In Nashville, talking about podcasting, making money, and TV
“Discussion at a Nashville restaurant with Hoder and Brendan Greeley about podcasting, context, making money, including a run-in with a Channel 2 camera crew. An interesting discussion.”
Brendan shared his cautious support for podcasting, noting both the potential for creativity and the abundance of low-quality content. The conversation explored the personal and contextual nature of blogs, with the speakers emphasizing the importance of building relationships with readers rather than just delivering information. They discussed the challenges of monetizing blogs versus pursuing creative fulfillment, and the political implications of blogging, especially in restrictive societies.
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Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated.
just picking up right but there
we go okay so good morning
everybody the
statewide or morning coffee
notes it’s uh what is today’s
date today’s I always go
through that it’s today it’s uh
Saturday the 7th of May 2005
and coming to you
from Nashville Tennessee where
we’re at the blog Nashville
conference we’re
actually at the international
market right so what’s your
name my name is
Brendan really Brendan really
so Brendan you went to Tulane
University Tulane
University and I believe that
someone else is sitting at this
very table went
to Tulane University no let’s
get our radio voices off though
we’re just gonna
have a radio this is my normal
voice no it’s not okay I mean I
’ve heard your
normal voice okay all right all
right fair enough so I’m gonna
let you ask the questions
so in a few minutes you’re
gonna leave a discussion on
podcasting right I am so I’m
telling you about podcasting
what do you think about podcast
ing what I think
about podcasting I am caut
iously supportive of podcasting
why and where
does caution come from because
I think an amazing amount of I
’ve heard podcasting
sounds real in a way that radio
doesn’t at all but I think and
I guess it’s just
like the blog is here so much
of it is crap what do you mean
there’s I think
there’s a lot of what’s
fascinating about it is that
what’s fascinating about
it is that anybody has the
opportunity to to create a
radio show or to create or
or to record whatever it is
that they want to talk about
but what’s interesting
is so much of it because of the
limitations of the tools that
we have
right now are a single person
talking into our talking
talking into a
microphone talking into a
computer right and I think the
model for that is
Howard Stern and I think it is
very very difficult to be
Howard Stern why why
do you because like I think
Howard he can sit and talk and
it’s interesting to
listen to me just get a word in
here because like that’s what I
do more or
less but you know but I want to
get a word in okay I just want
to like say
that I don’t model myself after
anybody but myself I’m not
trying to be Howard
Stern and whether you know
whether somebody thinks it’s
crap or not you
know the beauty of it is that
you don’t have to listen to it
so it’s not you
know there are plenty of people
who don’t think that what I do
is crap you
know and so I assume that that
’s true for the pretty much
everybody you know
the nice thing about podcasting
is is that I mean I have a
story that goes
with this I was once at a
conference and sitting at a
table you know maybe ten
people around the table and you
know I was saying the kind of
thing that I
would say which is that I want
to see creativity come back for
everybody this
you know we live in a world
basically where it’s only the
supposedly best
people that actually get to be
creative and one of the reasons
the world isn’t
so much trouble is because we
need everybody to feel the the
right to be
creative or even the obligation
to be creative and yet every
message we get
is that you’re just crap and so
this kid says and he’s just a
kid he’s like
probably I don’t know how old
are you 30 so he’s good to you
he’s probably like
21 years old really and he says
well I have absolutely no
talent absolutely no
talents at all and I go well
come on that’s ridiculous how
could you possibly
lose a very expensive
conference you know very
expensive like people to go to
this conference it costs like $
15,000 it was like you know so I
said first of all
you’re here somebody paid $15,
000 for you to come here you can
’t not have talent
you have to be educated you
have to have been you know
whatever so they said you
know tell me about some of the
people in your family what do
they do and he said
that his grandfather was Jack
Benny so you don’t know who
Jack Benny because I
once gave a talk at Harvard and
they I got these puzzled looks
from these kids
like they didn’t I said you
guys don’t know who Jack Benny
is right and they go
yeah that’s right oh my god I
’ve lived too long that was like
that was the first
thought that came right because
in my generation Jack Benny
well Jack Benny
wasn’t really a hero in mind
but in my parents right to our
parents he was like
he was like Eddie Murphy to our
parents have a seat come on sit
down I’m
podcasting right now I’m
recording so yeah so these kids
were like they didn’t
know but Jack Benny was one of
the great comedians of the 1930
s 40s 50s into the
60s he just died like in the 80
s this kids grandfather was Jack
Benny and I
said to him how could you
possibly not have any Jack
Benny’s grandson but yet
the thing is that it beats us
into it was the TV and radio
whatever beats this
idea into us that we have no
talent now before we had TV and
radio we have you
know we had to create
entertainment for each other we
you know if you wanted to
have entertainment on Saturday
night you’d have to find a
friend who had a
guitar who could sing or tell
stories or you know whatever
and I think that
that’s a better more humane
world so so you know I know you
meant well by saying
that but I’d like I would like
you to whenever you are about
to say that okay
to think of the story that I
just told you but actually I
absolutely grew okay
when I first started the reason
that I became fascinated with
podcasting is when
I listened to it the first time
I just listened to Adam Curry’s
show and it
sounded it sounded real it
sounded like I think I’ve told
you this before but I
think the thing that was most
compelling to me that made me
want to listen more was
the fact that in the middle of
talking he got up and let his
dogs and I heard
the screen door bang and I
heard his dogs like barking
back and then he sat
back down you don’t hear that
anywhere else so that I think I
think what’s
interesting is I’m coming from
the perspective of having to
use having to
create a tight hour of
programming right but that’s
over you don’t have over I
do absolutely I think you have
to I agree absolutely I fully
expect to see the
day in two years maybe three
when the number of hours spent
listening to
podcasts passes the number of
hours people spend listening to
radio I
think that’s true but I think
to do that the podcast will
begin to resemble I
think no to get the voices that
you talk about no I think to
get the voice I
agree I want to find the voices
that you talk about to but to
get to them you
have to do a lot of work you
got to listen through a lot of
them you got to
find your favorites and then
you got to like scroll forward
and I think that
I think for somebody who can do
that work there there’s a much
wider group of
people who would love to listen
to them but need the work done
for them and
that’s traditionally what the
media did and maybe became bad
and do I don’t know
what it is why you think that
word of mouth or apply in
podcasting applies in
everything else in other words
Hodor is gonna call me up and
say you know I’ve
been trying to tell you I’ve
been looking for an Iranian
blogger for you to
listen to right and finally I
’ve got somebody I think this
guy’s gonna really
ring your bell I really do
really gonna understand what
this person says so
because Hodor is a friend of
mine and because I value his
opinion and because
I’ve been listening to his
podcast when he says that I’m
gonna go okay it’s
worth a listen right so that’s
one way it’s gonna happen
another way is we’re
actually going to get top-10
lists the top 100 lists that
really means
something art isn’t it isn’t
hard to do that okay and so
that’s gonna you know so
we’re gonna want to listen to
what everybody else listens to
I think that
