The story goes that Walter O’Malley, then-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, desperate to replace the aging Ebbets Field, reached out to representatives of the city of Los Angeles after the Dodgers won the 1955 World Series for the purpose of relocating the team. Los Angeles had been desperate to get a baseball franchise in California and the Los Angeles area in particular. With expansion to divisional play still years away, the best chance of landing a team on the west coast was to have an existing one relocate.

The problem with O’Malley’s original plan was that it would have created a scheduling and travel nightmare for the other teams in the National League. Even as cross-continental air travel was coming into style and affordability thanks to technological advancements made during World War II, having a single team in California and the closest opponent in St. Louis would have presented an significant burden on the rest of the National League. As such, baseball officials conveyed to O’Malley that they would not approve the move unless a second National League team made a commitment to a California relocation or until an additional expansion franchise could be placed there.

The popular legend has it that the next spring, O’Malley took a trip to California with New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham. In the early light of the Pacific morning, both men surveyed a patch of land in the southeast corner of San Francisco named Candlestick Point, which had a very scenic overlook of San Francisco Bay. O’Malley pushed Stoneham hard to abandon his plan of moving the Giants to Minneapolis and instead join him in relocating to the west coast, virtually guaranteeing baseball would approve both moves, if for no other reason than to keep the existing Dodgers-Giants rivalry in tact.

In the summer of 1957, both the Dodgers and the Giants announced their plans to relocate to California. Both owners were subsequently vilified by both the fans and the press, so much so that to this day some people still have not forgiven either team for abandoning New York.

What nobody knew (or realized) at the time, though, was that Candlestick Point was about as inhospitable to baseball as a place could be. The early morning calm betrayed cold, swirling and unpredictable winds and fog that came in from San Francisco Bay during the day and evening. Catching a fly ball was an unique adventure for nearly every ball hit in the air, and there were countless accounts of doubles landing in between three fielders less than 200 feet from home plate. In addition to the fielding nightmares, a plethora of balks were called on pitchers literally blown off the mound while delivering a pitch.

The point I am making with this story is three-fold. First, be very careful of your first impressions of people, places and things. Many times the first brief view does not convey all there is to see in a situation. Don’t be afraid to give something a second, or even a third, look before forming a permanent opinion. In other words: don’t look at things in the morning light - it often betrays what the rest of the day will bring.

Second, be careful which star you hitch your wagon to. O’Malley’s interests in having the Giants relocate to California was more for his benefit than it was in Stoneham’s. By convincing Stoneham to move to California, it served O’Malley’s primary purpose of getting a brand new stadium and a major metropolitan fan base all to himself. Take a moment to consider whether the people in your life offering guidance and assistance have your best interests at heart or theirs. Don’t be tempted or taken by the vampires in your life.

The final point, which is the most subtle of the three, I suppose, is that most things in life can be explained through baseball, given the chance.

Technorati Tags: baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, relocation, San Francisco, Los Angeles, California, morning, first impressions, self-interest

My friend, Eban Crawford, writes recently about new media “pirates” and the ostracizing of one in particular. I consider Eban about as good of a friend as one can have in this medium, so I know he’ll understand my writing a response here is a continuation of the conversation and not any form of personal attack.

I write here often that we in New Media should be the new pirates. I don’t say that just to be spouting inane rhetoric. I really believe that we should embrace the spirit of the pirate radio types that came before us. We need to be brash and confrontational, not Touchy-feely. Danny Golden understood that side of podcasting, and his show reflected it. (As much as I hate to admit it, he seems to have understood this even more than me)

I’m all for using the blunt approach and “calling it like you see it” (for lack of a better term). This is one of the many reasons I enjoy reading and listening to people like Eban, Dave Slusher, and Eric Rice — you’re not going to get anything sugar-coated, and they respect other people of the same ilk.

Sadly, podcasters and other new media producers are in a piranha tank where calling these things out or otherwise being critical of intents and results gets you labeled a wet-blanket cynic, simply dismissed out of hand, or actively attacked for daring to speak out. When you take disagreement with an idea personally or outright refuse to accept someone might hold a valid contrary opinion, you immediately close off all avenues of discussion and understanding. From a maturity standpoint, it’s the functional equivalent of a child holding hands over ears while chanting “I am not listening”.

