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Talk to me about Amateur Radio these days 
The local amateur radio club meeting started it off. They mean so well. They'll be valuable, too valuable because the public sector is so busy spending money without a clue. But they're flailing and depending on decades old technologies and biases. That's a problem that may take decades to fix (if it can be fixed).
| | Technology moved faster than either the amateurs themselves or the equipment manufacturers that supply them. There's a general myth that the internet wiped out packet radio (which was a precursor to the Internet) but the real answer is that everyone got seduced by their fancy computers and quit even trying to do it over radio. |
| | That will change. Japan (where virtually all -- by number of units -- amateur radios are manufactured) has adopted a new digital radio standard for amateur communications. It will take years for the Japanese government (which is behind the technology) to get a significant number of its local amateurs converted. The US and others will follow. It's reasonably current technology. Think the Internet only five or ten years ago. |
| | The people at that meeting are stuck in the '80s. They want to be in this century, but there's not leadership at the local, state, or national level. None. |
Then I went and listened to several hours of technology podcasts. Household names. Big current topics. Bad idea.
No names. It's too controversial and the A-List people I was listening to seem to have thin skins.
| | One is a person I managed to insult at a dinner recently. Sense of humor and humility are not things I'd attribute to any of the folk I listened to today. |
| | The problem is that this is the media talking to the marketing people. It's those who have grown up pimping for the advertiser sucking up to the new [potential] advertiser and/or talking to themselves. I lost it and reverted to silence the twentieth or thirtieth time that an interviewer went off on a thirty-second or one-minute speech that was merely their opinion on a topic that the interviewee was supposed to be an expert about. |
| | I guess, selling soap is selling soap. If the podcasters and bloggers want to be "the media" of the future, they want to sell soap just like Radio and TV did. They think it's cool to sell soap on what they think are their terms. But that's totally fallacious. |
| | They'll end up doing what the soap companies tell them works. They're already well modulated and carefully positioned. The real commercial voices in this space, like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the TV and Radio soap-sales platforms are pandering to the sources of support. It's not just the soap manufacturers. It's the venture capitalists and financial institutions (and government agencies) that might help or hinder their future growth. It's about their future. |
| | But it's a gamble. And, I suspect, a dangerous one. The problem is that the attention-giver of tomorrow wants a real voice. They want something more than a talking head on a differnt channel. It's not enough that a podcast is time-shifted, on demand, and DRM free. If it's media as usual, it's at risk. And it should be run over with a truck. |
Finally, a note on the Bill O'Reilly versus Keith Olbermann story.
I watched Keith's follow-up. It could have been so much better. But it was good.
| | With a few hours notice, you'd think they'd show the Arbitron/Neilsen ratings comparing the two back a few months. You'd think they'd get a less shrill expert to interview ... not that she was stupid or anything but she was a little too into it. |
| | Only the original caller / blogger won that one. |
Today
5524m in 30 minutes, rowing easy. Nice improvement.
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Watching Orinda. Watching the world.
Last modified: Saturday, March 04, 2006 at 11:38 PM.
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