Jake Pulver, 13 year old scion of Jeff Pulver, recently posted this YouTube video, converting a jailbroken iPod Touch to a VoIP phone.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-AKRESzdeE[/youtube]
If the folks at Skype had any sense, they would have rolled out a jailbreak version of Skype the day the iPod Touch dropped. Instead, it’s a 13 year old on Long Island that may well eat their lunch.
someone asked this tricky question:
How can I forward Twitter DMs (direct messages) automagically so I can receive them like email?
The answer is: a series of tubes! Pipes, actually. Here’s how to do it.
First, you’ll need three things. A Twitter account, a Yahoo Pipes account, and a Google Reader account. Start by investigating which kinds of Twitter messages you want to manage like email. For example, if you want to receive @replies and direct messages, you’ll need to know this in advance. If you just want DMs, that’s important. If you want DMs from multiple users, that’s important to know, too.
Next, start by obtaining the login credentials of your Twitter account and typing them out in a text editor. For example, if your Twitter account is abc and your password is 123, write out the following:
https://abc:[email protected]/
If for some strange reason your Twitter password is a password you commonly use for other accounts, now is the time to change it. Let’s add to that URL now. If you want replies, add:
/statuses/replies.format
where format is one of four choices: XML, RSS, JSON, or ATOM. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will always be using RSS. This should be the URL for replies:
https://abc:[email protected]/statuses/replies.rss
Want direct messages? Use:
/direct_messages.format
Again, the URL would be:
https://abc:[email protected]/direct_messages.rss
We’re ready for the next step. Open up Yahoo Pipes and Create a New Pipe. This step is necessary for two reasons. First, for whatever reason, Google Reader does not recognize the RSS format spit out by Twitter directly, and second, if you want to manage multiple Twitter DM streams or merge your replies and DMs together, Pipes will do it for you very well.
In Create a New Pipe, drag a Fetch Feed module into the main window and add in as many Twitter RSS URLs as you want. In the picture below, I’ve pasted the replies and DMs. Name your pipe, and then click Run Pipe.
IMPORTANT: At no point during this process should you click Publish or you will be publicly airing your Twitter DMs!
You’re now reading for the last piece. Find the Yahoo Pipe URL for the pipe you just created, copy it, and head over to Google Reader. In Google Reader, click Add Subscription and paste in the Yahoo Pipe URL. Voila! Instant management of your Twitter DMs in one easy place!
A cautionary point: this method does create a publicly accessible feed of your DMs. If you don’t publish it, you’re not advertising it, but it’s otherwise not protected, so there is a small but non-zero chance someone could stumble across the pipe’s URL and read your DMs.
Rogers Canada is modifying Web pages. Take a look at this Wired article.
Is this a marketing dream? A marketing nightmare? Bit of both.
If you searched for a student loan, I could buy a modification of the results you get from your ISP. Even if you wanted a loan from my competitor, if I paid enough, I could divert you instead.
If you searched for my company’s products, a competitor could do the same to me.
Expect this to become a hot button issue for net neutrality. If this goes unopposed, just imagine what the political campaigns will do to every web site you visit. ISPs will be rewriting traffic all day based on bids. Rudy Giuliani needs a boost in Iowa, so he’ll pay Comcast to rewrite all requests for Mitt Romney’s web site to his. Someone might even play dirty and use soft money to redirect a candidate’s traffic to a Swift-boat style attack ad instead.
Stand up for net neutrality, or you won’t be able to trust a thing you see online – ever.
And if you use Rogers or any other ISP that uses these practices, drop ’em. Vote with your wallet, because that’s the only language some of these people will ever understand.
someone asked me how I organize myself in the mornings and manage to get a podcast out the door every day plus two on Wednesdays (the Financial Aid Podcast and Marketing Over Coffee, the best marketing podcast ever made at a doughnut shop).
The answer is that I use a Mac. I’m not being a pimp or being facetious. I use Spaces in Mac OS X Leopard (virtual desktops) like crazy, which helps me stay organized. Here’s a snapshot of my desktops – all 8 of them, which is my layout for the morning. Jeff Pulver calls this his social media sunrise.
In desktops 1 and 2 (top left), you have the browser, Google reader, a text editor, and Garageband. I do my research in this pane for the show and document show notes here, plus surf blogs and GMail. No office software as I usually do most of my workday stuff in Google Docs.
In desktops 3 and 4 (top right) is my social network window. Here I run Twitterific, Adium connected to 12 different IM accounts on 5 services, and Spyder, my MySpace data manager. I’ll check profiles, answer messages, leave comments, and respond to Twitter here.
Desktops 5 and 6 (lower left) contain a terminal window and iTunes. Once the podcast is done, I convert it from AIFF to MP3 using LAME 3.98.1 on the Mac – the encoder is much better than iTunes, but it requires you to compile your own source code – and then dump it into iTunes for branding (ID3, lyrics, cover art). During the rest of my workday, I also manage processes in this window, such as renicing (changing priority) of running programs on the command line. Of course, I also control music in this space. If I’m ding an interview, Skype runs in this space as well.
Desktops 7 and 8 control blogging and server stuff. When the podcast is ready to upload, I’ll use Cyberduck here; I also use Cyberduck to manage any on the fly redirects, etc. In the bottom half of this space I run Ecto, which lets me control and edit all of the Student Loan Network blogs at once, making adjustments as needed.
In the menu bar I also run Google Notifier, which keeps me apprised of emails and calendar appointments, Spanning Sync, which syncs my Google calendar with iCal (which then syncs to my iPods), iSync, which syncs Google Calendar and iCal to my Nokia N91, Growl, which displays Skype and Twitter notices, and SMC Fan Control, so I can alter the speed at which the CPU fan runs in case the MacBook clearly shows signs of warming up.