that you know we’re still so
early in this that we tend to
measure things in
terms of what came before just
like people used to measure
cars in terms of
they compared them against you
know horse’s carriages that’s
what they called
them right today you don’t
think of a car as a horse’s car
in cars car right
the same thing’s gonna happen
with podcasts I think and it’s
under that I
don’t need I think I started to
say this before but you know
three people
listen to my podcast every time
I do one and after that I could
give a shit how
many other people live that’s
true for you and it makes a lot
of sense for you
because your business model is
you run a blog and you have a
public personal
model sure but you with your
business I know thank you
business models and get
the red buddy I have to make a
living I’m not even trying I’m
not even trying to
like make a million dollars I
just have to like pay my rent I
’m sorry I don’t
even think you begin to think
of my blog as being something I
pay my rent but
I’ve heard you but I’ve heard
you say before that part of
what you do is that
as you as you as you do your
other work what your blog does
is it feeds into the
the expertise that allows you
to do your other work you have
a public persona
through your blog for and so
many people have so much
respect for the persona
that you built through your
blog that it leads to other
stuff even if you’re not
selling blog but listen to me
Brendan I would be blogging
even if that weren’t
true I mean when I started blog
ging how many years did it take
to get to that
point okay promise you you know
it took a lot of years and I
was blogging well
before that with that no idea
that anything like that would
happen and I
would do it again you know the
discovery that I made when I
started
blogging was that I had to
figure out some way to make
money doing it not
because I want to make it
because it takes so much time
to do it well that
like it there’s a labor cost
what’s your blog what mistakes
for me and so how
often do you update it I haven
’t updated it forever because I
started working at
the RX and my blog now is radio
open source okay that’s my full
-time job is
maintaining that blog so the
radio that’s the one for Chris
slides what
do you do I’m the blog I’m
responsible I’m responsible for
creating the blog
and making sure that out of the
story meetings we feed it so
that so that other
material so why is that what’s
the radio dot what radio open
source or radio
so that’s the main website and
so I understand you you’re you
’re you’re
perfectly within your right to
say fuck you with your business
model and maybe
it’s the wrong term but I have
to somehow you’re talking about
you you’re
projecting your goals on the
knee no my only way I want to
be really clear I
don’t share your goals no my
own but I think we do in a way
I think we share
my only goal is to make enough
money to live and blogging
takes time and you may
find that you can make that you
can make a living and blog I
found that I couldn’t
I think there are two kinds of
bloggers one free adsense and
post adsense free
what no no Google adsense
because Google adsense adsense
because before that you
wouldn’t expect to have to get
any money out of it or pre-blog
as whatever right
yeah and people who started
after that are conscious about
making money out of
it but we that’s too bad I’m
sorry that it turned that way
yeah I started three
years ago before all this well
you’re gonna tell the folks who
are you I’m
what’s saying that action yeah
hoder me editor myself right
yeah yeah okay so
you’re famous you’re one of the
blog fathers right they were
talking last
night of it it’s funny to have
this third person down here
sitting on the
table on my arches but there is
another hole there actually are
more than three
people I know my mother’s
listening to it at least you
scripting news really
hi mom anyway you want to say
hi to my mom hi her name is dr.
Winer dr. Winer they both have the same name my mother’s name is Eve my father’s name is Leon so but you started blogging you blog for a political purpose right not necessarily now it’s a little bit political because because if you even talk about your daily lives and stuff simple things it’s considered as political in those closed society right the government tries to control everything every aspect of your personal life so it is political in that sense but it’s not political in its content necessarily it has become more political recently but I would argue that even in a supposed so-called free society like America even blog ging is a political act here too because you’re challenging the media it’s just basically wait I want to know I need to head out okay okay well you come to the the podcast I want to continue that yeah oh you have to go to it really I thought it starts at 130 starts at one I think I’m pretty sure I look at the schedules 130 that’s 130 you’re interrupting my podcast for a scheduling error okay well I you continue podcast hold on everybody you can escape but he doesn’t have to know it is it’s 130 you can sit down if you want or you could be natural but it is natural but I like to keep the conversation fun I forgot where we were I was gonna oh yeah so I was gonna say that basically you know even here is political well this came up yes it is political why is it well okay so I forget what it was something I called a crime against humanity which was the communications decency act which passed here in like 1995 or 96 something like that in the mid 90s Congress passed and the president signed a bill called the communication decency act and what it basically said was is that if it’s offensive to parents of young children that you can’t put it on the internet I mean it said a lot more than that instead of more specifically that was basically the idea it was clearly unconstitutional right and that ’s what they to branch the government that entered into law it was pending on the third branch to to declare unconstitutional which they did I called it a crime against humanity and you know people said well come on Dave that’s not a crime against humanity I said it’s a matter of scale you know I mean that sure you know genocide is a crime against humanity but this is also a crime against humanity it’s not you know crossing the street against the light is a crime against the state you know so is murdering somebody right but they’re still they still are crimes so you know it’s a political act even if you’re not likely to go to jail it still is exercising a political a right that you’re given through the First Amendment to the Constitution and that at some point that could be an issue in this country when somebody maybe tries to amend the Constitution to get rid of it just so happens we don’t have to live in a time yet where that’s a case although we’ve had things like the Patriot Act here in the United States which which you know sounds an awful lot like that kind of stuff you know so it’s just a matter of dimension for you it’s a much more serious political acts you know it could it could be you know it could be you know very threatening to your physical well-being to say what you think right or do you or could it do you think that it could do you feel sometimes that when you post something in your blog that if I was if I were living in Iran yes but because I’m safe in Toronto no you feel safe and yeah I do even sometimes I you know I make some jokes some religious jokes or stuff like that and I would I couldn’t do it if I were in Iran what about salmon Rushdie what was that about salmon Rushdie salmon Rushdie yeah okay one one interesting thing here is that you know I have readers that reads my read my stuff every day for the past three four years so they know me better than their cousins and they trust me better than many of their relatives because I’ve been honest they know you know after three years of reading they part of your family so it’s interesting comparing the salmon Rushdie’s case with for example if I do the same thing because they trust me and they know me they wouldn’t do the same thing to me as they did with salmon Rushdie or anybody else because they know that why I’m talking why I’m saying this they know I’m not like I don’t want to destroy the religion and stuff like that I don’t want to harm them or harm their feelings and stuff it’s some sort of a belief that I just have for a few minutes and they know that because of my