ‘Downfall‘ parody video... Apple has the best taste in the world. It also has the tightest sphincter. This isn’t much of a problem as long as they keep it in their pants, for example by scaring employees away from saying anything about anything that has even the slightest chance of bringing down the Wrath of Steve or his factota. (How many bloggers does Apple have?)  But they drop trow every time they squeeze down—you know, like China—on an iPhone application they think might be “objectionable”. I see by Jack Schofield that they’ve done it again, but this time they pissed off (or on) the wrong candidate: an app (from Exact Magic) that flows RSS feeds form the EFF. Sez Corynne McSherry in an EFF post, “… this morning Apple rejected the app. Why? Because it claims EFF’s content runs afoul of the iTune’s App Store’s policy against ‘objectionable’ content. Apparently, Apple objects to a blog post that linked to a ‘Downfall‘ parody video created by EFF Board Chairman Brad Templeton.” Brad’s a funny guy. (He created rec.humor.funny back in the Net’s precambrian age.) He has also forgotten more about the Internet than most of us will ever learn. Check out The Internet: What is it really for? It was accurate and prophetic out the wazoo. Brad wrote it 1994, while Apple was busy failing to ape AOL with a walled garden called eWorld. Apple’s App Store is an eWorld that succeeded. A nice big walled garden. Problem is, censorship isn’t good gardening. It is, says Corynne, “not just anti-competitive, discriminatory, censorial, and arbitrary, but downright absurd.” Or, as my very tasteful wife puts it, unattractive. Also kinda prickly, if you pick on a porcupine like the EFF. Hence, to contine with Corynne’s post, iPhone owners who don’t want Apple playing the role of language police for their software should have the freedom to go elsewhere. This is precisely why EFF has asked the Copyright Office to grant an exemption to the DMCA for jailbreaking iPhones. It’s none of Apple’s business if I want an app on my phone that lets me read EFF’s RSS feed, use Sling Player over 3G, or read the Kama Sutra. Not surprisingly this followed, on the same post: UPDATE: Apparently, Apple has changed its mind and has now approved the EFF Updates app. This despite the fact that the very same material is still linked in various EFF posts (including this one!). Just one more example of the arbitrary nature of Apple’s app approval process. There’s a limit to how long (much less well, or poorly) Apple can keep sphinctering App Store choices. I’m betting it’ll stop when the iPhone gets serious competition from equally appealing phones that can run applications that come from anywhere, rather than just from some controlling BigCo’s walled garden. Apple has the best taste in the world. It also has the tightest sphincter. This isn’t much of a problem as long as they keep it in their pants, for example by scaring employees away from saying anything about anything that has even the slightest chance of bringing down the Wrath of Steve or his factota. (How many bloggers does Apple have?)  But they drop trow every time they squeeze down—you know, like China—on an iPhone application they think might be “objectionable”. I see by Jack Schofield that they’ve done it again, but this time they pissed off (or on) the wrong candidate: an app (from Exact Magic) that flows RSS feeds form the EFF. Sez Corynne McSherry in an EFF post, “… this morning Apple rejected the app. Why? Because it claims EFF’s content runs afoul of the iTune’s App Store’s policy against ‘objectionable’ content. Apparently, Apple objects to a blog post that linked to a ‘Downfall‘ parody video created by EFF Board Chairman Brad Templeton.” Brad’s a funny guy. (He created rec.humor.funny back in the Net’s precambrian age.) He has also forgotten more about the Internet than most of us will ever learn. Check out The Internet: What is it really for? It was accurate and prophetic out the wazoo. Brad wrote it 1994, while Apple was busy failing to ape AOL with a walled garden called eWorld. Apple’s App Store is an eWorld that succeeded. A nice big walled garden. Problem is, censorship isn’t good gardening. It is, says Corynne, “not just anti-competitive, discriminatory, censorial, and arbitrary, but downright absurd.” Or, as my very tasteful wife puts it, unattractive. Also kinda prickly, if you pick on a porcupine like the EFF. Hence, to contine with Corynne’s post, iPhone owners who don’t want Apple playing the role of language police for their software should have the freedom to go elsewhere. This is precisely why EFF has asked the Copyright Office to grant an exemption to the DMCA for jailbreaking iPhones. It’s none of Apple’s business if I want an app on my phone that lets me read EFF’s RSS feed, use Sling Player over 3G, or read the Kama Sutra. Not surprisingly this followed, on the same post: UPDATE: Apparently, Apple has changed its mind and has now approved the EFF Updates app. This despite the fact that the very same material is still linked in various EFF posts (including this one!). Just one more example of the arbitrary nature of Apple’s app approval process. There’s a limit to how long (much less well, or poorly) Apple can keep sphinctering App Store choices. I’m betting it’ll stop when the iPhone gets serious competition from equally appealing phones that can run applications that come from anywhere, rather than just from some controlling BigCo’s walled garden. tag:odeo.com,2009-06-16,24733599 Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:13:06 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog Business, News, Internet, apple, Blogging, art, future, Steve Jobs, problems, infrastructure, dmca, eff, downfall, Jack Schofield, rec.humor.funny, eWorld, Corynne McSherry, Brad Templeton, Exact Magic http://odeo.com/episodes/24631008-The-best-thing-on-radio-right-now – is All A Capella, on WERS/88.9 in Boston. Listen here. Or on the Public Radio Tuner. Or on WERS own iPhone app. Or iTunes (it’s in the list called “Public”). They just started tweeting too: @allacappella889. The performances are just freaking astonishing. You’d think they were playing instruments. And harmonies tight enough to make Manhattan Transfer envious. Awesome shit. Dig. Really. I’ve blogged about WERS before. My mind hasn’t changed. I can’t stress too strongly how good this station is. You