In non-space I run QuickSilver as an application launcher and general utility, so I never have to actually find application icons to launch them.
This may seem like a lot of stuff to run, and it may be, but it’s how I accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.
So here’s the situation. I carry a lot of gear with me on a regular basis, and the current system of various bags and backpacks is both a pain and not efficient. Here’s what I carry with me daily:
Without lugging around a suitcase or having a PA, what systems have you seen that would make carting this pile of kit around more easy? I need your recommendations!
TechCrunch calls it first: Google Android could conceivably work on a television set top box. More than that, it seems destined to, from my perspective. Look inside Android:
Look down in the media layer. H.264, MPEG4, MP3, AAC, you name it, it’s in there. Plus OpenGL graphics for 3D.
How many phones have the processing power to take advantage of OpenGL? Not many. Maybe the Nokia N series.
How many set top boxes have OpenGL ready 3D graphics chips? More than a few. Here’s Eagle Broadband‘s set top box.
Android is written on Dalvik, the virtual machine that looks a lot like Java and quacks like Java, which is what a lot of mobile phones run. However, lots of set top boxes do as well, plus Windows Embedded and Linux… which is what Android’s core is.
Google already serves up TV ads on EchoStar, according to the TechCrunch article. How much more powerful could it be if it controlled the set top box?
I must have missed the memo on Google’s new service. I typed in “Buddhist Temple near 01702” and got some VERY different results than I was looking for.
Clicking on the link gave me this result:
Did I miss the memo? I didn’t see it anywhere on Google Labs.
Shipping from Kunshan!
The iPod Nano and iPod Touch – Implications for Podcasting and Podsafe Music
A few highlights from Apple’s refresh of the iPod line for podcasters and new media makers.
1. The iPod nano now plays iPod video – 320×240 H.264 video. With this, video iPods are much more affordable and in reach of more of the population. At 149 and199, the nanos are priced well – but 4 GB and 8 GB won’t go too far with lots of video.
Want to be the best video podcaster you can be? Get up to speed on video compression utilities to make your video high quality but small file size – tools like TechSpansion’s iSquint and VisualHub can do serious two pass encoding, making good quality at a small disk price.
2. CoverFlow is enabled on the nano. Again, because the nano line is so popular, it will have greater reach than the high end iPod. If you’re not using your show’s logo as cover art in every episode, you’re going to miss out on an increasingly important branding opportunity.
3. The iPod Touch is an iPhone-sized screen. Again, Coverflow means a huge branding opportunity for your show. The iPod Touch also incorporates the Safari Web Browser, which means that the Podcaster iPhone Kit is now the Podcaster iKit.
4. If you’re a video podcaster, YouTube is a required distribution point if you want maximum exposure. Apple has built YouTube browser functionality into two of its products now, iMovie 8 and now the iPod Touch. For maximum distribution, consider looking into a distributor like TubeMogul.com to hit as many video sites as possible.
5. If you’re a podsafe musician and you don’t have your music in the iTunes Music Store, do so immediately as long as it makes financial sense. The iTunes Music Store wireless edition now allows immediate, impulse purchases from the store, and with the holidays coming up, it’ll be even more important.
6. If you’re a podsafe musician, the iTunes Music Store available wirelessly also means a game change for drop cards. Instead of giving someone a dropcard and hoping they follow up, you can gift a song immediately to them – just with their email address. Instant way to build a mailing list at a relatively low acquisition cost!
7. The Starbucks Now Playing selection in the iTunes Wifi Music Store is interesting in its own right, but I look forward to the packet sniffer and relayer that can mimic a Starbucks, letting independent WiFi access points create a Starbucks-like access point. In turn, this could be used to promote independent artists’ music on a public WiFi point.
8. Search is in style again in iTunes. With a smaller interface than a PC and a smaller keyboard, having your podcast, music, or video easily searchable is going to be a Very Big Deal ™. Make your stuff searchable. Complete your ID3 tags on EVERY episode to reap the maximum benefits. If you work with a vendor that puts your music in the store, make sure they are doing a top shelf job with metadata and ID3 tags.
Nokia Podcasting on the N91 Handset
System: 2.20
Software: Podcatching Client 1.00.3 SIS
Here’s what I’ve discovered after having a Nokia N91 for 48 hours…
Risto K. from Nokia flat out said at PodCamp Europe that the only directory Nokia *searches* for podcasts is DigitalPodcast.com. Make sure your show is listed in there.
Joe Carpenter from Podshow asked about Podshow’s directory listings. Unfortunately for Podshow, they’ve changed the lineup quite a bit in 1.00.3. Here’s a series of screenshots to get to the directories.
Directories:
Featured Podcasts:
Recommended:
Currently, Blubrry tops the stack in the 1.00.3 release of the client.
More importantly for podcasters, think VERY carefully about how you do your ID3 tags and show titles. This is how much room you get on the N91 for your show titles:
I definitely recommend making a short tag that you can glance at to see which show you’re on.
Finally, OPML support for podcasts in the browser on the phone is non-existent. When you click on an OPML file, it tries to load it into a text-based feedreader. If anyone from Nokia is reading, how do I set up one-click OPML to Podcatcher on the N series?
Other tidbit: if you have direct MP3 links on your show notes/blog page, the N91 will download the MP3 file to the music folder, so make sure you’ve got direct links. Between the iPhone and the N-series, direct MP3 links are the currency of the mobile realm for the time being.
Special thanks to CC Chapman for giving me the N91 to experiment with.