background in history it’s not really serious it’s just a joke I don’t really take it seriously so they put it in the context of me and that’s where this whole concept contextualization is really important because blogs are contextualize everything and everyone and every ideas if they have if they are happening in in that context and that’s so they have meaning much more meaning that otherwise they couldn’t so people would take them differently so this idea of constant context became pretty central in the last discussion yeah it was pretty interesting we sort of figured something out didn’t you why don’t we try to play that back because I’d like to get that on the record and get that out to the scripting news readers this is going to go up during the next session this will be on my site and in my RSS feed and downloaded into iPoders before we’re finished with the day you know a whole lot of people are gonna listen to this so cool so the idea is basically the question came up is and this is a question that’s come up at a lot of conferences even one that you and I had both been at at Berkman Center was it earlier this year it was last last year right it was late last year and the question is how do we create more linkage between what’s going on in blogs I don’t know why the is the United States that central line do you see it that way we see ourselves at the center yeah so you also see us as being important connectors in the sense that if we could you want that connection right yeah I see it because English is sort of Google right at the same time I’m only the English speaking people we have the most yeah the most weblogs right that’s that’s well let’s weblogs did originate the United States basically so that’s it so the idea so you said something that all we really want is links right and then I said well no you can’t get by with just things because I linked to you but my readers don’t have any sense of what that means when they go to your site you know I try to explain sometimes but even like I don’t understand what I look at your site what does this mean he’s you know I just get one little blog post that doesn’t give me the whole context yeah so that’s when I sort I had an idea which was this is something I do I do a lot of traveling you know my blog and I take pictures and I also I explain things in terms that mean something to me and because my readers have a sense of who I am they kind of get they understand what my filters are they kind of can sort of extrapolate what it’s really like to be there right so I said well we should just go there we should we should go be in your context yeah that’s the ultimate and I think that’s the answer yeah that’s the ultimate question of course what do you do if you are a casual reader of blogs and I what do I do and I end up on one of your sites and I don’t have any context whatsoever I just nothing you can’t do anything for you you can’t do anything for me to get anything out of the experience of reading your blog I have to be not to get anything but to but to get this you’re you know you think you can go read his blog any day you want the problem is you’re gonna have the same problem I have which is I don’t understand what it means to be Iranian I don’t understand Iran I don’t understand I mean his country is surrounded by a lot of other countries that I’ve never been to but I don’t know anything about his people live in a context that I don’t understand I can’t really go there yet but I could go what the idea you had was let’s go to Egypt and Israel right yeah why don’t you explain what what you meant by that yeah we could go and start blog is true there I bet there are blog gers here’s in Israel I bet there is a blog history in Israel really no you don’t think Hebrew I don’t think so Hebrew I don’t know I can’t speak Hebrew I can do English I think we should do all about important English is we should not is nothing because all these languages I mean all these local communities should have blog gers in their own language otherwise it’s not but you see if you want to connect them up to the greater blog is here you know and not just the US because yeah but then then there’s gonna have there’s gonna be a component that acts as a bridge yeah between their native language blogs and the rest of the world in other words we need one hop in there because I’m never gonna learn to read Hebrew maybe I will but I’m never gonna learn to I’m too old to learn to read all those languages you know maybe the next generation that comes along you know two generations but if you could find some sort of bloggers here in Hebrew in Israel then maybe one of some of those people could be bridge bloggers and then those ones are the ones we bring them over here exactly we bring them here start emailing you the same thing that I did I actually started my English weblog after about one and a half year because I felt that there’s something going on in Iran and nobody knows about it right because it’s all in person right I remember the day when we started getting p ings on weblogs. com and from the Iranian blog and it was like it drove me crazy you know because on the one hand I thought well here’s the geo- political phenomenon happening here I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about you know for all I know they could be saying death to the infidels you know it’s like in fact they probably are but you know I also read there was a great book all the shaz men yeah what was the guy’s name? Kinzer. Right Stephen Kinzer that was an eye- opener I mean as an American I had no idea we had you know the the our image of Iranians is there really nasty scary dangerous people right that’s what well because you know in all fairness in all fairness to the United it’s Americans which of course I am one is that our first my first experience with Iranians was that but I didn’t of course realize that and if you’d asked me at the time do you think there’s a context for this I would have said of course what ’s the context I have absolutely no idea I don’t know what happened before I know what they say right and but on the other hand I know my country is basically a good country or I believe my country is basically a good country although I actually don’t and didn’t believe that although you know we have mixed feelings about it right I mean I was also draft-aged during the Vietnam War so believe me I don’t think my country is that because is anything close to infallible that war was terrible and I was ready to leave the country you know if they called me I was going you know I was still in school and that was the secret if you could stay in school then you didn’t have to go but my grades weren’t that good so right I didn’t those days to be a kid in the United States a male kid meant thinking really seriously about what it might be like to go and get killed in Vietnam you know it was serious so this was only 10 years after that and so you know they had to be some sort of element of truth to what they were saying but you know the imagery was horrible for Iran ians in the US you got your country not you you probably were three years old but your country looked terrible and never and most people of course here to have in red Steven Kinzer’s book and don’t understand the context and you know after you read the book I ’d say that there’s a 70 to 90% chance that they were justified in taking the hostages and it was certainly understandable why they did it because it looked to them like they were going to lose it again that the United States was going to come in and take it over again you know and based on past experience that certainly seemed like although it hasn’t doesn’t seem like it’s had a very happy ending for Iran because you know you trade one despot for another you know you’ve got the the mullahs is that hey m ullahs yeah so what do you what do you want what do your people want for Iran they want a nonviolent kind of change that’s for sure because if they wanted some sort of revolution or invasion stuff like that they would have been on the streets now right but I don’t want that and this is a big mistake that some people actually a little bit less now but six months ago it was much much more talk about it attacking Iran and inv ading Iran by the right from the United States yeah but you don’t think that’s a concern yeah or I think it’s yeah it’s not as great as it was but they also say that Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power I know but I don’t know what’s happening but there’s something going on behind the scenes that because I don’t feel that sort of wariness or you know nervousness on the side of Europeans or Americans now comparing to six months ago nobody’s panicked about it even though Iran said that we’re gonna start again enriching uranium but everybody’s cool about it and I think that’s that shows some things going on behind the scenes right they’re talking yeah so yeah the whole thing back to the how you could support the global voices and stuff I think public say public say publicize me which is basically but lim ping and talking and stuff like that and then contextualize which could start from rephrasing that piece or translating if you can if you know that language translating or summar izing that post and it could start from there and could go on you know now we meet now we know each other right this is the best contest that you can get you know how I look how I speak yeah absolutely I know Billion times more about you now than I did before yeah I want to ask a question you were talking earlier about it’s actually fundamentally I had always understood web logs as a source of information but what I’m understanding now is the way the two of you to find them is web log is a a relationship that could yield information it can be always understand that there’s like no general rules about this right you know there are blogs that are strictly about delivering information but context which is what we’re talking about you know I mean if you were to ask most readers of script of my blog scripting news I think and I can’t speak for them it’s it’s like they’re very smart people I really believe that that by and large you have to be pretty smart to want to read this blog okay number one number two is most of the information that you get on my blog you can get elsewhere you know it’s not like it may be not as easy to get elsewhere but you could get elsewhere I don’t think they’re coming so much for the information as they’re coming because there’s something about the blog that they like you know maybe it’s just about your filter right exactly you know maybe they don’t like me and maybe that’s why they come you know there are blogs that I read because I don’t like the people say I don’t like your posts right but I’d like the links that you you post but people are weird people sometimes like to be irritated they like to be irritated they seek it out you know so you know whatever it is there’s some magnetism that goes on and it’s not insignificant because a lot of people read the blog so and the same thing’s true with Hoders blog right I mean that it’s it’s a personal you know they’re all levels of relationships one you know as I check the site every once in a while a more serious relationship as I subscribe to it when you get somebody who says I now want to have everything at this person ever writes pass through my my filters that’s a stronger relationship then they say oh I ’m willing to listen to sit down and clear out 45 minutes out of my day and listen to his podcast that ’s an even deeper relationship so far that’s the most I mean I also throw conferences to and sometimes people come to those like water and that’s even more because they have to get on a plane and go somewhere you know to be there or we have dinners and you know I mean it ’s a bad experience yeah no it’s just lines I won’t cross you see you know it ’s uh it’s like when you start getting into that I mean I’m amazed you got me to talk about this but who’s podcasting there is no you see that’s not the way it works yeah yeah it’s perfectly fine in my world do you want to turn I ’m not interviewing somebody I’m just I’m just trying to ask them some questions so we get something going he’s perfectly okay to ask me a question is you need to have some lines of separation or else you have no private life right and sexuality to me is not a public thing it’s a private thing you know I’m willing to express my sexual politics online that’s a whole different matter but my sexuality doesn’t belong in not not public publicizing your sexuality right sexual this is because you were saying that the most intimate thing that you can have with your readers right now podcast right but and that’s right you can’t have sex with me because I know exactly that’s right that’s why why do you think it’s because like I said that should be a private thing that and blinding is public but you don’t have to plug about it yeah but let’s not go there okay see we’re talking about it it’s bringing in the public and now it’s better not to do that it’s just better you know I totally agree because it crosses some lines because but I want to know how do you see it I once said to one of my friends who you know who happens to show up and post like for example give me another one it’s not sexual okay it’s just let’s get out of that territory that’s dangerous right but it is my mother now has a blog okay and the question comes up should I point to her because she’s a good blogger and her posts are very interesting right the problem with that is is that she you want you want to know who has the dirt on me yeah that woman could do some serious damage you know and and and the problem is you see ask do I trust her no not that way I don’t you know and so what am I gonna do so anyway so I did an interview with them very much like with my parents on my birthday I was in New York and I had my arches which is sitting on the table right here right now like this we were sitting in a restaurant in New York City and we start talking about eBay and blogging and all the rest of it and my mother drops the URL of her blog into the conversation you know like I said she’s a natural born blogger I mean she really she gets it and I said well I understand why you did that and now of course other people found her like Julie Leon who runs a great blog you know and we’re in the middle of a podcast guys so yeah so you are definitely interrupting that’s all right what you’ve got a ter ry he just walked in with a TV camera can I see your ID this guy’s from channel - channel you’re welcome to put your equipment up but please try not to interrupt okay we’re doing a show right now so anyway so yeah so my mom terry hello anyway so yeah so she drops the URL it sits almost quarter past yeah drops the URL and yeah Julie Leon has been reading her blog and you know I think the cat’s out of the bag basically I think the pretty soon everybody’s gonna know where she is and then then my life is over at that point so you know what are you gonna do you know I don’t know what you have planned but the show starts up again in 15 minutes yeah I think we can really you know what I don’t think that’s actually very funny and by the way you are totally on the record saying that yeah yeah I think we ought to do this some other time actually let’s not do it then okay wow that was really I got it listen look I don’t need to be in the TV that’s arrogant boy yeah yeah all right well I guess on that note we’re now 30 we’re 33 minutes into this and the it ’s that was channel - Nashville or whatever in case anybody’s wondering what else I mean actually the place quieted down so the quality is now a lot better than it was I had a question follow-up maybe we can talk about it later but we were we were talking about making money vlogging and I guess the analogy that I would use I agree that if I if I painted if I painted what’s your name by the way let’s make it really right Brendan really if I if I painted oil paints and I did it so well and it was so so much a fundamental part of what of who I was that I thought to myself I gotta figure out a way that I can like sell these paintings and make some money so I can keep doing it were there be anything wrong with that you think you can draw a distinction between loving something so what I was you making money okay no the thing I objected to I think I don’t remember exactly with the words that you used but the essence of what you said is that you were saying I have to make money with my block that’s to make money this consciousness about I know your goals are your goals and they don’t necessarily aren’t necessarily my goal is really just I mean but did you hear what I just said it’s no no no it’s really but I do something different I’m actually blogging for a production company did you