Colin Charles Agenda

Apparently, the whole idea behind registering bloggers is coming back. The esteemed Information, Communications and Culture Minister, Rais Yatim stated:

“The idea is good, but we have to see it from the legal aspects and from the aspect of freedom of Internet use.”

What is this? A world of X-Men, where there are mutant registrations, in where the special powers are that of questioning the current administration and providing a more balanced (or biased) view of the political scene? Ptff.

Curious I am, about the Multimedia Signature Act. I don’t think anyone in their right minds, is interested in registering the fact that they write a blog. But its great to see the threat of bloggers so mainstream, that they’ve been talking about registration for at least two years.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about business models and new media with a specific focus on verticals. I’m passionate about the open source movement, and have been involved with free software since the mid-90’s. In fact, I’ve earned my crust, all these years, thanks to open source, so I have no complaints there!

Anyway, lets talk about new media. I’m thinking specifically around podcasts, video podcasts, and even online magazines.

Online magazines

We’ve seen the demise of LinMagAU (regularly hit Slashdot, when it was running), and even the MyOSS Magazine, all labours of love. In this space, I think the most successful magazine that sits online today, is Linux Weekly News (LWN). And they do it, thanks to having a business model – affordable subscriptions (USD$5/month), or group subscriptions.

Podcasts/Video podcasts

I think one of the most successful podcasts, is the now defunct LugRadio. So popular, they even managed to create a conference around it (LugRadio Live!).

That seemed to run on pure love, with sponsors for hosting. I don’t recall any ads, and I think they did it for the fun of it. Now if you search for “Linux” in the iTunes Podcast directory, there are just under 150 related podcasts (and video podcasts, maybe), that have Linux or an open source connotation in them.

Their quality varies. Some aren’t even updated any longer. One of the most successful FLOSS podcasts, that have a business model behind it, seems to be FLOSS Weekly (part of the whole twit.tv army that Leo Laporte has). They have advertising on the TWiT network, and you can support the network via donations (one time contribution, $2/mo, $5/mo, or $10/mo recurring). This stuff works via Paypal, and I can’t imagine the $2/month recurring option makes so much sense (considering Paypal fees that go with it). Plus you can buy some merchandise (something you can do, when you’re established).

Something that has recently caught my eye, is the Ubuntu Podcast. Its a video podcast, they accept Paypal donations. It also seems like a labour of love.

Hosting

Media (audio, and video files aren’t small) hosting and delivery isn’t cheap. The TwIT network makes use of CacheFly, and they’re not cheap, though they seem to have a reliable, global CDN. The Ubuntu Podcast seem to use DreamHost, who must have affordable hosting options, as they host their videos on the site too.

And that’s the other thing – if you’re doing something in the open source vertical, you better have multiple file formats. You want to provide audio files using MP3’s, yes, because people have iPod’s, and they might want to play it in their cars, but for the purists, you need to have OGG files too. That just about doubles your storage space. Think video, and you will start to cringe.

YouTube seems like a good hosting platform, with sensible CDNs, but you’ve got a 10-minute video clip limit (which might be a good thing). Blip.tv wants to help you monetise your video, however, getting video from them in Malaysia is a painful experience, so far. TWIST uses ustream.tv – I haven’t tested them out yet.

Business plans

A lot of labours of love, work for a while, but then die in time. It seems that unless you have a kosher business model, you’re not in it for the long haul. LWN and the TwIT network seem to have got it right – you need to get some kind of income, to defray the cost of doing business.

Advertising

Are most open source people blind to ads? I recently checked my Google Analytics account and found that no Linux users clicked on any of the ads on my blog. The Windows users were kinder than the Mac users, naturally. So Google AdSense might cover things like the cost of hosting, but its not exactly a business model.

Looking for sponsors might make some sense. I don’t know what the TwIT network rates are, but Jason Calacanis has This Week in Startups, and his rate is currently at:

Each commercial is $1,000 and you can purchase them in 10 week run by emailing sponsors@thisweekinstartups.com. All sponsors must be pre-approved and have groovy products like DNAMail and Ustream (our first two products).

This is a new show, and the projections are anywhere between 10,000 – 25,000 viewers in the first six months after it debuts. At a size of nearly 1GB for an 18 minute podcast, I wonder if that’s being kind?