Another thing Danny said in the last WWoD episode that strikes as true is most podcast listeners are from the podcast world. I will take that a bit further, Social and New Media consumers, no matter what form, are usually also producers of said content as well. We need to break down the walls and stop with the support group mentality. It is somewhat incestuous. We have to get out there and get the eyes and ears of those that do not look to New Media for their entertainment at this time, not those already converted to the cause.

Again, spot on. I’ve said before that the ego-chamber is alive and well, still, in podcasting, and it continues to run its circular course through the non-forking family tree that is the so-called “podcast community”. Podcasters (and their network overlords) are still too interested in patting themselves on the back for an infinitely small increase in the infinitely small coverage rate they have in the overall grand scheme of media consumption.

Notice I said millions of other viewers. How many eyes or ears does your new media product reach? They pull in millions with mindless crap. Even the best of the New Media products only pull in a fraction of those numbers.

This is exactly why most of the Top-20 podcasts in iTunes are dominated by old media conglomerates, folks. They already have the eyes and ears of millions. If you think your new media content is going to go mainstream and make you a star, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, and you’re in the wrong business.

We have one group of new media citizens that seems to be trying to do things the way old media does things. That won’t work for us, it has been done and we don’t have the resources to compete.

Another group is those New Media folks that are looking for profits and revenue before we actually make the cut and get into the eyes and ears of the masses. I don’t completely disagree with this as the old adage it takes money to make money is true in most cases. But we do have to be wary of putting the cart before the horse and building an unworkable model.

Sadly, both of these groups include most of your hierarchal podcast networks. With their 30-second ads, the pre-rolls, the post-rolls, and the over-rehearsed advertisements for other in-network shows, they are trying to take chapter and verse right out of old media’s playbook, without the corresponding astronomical marketing budgets. Preaching to the converted, indeed.

I produce for Podshow, and while not perfect, Podshow does not deserve a lot of the crap directed in their direction. There are exciting things going on that will be announced in the future that will impact the world of New Media. I find Podshow to be in the something totally new crowd and I am happy to be there.

While I’m glad that Eban is happy with Podshow, this is where I must disagree with my friend. Podshow, and every other for-profit podcast network out there inclusively, deserves every bit of the criticism they receive. These companies put themselves out there as the so-called “torch bearers” for new media, promising to lead the unwashed masses out of the desert to the promised land. Such brass not only invites critical watch over and review of your actions, it encourages it.

Most of your for-profit networks are set up with a few big “stars”, a lower tier of minor producers, and what can best be described as the steerage. It’s the job of the minor producers to promote the big stars (in hopes of one day being granted membership in the court) while helping the stars hold a carrot out in front of the the port window of the bottom deck. Keep eating your vegetables and saying your prayers every night and you too can some day make pennies on the dollar for your content.

In other words, it’s one very murky (and sadly, very legal) pyramid scheme. Only the first-class content producers at the very top (or the early entrants, which are usually the same people) will ever make any real money from being part of the network. The rest of the content producers will continue to chase an unreachable dream that is nothing more than a highly subjective moving target which may not even be there at all when (if) the end of the rainbow is found.

These schemes are not good for podcasting, but they are good for the podcast networks and the first-class content producers, which is why they continue to flourish. The sooner these schemes sink to the bottom of the sea the better off podcasting will be for all of us. Sadly, when that does happen, a lot of good content producers and a lot of good content are going to go down with the ship while the upper classes row away towards the next round of angel funding.

There’s nothing wrong with being a new media pirate. Go forth, sail the seas and explore all there is to see, hear, and do in the new media world. Just make sure you’re on the right boat, lest you be left rearranging the deck chairs.

Technorati Tags: new media, podcasting, podcast networks, pyramid scheme, pirates, new media pirates, podcast networks, Podshow, Eban Crawford

Was it just another day? Perhaps to many, and in some respects also to me. I’ve said before that the further away we are from an event, physically and in terms of time, the less impact it has on us.