hear what I said it’s like I’m saying that your goals are yours and that’s fine but they ’re not necessarily mine I don’t think they’re that different that’s that’s I think you haven’t agreed you you still need to say I get that and that’s okay oh sorry no yeah I do I do I do agree with you no no I say it’s okay okay you know it’s okay their goals are different but I think the thing that we disagree about is I actually think our goals are more similar my goal is is is to I truly actually believe in what I’m doing I’m not doing it like for a paycheck I really want to create a radio show that uses a blog to gather radio the way really good bloggers use comments and emails from readers to create a blog and for me the decision has come down to do that I tried to do that on my own I was doing an audio blog I was calling out to people who are reading it and I was recording them and I was working their voices into the blog I had a comment line and what I discovered was the production of that and the writing of that in the seating event took so much time it was very difficult to keep my other living which at the time was as a freelance writer so I it was a poor choice of words to say business model earlier but in the raw sense of the word in the in which we all that is not really what people do when they blog though what is it that people do when they vlog that I’m they usually write stuff they you know they you know what happens here’s how it works okay like you’re in the shower and you get this incredible idea okay and you go oh my god I got it oh that’s right I have a blog and so you go like you know if you take your five minutes late for work basically you know or or you have to rush through breakfast or you skip breakfast all right you push it back a little bit so you go type the thing in really quick it takes 15 minutes to do it you submit you put it up there you go off and do your thing for the day and in the meantime people comment on it they tell you what they say is oh you’re a total fucking idiot oh you have no idea what though you’re talking about or you know what are you gonna get a real job or you know whatever they do all this shit of course they don’t say oh well you’re brilliant which is what you really want to say but and so you come back and you never comment what yeah exactly yeah and so that’s that’s the life of a blogger blogger is based and then so you go why did I do this and then the next morning you do it again it’s like you know it’s like you’re glutton for punishment and and occasionally then what happens over time is that you know people you develop some kind of reputation and then all of a sudden you find that this is made it open some doors for you so you can do something else but it takes a long time before that happens but for a lot of people it does happen and and that’s pretty cool but it doesn’t it’s like you know like said should never be like the only reason you’re doing it and you know then you could drop out almost everything that you do other than just typing in the blog post and that’s that’s you know that’s not a lot of time it’s not you know I mean I you know most of the blogs that I read you know what ’s a good example I’d love to ask Doc Searles how much time he spends on his blog I mean he’s got a you know a complicated life but he blogs seemingly every day and there’s always something interesting on his blog with links to other things and I really know what he believes in yeah what’s your business model for eating I stay alive that’s a good business model right you know it’s like somebody asked me how do I make money on my blog they asked me this couple days ago and I said well how do you make money from your office do you think having the blog even if that’s not the reason why you do your blog do you think just that the your presence online is part of what helps you in the job that actually makes you money I don’t make any money truth be told I spend money that’s someday I hope that actually will make money but okay but all this every activity in my life is a money-losing proposition okay I ’m really good at losing money I haven’t learned how to make money I had a couple of years where I was really good at making money and I’ve been coasting on that I think the beginning the beginning the people who sort of invented it weren’t promoted in the beginning had no expectations about the money otherwise it wouldn’t been made it up wasn’t about making money and it was hard at the time different well because everybody was about making money at the time blogging started it was in the most greediest period of the entire world and the people that that we’re doing it we were like basically saying we didn’t want any and all that money we want any of it just wanted to do what we wanted to do and then you know and then it ended up becoming more much more interesting than anything anybody any of the people that were going after the money was doing which proves that we were right you know if you get a group of artists together and I’ve seen this happen countless times and then we should go yeah but if you get a group of artists together the first thing that they got to talk about is how are we gonna get paid for what we’re doing and that’s just because that’s that ’s what they worry about that’s their worry it’s not there but it that doesn’t have anything to do with their art their art is when they forget about the money and they just like that they let their their soul speak but at some point as an artist you do have to eat well you do have to know that it’s early you go a long way you don’t really need that much food yeah it’s a it’s a way talking about how you’re gonna make the money is a way of postponing the creativity it’s a way of saying I don’t feel like being creative right now and I want to worry instead you know that’s been my experience anyway I think that’s that’s a wrap we got a really good session here hopefully some of it is legible and interesting we’ll be doing more together was it yes we got you in there at 41 minutes and seven seconds yeah okay all right so sorry we added you a little bit that’s fine okay cool I’m gonna turn it off now well I haven’t
Winer dr. Winer they both have the same name my mother’s name is Eve my father’s name is Leon so but you started blogging you blog for a political purpose right not necessarily now it’s a little bit political because because if you even talk about your daily lives and stuff simple things it’s considered as political in those closed society right the government tries to control everything every aspect of your personal life so it is political in that sense but it’s not political in its content necessarily it has become more political recently but I would argue that even in a supposed so-called free society like America even blog ging is a political act here too because you’re challenging the media it’s just basically wait I want to know I need to head out okay okay well you come to the the podcast I want to continue that yeah oh you have to go to it really I thought it starts at 130 starts at one I think I’m pretty sure I look at the schedules 130 that’s 130 you’re interrupting my podcast for a scheduling error okay well I you continue podcast hold on everybody you can escape but he doesn’t have to know it is it’s 130 you can sit down if you want or you could be natural but it is natural but I like to keep the conversation fun I forgot where we were I was gonna oh yeah so I was gonna say that basically you know even here is political well this came up yes it is political why is it well okay so I forget what it was something I called a crime against humanity which was the communications decency act which passed here in like 1995 or 96 something like that in the mid 90s Congress passed and the president signed a bill called the communication decency act and what it basically said was is that if it’s offensive to parents of young children that you can’t put it on the internet I mean it said a lot more than that instead of more specifically that was basically the idea it was clearly unconstitutional right and that ’s what they to branch the government that entered into law it was pending on the third branch to to declare unconstitutional which they did I called it a crime against humanity and you know people said well come on Dave that’s not a crime against humanity I said it’s a matter of scale you know I mean that sure you know