So it comes down to finding sponsors, who believe in what you’re doing. And donations might work (it works for No Agenda with John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry, and it seems to work for the TwIT network of shows).

Subscriptions work, if you have premium content (LWN), that people can sample for free a week later.

So, what are the up front costs?

Quite simply:

• A good mic [for audio podcasts]
• A (cheap) video camera (Flipcams seem to work even these days) [for video podcasts]
• Hosting [this requires a lot of thought - remember that bandwidth isn't as luxurious all around the world]

It looks like there might be some time involved in post-production. The tools are available fairly easily, on most operating systems that you’re on (though I hear, iMovie on the Mac is about the best for video on the cheap).

And yes, I’ve not figured out where to host podcasts or video podcasts yet….

I’ve been looking around to find a host for podcasts, while toying with the idea of hosting it in Malaysia on my box as well. Self hosting has the advantage that its free, but at the same time, it may not be as fast for others outside the country, and then I’ve got to worry about it being a bandwidth hog.

I’ve been looking at PodBean, as well as libsyn. They all tend to have the same feature set: storage space that grows on a monthly basis, unmetered bandwidth, all starting at about USD$5/month. PodBean seems to offer just that little bit more, it seems, with video podcasting being supported just as well (this is a reason why the self-hosting mechanism isn’t one I’m after).

So, do you podcast? What do you use? Why?

Today at BarCamp KL, I presented a brand new talk: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest.

The back story

On April Fool’s Day, I sent out a feeler to see if anyone was interested in a talk titled “Advertising & PR, Bloggers & Integrity: making money, thru honesty”. It seems like the response was positive, and it was to be scheduled on Saturday for BarCampKL. Wow, a few days to come up with a brand new talk… naturally, I asked people for feedback, and received them (right up till 7 or so hours before the talk was scheduled to be given).

Preparing for the talk

On Friday, I posted a bunch of notes that I had taken down in OmniOutliner. I gathered some feedback, and then implemented the whole thing into Keynote (this is incidentally also my first presentation in where I am not using OpenOffice.org Impress, a software package I had helped contribute to for a significant portion of my life). To boot, I also purchased the Keynote Remote application for the iPhone/iPod Touch, for USD$0.99. This moves me away from using the usual Logitech Presentation Remote. So let’s just say all this marked new ground for me, as I got to learn new software in an evening, including using the presenter notes, and so on.

Giving the talk

Considering I had never given the talk before, and was winging it based on notes I had created a day before, let’s just say it was a little rough on the edges, lacking statistics that I would have liked, and lacking graphics that I should have included. I’m sure there will be a 2.0 version of the talk, if I’m to give it elsewhere.

I was pleased that the talk had a standing room audience. During the talk there was active discussion. That’s what made it fun. Lots of participants shared their experiences, and it was people representing media buyers, PR firms, as well as the bloggers themselves.

Generally speaking, most people believed that disclosure should be the way to go. There is nothing wrong with making money from your blog, but telling your audience that you are doing so, is a duty to your readers. Its the right thing to do!

Conversation about the talk went on even during lunch, and I seemed to hear lots of positive feedback about it. Its a pity I didn’t get the whole talk recorded!

In closing

Expect a series of blog posts, that are more well thought out, and are logically separated on this topic in the near future. And to think, all this talk started with what I told David Lian, a few weeks ago, at the KLTweetup, about how I believe Nuffnang will be irrelevant in 2 years if they don’t change their business model. Not existing is hard (both founders have got deep family pockets), but becoming less relevant, I guarantee it (or I’ll eat a shoe — one made of cake, nonetheless ;-))

My goal for a while now (since November 2006 — yes, its March 2009 now) has been to be to start a podcast. Or two. Or a network of podcasts. Lofty goals, but a man has got to dream, no?

The following reviews had been helpful as well: MacInTouch as well as the comparison with the C03U as well (costs a bit more, good for recording many instruments, but definitely not what I require).

So, what will I be podcasting about? Something free & open source related, naturally. At least for starters. Another one for startups, entrepreneurs, and so on, I’m sure of (it doesn’t have a name, or a domain).

Update: A link to the product sheet, as it has a very interesting video about how the C01U and C03U work, and how to position it, and so forth.