Today many people will remember and pay their respects to the 2,974 souls that were lost on this day six years ago and the millions of lives that were changed forever in the aftermath. I have no interest in discussing the politics of the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent worldwide ripple. I have no interest in being an alarmist, an isolationist, or a xenophobe, then or now. I have no interest in waving a flag or shouting rhetoric. I have no interest in being angered or frightened in general or avoiding travel in particular.

The only interest I have today (and I try to not sound like a motivational poster when I say this) is to begin accepting that within each of us, individually and collectively, lies the power to change our world, both in the positive and in the negative. Self, family, neighborhood, city, state, country, planet, and all points in between: they are all very small hops from each other. How we, as individuals, a society, and a species, use this power in the immediate future will speak volumes about us to future generations.

Last year I did a podcast featuring one song, Phil Ayoub’s “White Feather”. This year, however, I will defer to the much-more-talented Ed Roberts and his Kansas City Weather Podcast tribute to September 11. If you normally don’t subscribe to KC Weather, I encourage you to take a listen to his show for today.

Remember, but keep moving to make the future better, one person at a time.

Technorati Tags: September 11, 9/11, Ed Roberts, Kansas City Weather Podcast, Phil Ayoub

Several areas were all abuzz about Apple dropping $200 off the price of the iPhone so “soon” after its original launch. Several people were “aghast” that Apple would “screw over” the early adopters and “steal” their money with such a drastic price cut so soon after the initial release.

Welcome to the price of early adoption, folks. Get… over… it.

Technologies will improve, be replaced, and have cost lowered. Such is the nature of these beasts. You don’t see $1000 VCR’s at your local electronics boutique of choice anymore, do you?

I’m sorry if you were an early iPhone purchaser and feel you got hosed out of $200 — I really am. Consider this while you’re screaming obscenities towards California: Was that phone not worth $600 to you when you purchased it? If not, why the hell did you buy it to begin with? If you’re an iPhone fan (or, even better, an Apple stockholder), wouldn’t you be enthused that this price cut would allow a broader production adoption and consequently bring about more third-party support and accessories?

Episodes like this prove to me just how much of a selfish, self-centered society we’ve become. We want everything perfect, cheap, and fast. We have disposable income caches enough to make King Solomon jealous and yet we still find a way to complain about the cost of something that many people couldn’t dream of owning.

No, you don’t have to be too entirely thrilled with it. After all, I wasn’t all that excited about it when it happened to me four months after my laptop purchase. But I remembered that the product was worth what I paid for it, when I paid for it, and that I’ve enjoyed having it for that time.

I’m not saying not to be on the bleeding edge or not to be an early adopter. I’m saying if you’re going to be one of the first into a product, expect that the price will drop or the technology will improve relatively quickly. Such is the price for being the first adopters. Buy it because it is worth the posted price to you at the time of purchase and because you expect to get that much enjoyment or use from it.

And for crying out loud, make sure you buy some damn perspective with that fancy new gadget.

Update: Apple is now going to give $100 store credit to early iPhone adopters.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, gadgets, impatience, price cut, early adoption, selfish, self-centered, perspective

Three tomatoes are walking down the street: a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him… and says “Catch up!”

Uma Thurman — Pulp Fiction (1994)

The buzz of the weekend was the viral e-mail spam assault brought on by a new “social network startup” named Quechup. I was fortunate enough that by the time the e-mails started rolling in, C.C. Chapman had already posted his apology/rant, and I was able to successfully avoid burying my own contact list in a wash of unwanted invites. Others I associate with were sadly not as lucky. This site’s privacy policies being what they are doesn’t surprise me, however. Let’s be honest here: almost every commercially-minded web site will collect some form of personally identifiable information.

So what have we learned from today?

Being An Early Adopter Isn’t Always A Good Thing

Sometimes being the bleeding edge, or trying to follow the bleeding edge, means you end up the victim of these things. If I wanted to take the cynic’s view of it (and why wouldn’t I?), I would say these are the exact people being targeted. The so-called “A-list elite early adopters” are going to be the people with the largest address books, and, consequently, the best fish in the pond for harvesting.