genocide is a crime against humanity but this is also a crime against humanity it’s not you know crossing the street against the light is a crime against the state you know so is murdering somebody right but they’re still they still are crimes so you know it’s a political act even if you’re not likely to go to jail it still is exercising a political a right that you’re given through the First Amendment to the Constitution and that at some point that could be an issue in this country when somebody maybe tries to amend the Constitution to get rid of it just so happens we don’t have to live in a time yet where that’s a case although we’ve had things like the Patriot Act here in the United States which which you know sounds an awful lot like that kind of stuff you know so it’s just a matter of dimension for you it’s a much more serious political acts you know it could it could be you know it could be you know very threatening to your physical well-being to say what you think right or do you or could it do you think that it could do you feel sometimes that when you post something in your blog that if I was if I were living in Iran yes but because I’m safe in Toronto no you feel safe and yeah I do even sometimes I you know I make some jokes some religious jokes or stuff like that and I would I couldn’t do it if I were in Iran what about salmon Rushdie what was that about salmon Rushdie salmon Rushdie yeah okay one one interesting thing here is that you know I have readers that reads my read my stuff every day for the past three four years so they know me better than their cousins and they trust me better than many of their relatives because I’ve been honest they know you know after three years of reading they part of your family so it’s interesting comparing the salmon Rushdie’s case with for example if I do the same thing because they trust me and they know me they wouldn’t do the same thing to me as they did with salmon Rushdie or anybody else because they know that why I’m talking why I’m saying this they know I’m not like I don’t want to destroy the religion and stuff like that I don’t want to harm them or harm their feelings and stuff it’s some sort of a belief that I just have for a few minutes and they know that because of my background in history it’s not really serious it’s just a joke I don’t really take it seriously so they put it in the context of me and that’s where this whole concept contextualization is really important because blogs are contextualize everything and everyone and every ideas if they have if they are happening in in that context and that’s so they have meaning much more meaning that otherwise they couldn’t so people would take them differently so this idea of constant context became pretty central in the last discussion yeah it was pretty interesting we sort of figured something out didn’t you why don’t we try to play that back because I’d like to get that on the record and get that out to the scripting news readers this is going to go up during the next session this will be on my site and in my RSS feed and downloaded into iPoders before we’re finished with the day you know a whole lot of people are gonna listen to this so cool so the idea is basically the question came up is and this is a question that’s come up at a lot of conferences even one that you and I had both been at at Berkman Center was it earlier this year it was last last year right it was late last year and the question is how do we create more linkage between what’s going on in blogs I don’t know why the is the United States that central line do you see it that way we see ourselves at the center yeah so you also see us as being important connectors in the sense that if we could you want that connection right yeah I see it because English is sort of Google right at the same time I’m only the English speaking people we have the most yeah the most weblogs right that’s that’s well let’s weblogs did originate the United States basically so that’s it so the idea so you said something that all we really want is links right and then I said well no you can’t get by with just things because I linked to you but my readers don’t have any sense of what that means when they go to your site you know I try to explain sometimes but even like I don’t understand what I look at your site what does this mean he’s you know I just get one little blog post that doesn’t give me the whole context yeah so that’s when I sort I had an idea which was this is something I do I do a lot of traveling you know my blog and I take pictures and I also I explain things in terms that mean something to me and because my readers have a sense of who I am they kind of get they understand what my filters are they kind of can sort of extrapolate what it’s really like to be there right so I said well we should just go there we should we should go be in your context yeah that’s the ultimate and I think that’s the answer yeah that’s the ultimate question of course what do you do if you are a casual reader of blogs and I what do I do and I end up on one of your sites and I don’t have any context whatsoever I just nothing you can’t do anything for you you can’t do anything for me to get anything out of the experience of reading your blog I have to be not to get anything but to but to get this you’re you know you think you can go read his blog any day you want the problem is you’re gonna have the same problem I have which is I don’t understand what it means to be Iranian I don’t understand Iran I don’t understand I mean his country is surrounded by a lot of other countries that I’ve never been to but I don’t know anything about his people live in a context that I don’t understand I can’t really go there yet but I could go what the idea you had was let’s go to Egypt and Israel right yeah why don’t you explain what what you meant by that yeah we could go and start blog is true there I bet there are blog gers here’s in Israel I bet there is a blog history in Israel really no you don’t think Hebrew I don’t think so Hebrew I don’t know I can’t speak Hebrew I can do English I think we should do all about important English is we should not is nothing because all these languages I mean all these local communities should have blog gers in their own language otherwise it’s not but you see if you want to connect them up to the greater blog is here you know and not just the US because yeah but then then there’s gonna have there’s gonna be a component that acts as a bridge yeah between their native language blogs and the rest of the world in other words we need one hop in there because I’m never gonna learn to read Hebrew maybe I will but I’m never gonna learn to I’m too old to learn to read all those languages you know maybe the next generation that comes along you know two generations but if you could find some sort of bloggers here in Hebrew in Israel then maybe one of some of those people could be bridge bloggers and then those ones are the ones we bring them over here exactly we bring them here start emailing you the same thing that I did I actually started my English weblog after about one and a half year because I felt that there’s something going on in Iran and nobody knows about it right because it’s all in person right I remember the day when we started getting p ings on weblogs. com and from the Iranian blog and it was like it drove me crazy you know because on the one hand I thought well here’s the geo- political phenomenon happening here I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about you know for all I know they could be saying death to the infidels you know it’s like in fact they probably are but you know I also read there was a great book all the shaz men yeah what was the guy’s name? Kinzer. Right Stephen Kinzer that was an eye- opener I mean as an American I had no idea we had you know the the our image of Iranians is there really nasty scary dangerous people right that’s what well because you know in all fairness in all fairness to the United it’s Americans which of course I am one is that our first my first experience with Iranians was that but I didn’t of course realize that and if you’d asked me at the time do you think there’s a context for this I would have said of course what ’s the context I have absolutely no idea I don’t know what happened before I know what they say right and but on the other hand I know my country is basically a good country or I