While on the road to a client yesterday, I got to listen to a couple of audiocasts, as the mountainous terrain around here makes radio reception difficult. As I’ve blogged before, a five cent CD-R seems cheaper than the batteries to try to jury-rig an MP3 player to a FM transmitter to tune in on the car radio. Insert disc. Play. Very simple. On this trip, I listened to:
Joichi Ito: The Future of Blogging. “The Internet is truly becoming an open network with the rise of amateur content and open source software. In this talk, Joi Ito takes us through the growth of the internet as an open network in layers to the point where the killer app is now user generated content. Earlier, it was the little guys around the edges of the internet who created the open standards which made the web work, and today it is those same people who fuel it with their creativity. Joi also shares with us his observations of the remix culture seen on the net. [Accelerating Change audio from IT Conversations]” — quite the blast of conversation. The key point: user content, rather than mainstream media, is the next big internet wave. Great moment: Joichi points out that “amateur” comes from Latin roots of “from the heart” and doesn’t say anything about the quality.
Saul Klein, VP Marketing, Skype: “Skype has become one of the prominent disruptive technologies of the early 21st century. Allowing anyone with a broadband connection to make cheap calls all over the world and free voice, text (and now, video) calls to anyone on the Skype network, it has changed the way many people think of the telephone. Skype has influenced pricing and availability, and is so ubiquitous that it is lending its name to become the verb for using PC-based voice over IP… In this interview, Larry Magid talks with Saul Klein, VP Marketing of Skype. They discuss the changing nature of the telecom business, Skype’s new video feature and the potential for Skype to bring telephony to previously under-served markets.”
David Heinemeier Hansson, Developer, Ruby on Rails: Secrets Behind Ruby on Rails, “Ruby on Rails has received a lot of buzz among the web developer community, but many wonder exactly what the fuss is all about. In this high order bit from the 2005 O’Reilly Open Source Convention, developer David Heinemeier Hansson explains the secrets behind the success of Ruby on Rails.”
All audiocasts came from the IT Conversations: All Programs feed. Worth checking out, and considering supporting IT Conversations if they bring as much value to you as they do to me.