Social Engineering Is Alive And Well

For all our redundant firewalls, intrusion detection systems, network address translation schemes, and password security rules, nothing beats a good, old-fashioned round of social engineering on a social network sized scale.

One of the reasons why this went on for as long as it did is because the people clicking on the links trusted the people the invitation e-mails cleverly appeared to have come from. We want to trust the people that we know and associate with the most, and our usual initial reaction is to believe these people would not intentionally be malicious and subject us to spam, viruses or harvesting. There’s an argument to be made that it was the sole intent of the operation was as a social-engineering experiment.

Look Before You Leap

The domain has a Great Britain domain address with contact information under a e-mail domain registered in the Cook Islands (Pacific islands southeast of Samoa for those geographically unaware). The linked parent corporation specializes in “projects in online dating” and is domain-registered in Nevada. This worldwide round-about has more holes than the strainer I ran tonight’s angel hair pasta through.

Everyone wants to be the next MySpace, and some are willing to cut ethical corners to get there. After all, bad publicity is better than none at all, right? It pays to spend a few minutes checking out a site and searching around the Series of Tubes before clicking on the “Sign Up” button.

First Impressions Mean Everything

Whether through intentional shady practices, very poor judgement without malice, or just very bad programming, this site has destroyed any chance of success it had. In fact, I would go so far as to say it doesn’t matter why or how this happened. You can not repair a first impression any more than you can unscramble an egg. Enough bad press and angry blog posts have been created to permanently stain the name, assuming it was any form of legitimate business to begin with.

As a final thought, it was nice to know that I was important enough to be on so many GMail address books.

Technorati Tags: Quechup, spam, Pulp Fiction, early adopter, social engineering, social network, first impressions

It’s been four months since I railed hard on Twitter, and about three months since I paradoxically started actively using it. Looking back, my rants do come across as unjustified. Now, I think three months is enough time to allow the product to settle during shipment, as it were.

Social

Twitter has become a purely social object for me. Whatever its original purpose, the users have morphed it to become this large, incorporeal IRC chat room — a large stream of disembodied voices, if you will. For some reason, watching the comings and goings of people throughout their day has gone a long way to eliminating some of, but not all, the general feelings of isolation I’ve had in new media spheres.

Connector

There is a significant selection of people on Twitter that I follow and who follow me that I would not be aware of were it not for Twitter. Either through plucking them off the public timeline or off other “friend’s” lists, I’ve made several new connections I would not have made otherwise. Yes, you will have to deal with “rejection” in this space of people that don’t follow you back, and sadly the spammers are still causing their fair share of genuine concerns, but there are literally thousands of connections out there to be made — the network is built for it.

Soundboard

I’ve enjoyed bouncing ideas or questions, philosophical and otherwise, off the Twittersphere and getting several responses. Sure, I’ll never get the immediate flood of responses someone like Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan would, but it still serves its purpose, and it helps provide additional perspective. From it I’ve been able to take serious stock in some of the projects I’m involved in and am moving one in a different direction I had not even thought of. This change would not have been possible without the simple feedback from soundboard group of followers.

Pointed

You have to really have your act together to get a concise, intelligent thought across in 140 characters or less. Many times a single item of this type will turn into a Twitter conversation, but even then each exchange must be fluff-free, or it just won’t fit into the character allotment. When you’re on a serious subject, you can boil the salt out of the surrounding water pretty damn fast when you’re limited to the length of less than an SMS message.

Promotion

Twitter has pushed some traffic to this site as well as the two podcasts, and yes, it’s a valid use of the sphere (as long as it isn’t overdone like the last steak I ordered), but I try to avoid self-promoting through it (or really any channel) as much as possible. People will find my content if they want to. I’m slowly developing a following of people who are promoting it for me, which takes the gut-punched feeling away that I get trying to promote my own stuff. All that being said, as long as it doesn’t go overboard, a bit of shameless self-promotion seems to be tolerated, even encouraged, inside the Twitterverse.