believe my country is basically a good country although I actually don’t and didn’t believe that although you know we have mixed feelings about it right I mean I was also draft-aged during the Vietnam War so believe me I don’t think my country is that because is anything close to infallible that war was terrible and I was ready to leave the country you know if they called me I was going you know I was still in school and that was the secret if you could stay in school then you didn’t have to go but my grades weren’t that good so right I didn’t those days to be a kid in the United States a male kid meant thinking really seriously about what it might be like to go and get killed in Vietnam you know it was serious so this was only 10 years after that and so you know they had to be some sort of element of truth to what they were saying but you know the imagery was horrible for Iran ians in the US you got your country not you you probably were three years old but your country looked terrible and never and most people of course here to have in red Steven Kinzer’s book and don’t understand the context and you know after you read the book I ’d say that there’s a 70 to 90% chance that they were justified in taking the hostages and it was certainly understandable why they did it because it looked to them like they were going to lose it again that the United States was going to come in and take it over again you know and based on past experience that certainly seemed like although it hasn’t doesn’t seem like it’s had a very happy ending for Iran because you know you trade one despot for another you know you’ve got the the mullahs is that hey m ullahs yeah so what do you what do you want what do your people want for Iran they want a nonviolent kind of change that’s for sure because if they wanted some sort of revolution or invasion stuff like that they would have been on the streets now right but I don’t want that and this is a big mistake that some people actually a little bit less now but six months ago it was much much more talk about it attacking Iran and inv ading Iran by the right from the United States yeah but you don’t think that’s a concern yeah or I think it’s yeah it’s not as great as it was but they also say that Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power I know but I don’t know what’s happening but there’s something going on behind the scenes that because I don’t feel that sort of wariness or you know nervousness on the side of Europeans or Americans now comparing to six months ago nobody’s panicked about it even though Iran said that we’re gonna start again enriching uranium but everybody’s cool about it and I think that’s that shows some things going on behind the scenes right they’re talking yeah so yeah the whole thing back to the how you could support the global voices and stuff I think public say public say publicize me which is basically but lim ping and talking and stuff like that and then contextualize which could start from rephrasing that piece or translating if you can if you know that language translating or summar izing that post and it could start from there and could go on you know now we meet now we know each other right this is the best contest that you can get you know how I look how I speak yeah absolutely I know Billion times more about you now than I did before yeah I want to ask a question you were talking earlier about it’s actually fundamentally I had always understood web logs as a source of information but what I’m understanding now is the way the two of you to find them is web log is a a relationship that could yield information it can be always understand that there’s like no general rules about this right you know there are blogs that are strictly about delivering information but context which is what we’re talking about you know I mean if you were to ask most readers of script of my blog scripting news I think and I can’t speak for them it’s it’s like they’re very smart people I really believe that that by and large you have to be pretty smart to want to read this blog okay number one number two is most of the information that you get on my blog you can get elsewhere you know it’s not like it may be not as easy to get elsewhere but you could get elsewhere I don’t think they’re coming so much for the information as they’re coming because there’s something about the blog that they like you know maybe it’s just about your filter right exactly you know maybe they don’t like me and maybe that’s why they come you know there are blogs that I read because I don’t like the people say I don’t like your posts right but I’d like the links that you you post but people are weird people sometimes like to be irritated they like to be irritated they seek it out you know so you know whatever it is there’s some magnetism that goes on and it’s not insignificant because a lot of people read the blog so and the same thing’s true with Hoders blog right I mean that it’s it’s a personal you know they’re all levels of relationships one you know as I check the site every once in a while a more serious relationship as I subscribe to it when you get somebody who says I now want to have everything at this person ever writes pass through my my filters that’s a stronger relationship then they say oh I ’m willing to listen to sit down and clear out 45 minutes out of my day and listen to his podcast that ’s an even deeper relationship so far that’s the most I mean I also throw conferences to and sometimes people come to those like water and that’s even more because they have to get on a plane and go somewhere you know to be there or we have dinners and you know I mean it ’s a bad experience yeah no it’s just lines I won’t cross you see you know it ’s uh it’s like when you start getting into that I mean I’m amazed you got me to talk about this but who’s podcasting there is no you see that’s not the way it works yeah yeah it’s perfectly fine in my world do you want to turn I ’m not interviewing somebody I’m just I’m just trying to ask them some questions so we get something going he’s perfectly okay to ask me a question is you need to have some lines of separation or else you have no private life right and sexuality to me is not a public thing it’s a private thing you know I’m willing to express my sexual politics online that’s a whole different matter but my sexuality doesn’t belong in not not public publicizing your sexuality right sexual this is because you were saying that the most intimate thing that you can have with your readers right now podcast right but and that’s right you can’t have sex with me because I know exactly that’s right that’s why why do you think it’s because like I said that should be a private thing that and blinding is public but you don’t have to plug about it yeah but let’s not go there okay see we’re talking about it it’s bringing in the public and now it’s better not to do that it’s just better you know I totally agree because it crosses some lines because but I want to know how do you see it I once said to one of my friends who you know who happens to show up and post like for example give me another one it’s not sexual okay it’s just let’s get out of that territory that’s dangerous right but it is my mother now has a blog okay and the question comes up should I point to her because she’s a good blogger and her posts are very interesting right the problem with that is is that she you want you want to know who has the dirt on me yeah that woman could do some serious damage you know and and and the problem is you see ask do I trust her no not that way I don’t you know and so what am I gonna do so anyway so I did an interview with them very much like with my parents on my birthday I was in New York and I had my arches which is sitting on the table right here right now like this we were sitting in a restaurant in New York City and we start talking about eBay and blogging and all the rest of it and my mother drops the URL of her blog into the conversation you know like I said she’s a natural born blogger I mean she really she gets it and I said well I understand why you did that and now of course other people found her like Julie Leon who runs a great blog you know and we’re in the middle of a podcast guys so yeah so you are definitely interrupting that’s all right what you’ve got a ter ry he just walked in with a TV camera can I see your ID this guy’s from channel - channel