may not like everything on there. (It would be odd if you did.) But the quality is always good, and the goods always original. There are original stations out there too, of course. KPIG, Radio Paradise, WIOZ, KGSR…  the list goes on. I’d continue, but I have to drive. – is All A Capella, on WERS/88.9 in Boston. Listen here. Or on the Public Radio Tuner. Or on WERS own iPhone app. Or iTunes (it’s in the list called “Public”). They just started tweeting too: @allacappella889. The performances are just freaking astonishing. You’d think they were playing instruments. And harmonies tight enough to make Manhattan Transfer envious. Awesome shit. Dig. Really. I’ve blogged about WERS before. My mind hasn’t changed. I can’t stress too strongly how good this station is. You may not like everything on there. (It would be odd if you did.) But the quality is always good, and the goods always original. There are original stations out there too, of course. KPIG, Radio Paradise, WIOZ, KGSR…  the list goes on. I’d continue, but I have to drive. – is All A Capella, on WERS/88.9 in Boston. Listen here. Or on the Public Radio Tuner. Or on WERS own iPhone app. Or iTunes (it’s in the list called “Public”). They just started tweeting too: @allacappella889. The performances are just freaking astonishing. You’d think they were playing instruments. And harmonies tight enough to make Manhattan Transfer envious. Awesome shit. Dig. Really. I’ve blogged about WERS before. My mind hasn’t changed. I can’t stress too strongly how good this station is. You may not like everything on there. (It would be odd if you did.) But the quality is always good, and the goods always original. There are original stations out there too, of course. KPIG, Radio Paradise, WIOZ, KGSR…  the list goes on. I’d continue, but I have to drive. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-30,24631008 Sat, 30 May 2009 13:27:13 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog music, art, fun, Places, wers, all a cappella http://odeo.com/episodes/24339885-A-capella-wonderful Whatever else you’re doing, tune right now to WERS. If you’re not in Boston, here’s the online stream. The show is All Acapella, and it’s freaking amazing. There is so much outstanding a capella music being made right now, by college students alone. Stevie Wonder’s “As” is playing now, sung by the Stanford University Everyday People. Before that was “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by UMass Amherst Doo Wop Shop. Just great, great music and performances that are flat-out astonishing. Talk about good Web integration: here’s the current playlist… What’s On Now Current Show: All A Cappella Most Recent Songs: (View Full Playlist) 4:05 pm “As” by Stanford University Everyday People CARA 2000 4:03 pm “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by UMass Amherst Doo Wop Shop Black Friday 3:58 pm “Every LittleThing She Does Is Magic” by Washington University Mosaic Whispers Defrosted 3:55 pm “Elenor Rigby&#... Whatever else you’re doing, tune right now to WERS. If you’re not in Boston, here’s the online stream. The show is All Acapella, and it’s freaking amazing. There is so much outstanding a capella music being made right now, by college students alone. Stevie Wonder’s “As” is playing now, sung by the Stanford University Everyday People. Before that was “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by UMass Amherst Doo Wop Shop. Just great, great music and performances that are flat-out astonishing. Talk about good Web integration: here’s the current playlist… What’s On Now Current Show: All A Cappella Most Recent Songs: (View Full Playlist) 4:05 pm “As” by Stanford University Everyday People CARA 2000 4:03 pm “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by UMass Amherst Doo Wop Shop Black Friday 3:58 pm “Every LittleThing She Does Is Magic” by Washington University Mosaic Whispers Defrosted 3:55 pm “Elenor Rigby” by Tonic Sol Fa Style And that’s on top of a Backwoods show I heard this morning on WMBR. Not much Web integration, but still a great station. Whatever else you’re doing, tune right now to WERS. If you’re not in Boston, here’s the online stream. The show is All Acapella, and it’s freaking amazing. There is so much outstanding a capella music being made right now, by college students alone. Stevie Wonder’s “As” is playing now, sung by the Stanford University Everyday People. Before that was “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by UMass Amherst Doo Wop Shop. Just great, great music and performances that are flat-out astonishing. Talk about good Web integration: here’s the current playlist… What’s On Now Current Show: All A Cappella Most Recent Songs: (View Full Playlist) 4:05 pm “As” by Stanford University Everyday People CARA 2000 4:03 pm “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by UMass Amherst Doo Wop Shop Black Friday 3:58 pm “Every LittleThing She Does Is Magic” by Washington University Mosaic Whispers Defrosted 3:55 pm “Elenor Rigby” by Tonic Sol Fa Style And that’s on top of a Backwoods show I heard this morning on WMBR. Not much Web integration, but still a great station. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-21,24339885 Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:11:24 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog music, radio, art, Boston, singing, a capella, wmbr, wers, all acapella http://odeo.com/episodes/363222-Casting-with-Dean-and-KZSB tag:odeo.com,2005-11-01,363222 Tue, 01 Nov 2005 11:52:36 -0800 no Doc Searls Weblog http://odeo.com/episodes/210145-Requiem-for-Kool-99-3 tag:odeo.com,2005-09-02,210145 Fri, 02 Sep 2005 23:45:07 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog http://odeo.com/episodes/184684-LQ-Radio-Interview tag:odeo.com,2005-08-26,184684 Fri, 26 Aug 2005 12:55:23 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog http://odeo.com/episodes/167671-The-Doc-and-Dean-Show-Take-1 tag:odeo.com,2005-08-17,167671 Wed, 17 Aug 2005 01:31:38 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog http://odeo.com/episodes/153029-Podcast-2-better-late-than-later tag:odeo.com,2005-08-14,153029 Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:48:38 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog http://odeo.com/episodes/96374-First-podcast tag:odeo.com,2005-07-18,96374 Mon, 18 Jul 2005 07:17:46 -0700 no Doc Searls Weblog