Niche

Let’s face it — it’s not going to be for everyone. My wife tried it for a couple of days and it really didn’t stick with her. Some people get into it and find they just can’t handle the stream/noise or aren’t interested in what amounts to a constant, ongoing conversation. Of course, that’s fine. Not everyone likes asparagus either.

In the end, having heeded the advice I received from people I trust, I now grok Twitter a lot more than I did three months ago. It still has some flaws, technical (scalability, reliability) and practical (signal-to-noise), but as a simple communication tool I think it serves its purpose decently.

I’m finding the key to it though is to remember it’s just a tool, and tools can be used in the right hands or misused in the wrong ones. The tool does not make the person or the social circle — a good tool only enhances the existing social circle and makes its expansion easier.

If so inclined, you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/abiteofsanity.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, social, chat, social network, connecter, A.Connector, soundboard, feedback, concise, conversation, promotion, self-promotion, niche, Robert Scoble, Chris Brogan

Today’s sermon from the Church of Sanity ™ will probably be a wake-up call for some and will probably upset others, but I feel it needs to be said.

Podcasters are irrelevant. Void of worth. Lacking of importance. A deficit of meaning. Zero value.

Yes, this includes myself.

Why would I take up this radical opinion at a time when podcasting is booming? Why, indeed.

Resistance Is Futile - The Corporations Have Assimilated

Go look at the top one hundred podcasts in iTunes. Go look at the “featured podcasts” page in iTunes. Count the number of shows “sponsored” by large corporations and large non-profits like NPR versus the number of completely independent productions. Come back and tell me with a straight face that the corporations, which were practically ignoring this medium a year ago, haven’t now “embraced” it to the point of completely taking over. The independent voice has nearly been completely squelched by the PR machines and those who seek their pots of gold.

Dash, Cash, Crash - Bigger Is Not Always Better

For every podcaster out there with a great idea for their show, there will always be someone who will be doing it with a bigger budget and better publicity. If one podcast has podsafe music, the next will have “exclusive” podsafe music. For every show out there playing by the “podsafe rules”, there are many more skirting those rules as it suits them in order to grow or keep their audience. For every jingle heard to start a show, you’ll find half a dozen professionally polished musical works-for-hire.

For every video show done with a bedsheet backdrop and a cheap digital camera, there are shows with video equipment budgets that would make charity directors cry. For every great show on a headset mic, there are shows with an audio setup rivaling the cost of a small used car. For every show done with love from the basement with horrible acoustics, there will be another done in a professional studio with enough sound equipment to make my tweaking daughters sound like gods.

For every “amateur” show, there are three done for profit with sponsorships and advertising flowing from every crevice of the MP3 file they can be slimed into. When was the last time you listened to a podcast with sponsorship and the ads weren’t either the usual 30-second spots or painfully rehearsed scripts read by the host?

Go ahead and try to complete with these people — come back and let me know how you do. It’s just not reasonably possible to stand up to groups and companies with budgets and marketing departments that have been trained like Doberman Pinschers to sink their teeth into any medium such as podcasting with such low barriers of entry.

This Bird Has Flown

If you weren’t into podcasting before the iTunes 4.9 release, you missed the boat — period. The signal to noise ratio now means your chances of being heard in the space are slim, and your chances of succeeding to the point of profitability are practically non-existant. The average podcast these days has less than 100 listeners. Short of selling your soul to a guy holding a pitchfork with a bad sunburn, you don’t have much of a chance of getting noticed by the self-described “stars” of this space, who already have their audience and have absolutely no vested interest in helping you develop yours.

Networks Are Now Greater Than Their Parts

Search “podcast network” in Google and watch the results scroll on, and on, and on. The usual course of things is that being part of one network excludes you from all the other networks. It’s like high school all over again, only without being stuffed into a locker by the jock you refused to do homework for. Podcast promotions are increasingly no longer about shows, they’re about networks (and hand-picked shows within same) or the elite immediate circle.