you’re welcome to put your equipment up but please try not to interrupt okay we’re doing a show right now so anyway so yeah so my mom terry hello anyway so yeah so she drops the URL it sits almost quarter past yeah drops the URL and yeah Julie Leon has been reading her blog and you know I think the cat’s out of the bag basically I think the pretty soon everybody’s gonna know where she is and then then my life is over at that point so you know what are you gonna do you know I don’t know what you have planned but the show starts up again in 15 minutes yeah I think we can really you know what I don’t think that’s actually very funny and by the way you are totally on the record saying that yeah yeah I think we ought to do this some other time actually let’s not do it then okay wow that was really I got it listen look I don’t need to be in the TV that’s arrogant boy yeah yeah all right well I guess on that note we’re now 30 we’re 33 minutes into this and the it ’s that was channel - Nashville or whatever in case anybody’s wondering what else I mean actually the place quieted down so the quality is now a lot better than it was I had a question follow-up maybe we can talk about it later but we were we were talking about making money vlogging and I guess the analogy that I would use I agree that if I if I painted if I painted what’s your name by the way let’s make it really right Brendan really if I if I painted oil paints and I did it so well and it was so so much a fundamental part of what of who I was that I thought to myself I gotta figure out a way that I can like sell these paintings and make some money so I can keep doing it were there be anything wrong with that you think you can draw a distinction between loving something so what I was you making money okay no the thing I objected to I think I don’t remember exactly with the words that you used but the essence of what you said is that you were saying I have to make money with my block that’s to make money this consciousness about I know your goals are your goals and they don’t necessarily aren’t necessarily my goal is really just I mean but did you hear what I just said it’s no no no it’s really but I do something different I’m actually blogging for a production company did you hear what I said it’s like I’m saying that your goals are yours and that’s fine but they ’re not necessarily mine I don’t think they’re that different that’s that’s I think you haven’t agreed you you still need to say I get that and that’s okay oh sorry no yeah I do I do I do agree with you no no I say it’s okay okay you know it’s okay their goals are different but I think the thing that we disagree about is I actually think our goals are more similar my goal is is is to I truly actually believe in what I’m doing I’m not doing it like for a paycheck I really want to create a radio show that uses a blog to gather radio the way really good bloggers use comments and emails from readers to create a blog and for me the decision has come down to do that I tried to do that on my own I was doing an audio blog I was calling out to people who are reading it and I was recording them and I was working their voices into the blog I had a comment line and what I discovered was the production of that and the writing of that in the seating event took so much time it was very difficult to keep my other living which at the time was as a freelance writer so I it was a poor choice of words to say business model earlier but in the raw sense of the word in the in which we all that is not really what people do when they blog though what is it that people do when they vlog that I’m they usually write stuff they you know they you know what happens here’s how it works okay like you’re in the shower and you get this incredible idea okay and you go oh my god I got it oh that’s right I have a blog and so you go like you know if you take your five minutes late for work basically you know or or you have to rush through breakfast or you skip breakfast all right you push it back a little bit so you go type the thing in really quick it takes 15 minutes to do it you submit you put it up there you go off and do your thing for the day and in the meantime people comment on it they tell you what they say is oh you’re a total fucking idiot oh you have no idea what though you’re talking about or you know what are you gonna get a real job or you know whatever they do all this shit of course they don’t say oh well you’re brilliant which is what you really want to say but and so you come back and you never comment what yeah exactly yeah and so that’s that’s the life of a blogger blogger is based and then so you go why did I do this and then the next morning you do it again it’s like you know it’s like you’re glutton for punishment and and occasionally then what happens over time is that you know people you develop some kind of reputation and then all of a sudden you find that this is made it open some doors for you so you can do something else but it takes a long time before that happens but for a lot of people it does happen and and that’s pretty cool but it doesn’t it’s like you know like said should never be like the only reason you’re doing it and you know then you could drop out almost everything that you do other than just typing in the blog post and that’s that’s you know that’s not a lot of time it’s not you know I mean I you know most of the blogs that I read you know what ’s a good example I’d love to ask Doc Searles how much time he spends on his blog I mean he’s got a you know a complicated life but he blogs seemingly every day and there’s always something interesting on his blog with links to other things and I really know what he believes in yeah what’s your business model for eating I stay alive that’s a good business model right you know it’s like somebody asked me how do I make money on my blog they asked me this couple days ago and I said well how do you make money from your office do you think having the blog even if that’s not the reason why you do your blog do you think just that the your presence online is part of what helps you in the job that actually makes you money I don’t make any money truth be told I spend money that’s someday I hope that actually will make money but okay but all this every activity in my life is a money-losing proposition okay I ’m really good at losing money I haven’t learned how to make money I had a couple of years where I was really good at making money and I’ve been coasting on that I think the beginning the beginning the people who sort of invented it weren’t promoted in the beginning had no expectations about the money otherwise it wouldn’t been made it up wasn’t about making money and it was hard at the time different well because everybody was about making money at the time blogging started it was in the most greediest period of the entire world and the people that that we’re doing it we were like basically saying we didn’t want any and all that money we want any of it just wanted to do what we wanted to do and then you know and then it ended up becoming more much more interesting than anything anybody any of the people that were going after the money was doing which proves that we were right you know if you get a group of artists together and I’ve seen this happen countless times and then we should go yeah but if you get a group of artists together the first thing that they got to talk about is how are we gonna get paid for what we’re doing and that’s just because that’s that ’s what they worry about that’s their worry it’s not there but it that doesn’t have anything to do with their art their art is when they forget about the money and they just like that they let their their soul speak but at some point as an artist you do have to eat well you do have to know that it’s early you go a long way you don’t really need that much food yeah it’s a it’s a way talking about how you’re gonna make the money is a way of postponing the creativity it’s a way of saying I don’t feel like being creative right now and I want to worry instead you know that’s been my experience anyway I think that’s that’s a wrap we got a really good session here hopefully some of it is legible and interesting we’ll be doing more together was it yes we got you in there at 41 minutes and seven seconds yeah okay all right so sorry we added you a little bit that’s fine okay cool I’m gonna turn it off now well I haven’t