I’ve seen a bunch of sites/articles that are Twitter related recently. I’ve compiled them, and commented appropriately.

• Splitweet – this is useful, as it allows multi-account Twitter management. A lot of corporations are using Twitter for business, and if you’re a small business owner, chances are you have Twitter accounts for all your businesses (if you’re social networking savvy, that is ;-)). Today? I use twhirl for that sort of thing (multiple account management, that is).
• Twitter to begin charging brands for commercial use – I wonder how this will work? Go after the folk that have trademarked their brand? Go for people with more than n-followers? I just don’t see this as completely viable, without also affecting all those pro-twits. Maybe Twitter should acquire a service like Splitweet, and sell that interface?
• StockTwits – this is Twitter search, for stock lovers. Looks like its only useful for the American stock market, but there can be lots of potential here. Some popular ones to look at: JAVA, GOOG, and even AAPL. Note the comments (looking to short, etc…) When will there be insider trading thanks to Twitter, one wonders?

An online survey (500 Malaysians, all online already, and in total, it was 26,000 amongst the countries surveyed) by The Nielsen Company, showed that Malaysians ranked fifth amongst 52 countries for being digital media consumers. The stats (with more from the NST):

• Malaysians ranked third globally for those that spent more than 20 hours a week watching streamed or downloaded content from the Internet – translation, Malaysians bittorrent a lot, or are in love with YouTube. Video in Malaysia is big, clearly.
• 53%/41% played(streamed, even)/downloaded video/movie/audio/game content online in December 2008. Translation? The ones with 1mbps broadband lines are streaming YouTube content… How about a local video sharing site, or a local site with content?
• 85% got on their computers, while only 77% turned on their TV sets – translation, if you’re not advertising online or your media buyers don’t know how to deal with it, its time to find new ones
• 4% download movies/movie clips more than 30 times in a month – that means about 7.5 TV series that they’re following, or less, but with movies thrown in – eep, no advertising seen
• 8% download music or other audio files more than 30 times – since there’s no iTunes music store in Malaysia, its probably entirely illegal content

So its skewed. With a broadband penetration rate of about 18% only, they asked the choir, and the results aren’t too surprising. I predict we’ll see more people online in the results of the June/July survey, as we face this economic slowdown, and more people buckle up, stay at home, and still live their lives.

Today, I found out Michael Arrington of TechCrunch fame got spat on, but worse, he had death threats against him and his family previously (consequently, he will take a break during February to re-focus). It reminded me of what happened with Kathy Sierra, a while back, which made her stop blogging. Then it reminded me of the events of 2002, in where someone did the same thing to me.

When you’re public facing, and on the Internet, you tend to have a lot of your information spewed online. Social networking sites, and the constant need for you to share with others, helps drive the fact that any stalker can find information about you easily. Some even get their iPhone’s to update the Location field in Twitter automatically (wait, I think twibble on the Nokia phones does that too). We’re geotagging photos. Dopplr or TripIt tells others where you are planning to go – so this problem can also be cross-border.

We’re slowly giving up our privacy, to some extent. And we’re allowing malicious folk to know intimate details of our lives. Details that we wouldn’t mind sharing with a friend, but details that can be used to cause attacks, or even identity theft.

So, my question is: is this an online-only phenomena? I mean, journalists in traditional media do the same thing. OK, they have journalistic integrity, and the editors have strict guidelines to ensure that what is in print, isn’t drivel. Rumours tend not to be published, and everything is fact backed. Blogs tend to lack that, sometimes. Its harder to pinpoint and contact an individual journalist – you’ll just be getting to the editor. In a world where everyone can have the potential to be a journalist, without the integrity of one, is leaving yourself vulnerable online a good thing?

From a personal perspective, my incident about seven years ago hasn’t taught me much. I don’t paste my home address with GPS co-ordinates online anymore on my site – instead I use a PO BOX. But on social networking sites like Facebook, my friends get to see more details. With other people tagging photos of me, you even one even gets to see where I’m hanging out. And when I’m bored, I might tweet where I might be. And with geotagging, co-ordinates start showing up (especially if you have Location Tagger running automatically on the Nokia E71).

How do you deal with potential threats? Do you even think of it? Have you been threatened before?

Here’s hoping Mike has a good break and comes back blogging even stronger. Don’t give up!