We Attach Relevance Where None Should Exist

Podcasting awards. Podcasting conferences. Podcasting unconferences. Podcasting conventions. Podcasting newsletters. Podcasting websites. Podcasting directories. Podcasting networks. Podcasting feuds. Podcasting software. Podcasting podcasts.

How many people outside the immediate sphere of podcasting care about any of this? Go up to anyone on a corner and start talking about any of these things and you’re going to get looked at like you’re a crazy fool. Go put “won a podcasting award” on your resume and see if it opens any doors.

Instead of trying to promote the medium outside itself, podcasters are too interested for patting themselves on the back for their less-than-one-percent global media consumption rate. Sure, many podcasters have dropped radio and television as their media avenues of choice, but when only 13% of the population have ever even listened to even one show, the overall penetration rate is not anything to cheer about. The echo-chamber (or ego-chamber as Spin puts it) is alive and well in this space, and the majority of people in it still don’t get that it’s not the messenger or even the message that should matter, but the medium of it.

The Finality

I’m not saying podcasting is dead, only that it really needs to change direction quickly if it wants to survive. Podcasting has gone off on that path of old media because we think that’s where success (and the almighty dollar) lies. If we continue down this road we’ll be confined to our own little niche in the corner (ironically, by the forces we seek to emulate) and the so-called revolution will amount to no more than a few people firing blank shells from a toy gun.

Stop looking to other podcasters jealously for inspiration. Stop trying to make yourself look so much better, smarter, or richer than the next guy. If you’re going to produce media, produce it because you want to and because you love what you are doing, not because you think you’re going to be the next hot thing or because there is money to be made. Stop trying to be something you aren’t — stop chasing money that doesn’t exist — and stop caring about what the guy next door has done.

If we continue to make the podcasters more relevant than podcasting, we will all lose in the end.

Technorati Tags: podcasting, podcasters, relevance, echo-chamber, ego-chamber, Eric Rice, podcast awards, podcast conferences, advertising, corporations, podcast consumption, subscribers, podcast networks

There will always be some people who will find a way to make their pursuits about themselves rather than what they should be pursuing.

There will always be some people who will never accept good enough as good enough, and then strive to embarrass those who would.

There will always be some people who will take advantage of you when you least expect it.

There will always be some people who can not accept that great ideas can come from outside their sphere of influence.

There will always be some people who will believe their money or their possessions make them more of a person.

There will always be some people who think the color of your skin, the spirit you worship, or the place you live determines your worth as a person.

There will always be some people who forget there is nothing new under the sun.

There will always be some people who think being on top of an anthill makes them king of a mountain.

There will always be some people who thankfully will not be like these others.

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I’ve gone through some of my feelings on religion and faith before in this space. I could never (and still can’t really) reconcile something capable of inspiring everything from wondrous works of art to amazing, encouraging acts of self-sacrifice to beautiful music with its ability and reoccurring history of bringing out some of the worst that we as a species should be ashamed of imprinting on this universe.

Where does that leave me? I’m not entirely sure of late. I’ve never really had much of a problem with faith (or belief), just the way it’s practiced by some people. I think it is part of human nature to want more than what we see — to believe in there being a force outside and above us — ever since we’ve been able to turn our necks upward. But after having been burned to a briquette by religion three times in my life now, I’m not sure I can make the separation anymore between faith, religion, and the people who misrepresent both for their own nefarious means.

Does this dichotomy have anything to do with my lingering lack of faith in myself lately? I really can’t say for sure, but I wonder sometimes. I realize that something needs to change actively in my life, though. I’ve taken to slowly, much like a turtle coming out of a shell, surrounding myself with people who are positive and encouraging and remind me nearly daily that I can bring these ideas of mine to form, that I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for, and that the only person really holding me back is me. The expression “nothing changes by itself” has started to become a regular in my daily life, and I think I’m actually starting to believe it.

A flash of lightning goes across my window just now and I see my own reflection. I’m still not all that fond of what’s reflected back at me, but I do recognize and understand it a little bit more after every flash. Eventually I will come to terms with it and it won’t weigh on me anymore. If I’m lucky, in the process I will end up having a little faith in me.

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