Well good morning everybody
this is Dave Weiner coming to
you from the basement of the UN
Millennium Plaza Hotel in a
lovely New York City and I'm
here with John Jonathan, is it
Jonathan?
Jonathan Casso.
Jonathan is a great-
Just Casso.
Casso?
Just Casso.
Casso.
Okay I just call you Casso.
Just Casso, what's your name?
Of course the secret's out
right now.
I don't know.
Everybody knows you all.
And so John Casso is a British,
we're going to talk like who
remembers as the British
royal family today and I won't
be able to do it but he can do
it.
I can't.
Yes.
And so Casso, I met, how did we
meet actually?
When did you first, you got in
touch with me and said that you
wanted to do a podcast
with me right?
Or was that what it was?
No, no, I don't know.
I was like direct.
You had something.
I think it was just something
interesting, I just emailed you
with some interesting
link to go, hey.
Oh, that's right, no, no, you
were doing the logo for Morning
Coffinus, and I totally
didn't understand but it was
pretty spacey and I didn't use
it, did I?
Well you haven't used it yet.
I haven't used it yet.
There you go.
That's the optimistic look.
I haven't fully assimilated you
yet.
Ah, that's right.
So can you talk in that squeaky
voice that you do?
Unfortunately not.
But you see, I am already
talking in my funny voice.
I'm actually already talking in
my funny voice.
So the theory is that your name
isn't Casso at all.
What was it?
Blurg.
Blurg, right.
Blurg, yes.
And your girlfriend is?
The doctor.
Doctor.
But she's really Joe, right?
Yeah.
Joe is a scientist, right?
Oh, I'm not supposed to, oh, no
, never mind.
She's a real doctor.
She's a real doctor?
But not like a health doctor.
She's a doctor of themes and
web.
Okay.
So we have to be careful what
we talk about here, guys.
We're doing my usual M-O for
life because I'm usually, like,
you lose a cannon.
So anyway, we have absolutely
no idea what we should talk
about.
We're going to talk about
podcasting, right?
Because that's what we're doing
.
That's what anybody ever talks
about when they're podcasting
anyway, right?
Exactly.
And since we're in New York,
obviously, we have to talk
about podcasting.
So what do you think about
podcasting?
Well, I think it's recreated my
love of radio that I had long
forgotten.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Especially talk radio.
And company.
You know, people like radio for
company.
I mean, some people like
listening to music.
I like listening to people talk
.
You know, I like people
watching as much as I like
people hearing.
Right.
People listening, isn't it?
Yeah, there's lots of little
sounds going on here in this
room.
And that's great as well.
It is.
There's dishes clanking.
And there's a guy over there.
We're actually sitting in a bar
in the middle of the morning
and it's very dark.
And Danny Glover was having
breakfast in the corner.
Danny Glover was sitting right
there in the corner where we
were eating breakfast.
I'm too old for this shit.
No, actually, I rode up in an
elevator with Danny Glover, or
rode down in an elevator.
And so I was being really cool,
like not going, "Hey, you're
Danny Glover, aren't you?"
He said, "You're the one."
Yeah.
Actually, it occurred to me
that maybe, oops.
Sorry.
There goes the microphone.
He'll be like, "Who the fuck
are you?"
Well, it's funny.
You were, yeah, so I played it
really cool.
But the mirrors in this hotel,
there's mirrors everywhere you
look in this hotel, including
the elevators, right?
Yeah.
And so I looked, just looking
ahead of me, but I could see
what he was doing.
And he was making faces.
Like, you know, seeing his
teeth and just making sure he
looked, like, it looked at me
like
he looked like he was like
making sure he looked really
good because he's like an actor
.
If I had talked to him, you
know what I would have asked
him about?
And he would have said, "What
do you think about what Mel
Gibson is doing with the
Passion
of the Christ and all that
stuff?"
Right.
Because, you know, he did all
those...
What was the name of the movie?
The Lethal Weapon.
Lethal Weapon movies with him,
where Mel Gibson played the
druggy, crazy, Three Stooges
guy.
Yeah.
And now, all of a sudden, Mel
Gibson's a very serious guy,
right?
Yeah, right.
Very.
So, podcasting.
And, see.
So, what should we talk about?
I had a whole bunch of things
in my head that I spaced out.
Well, that kind of...
So, you listened to yesterday's
podcast, right?
Yeah.
The one of you and the guys in
Starbucks.
In the Starbucks.
Yeah.
Starbucks are getting a lot of
mileage out of podcasting.
I think they should be
sponsoring podcasts, actually.
Do you?
Yeah.
Well, I think...
I mean, well, not McDonald's,
but the whole Wi-Fi...
Yeah.
Ubiquity.
And the...
I mean, not that you need some
connectivity to do a podcast.
You obviously need it.
You need connectivity to upload
it.
Yeah.
So, ironically, they didn't
have enough connectivity in the
Starbucks for me to upload it.
However, the place we're
sitting in right now, which is
the basement of the...
I'm not...
Where did I say it was?
Where the Millennium...
The Millennium.
You have not been able to get
on?
No.
It says, like, not on it.
No Wi-Fi phone.
I've got it.
You're...
You're installing it from me.
I've not.
I mean, you have free...
Well, I was going to say, we
have free Wi-Fi here and I get
a log on the screen, you can
see.
And then $0, wireless access
one hour, so I click on access
the internet and then it
gets me this agreement, which
of course I don't read and then
I accept it because I
want to give them all my money
and make them my errors and...
Oh.
What was that?
Something didn't work here.
Oh my...
Let's see if I can go to script
ing.
Yeah.
You know, I've just got...
I've got no wireless networks
we've found in, right?
Strange.
Yeah.
Well, you bought a cheap
computer, I guess.
Oh no.
Yeah.
So here's...
I'm going to show Casso.
We went to dinner at the 2nd
Avenue deli at last night.
That was cool.
That Diana was cool.
I wish...
You have a lot of clips of her,
don't you?
Yeah, I do.
I wish I'd taken some photos of
her.
Well, would you post them up
when you get back to...
Yeah, we'll be.
Yeah, yeah.
When you get back to...
I thought that was a nice
picture of you.
That was me being very worried
about the doctor.
Yeah.
And then there's Edwin Newman,
and some asshole complained
that he thought my pictures
were
too orange.
But I actually like orange
pictures.
He's just a lot of ideas, yeah.
He says that any fool, except
of course, except me, knows
that there's a filter.
Any fool says you can get rid
of that shit.
I also got an email last night
from Corey Doctro, a very snipp
y little email saying that any
idiot knows...
People call me an idiot a lot.
Maybe I should take that to
heart, but basically saying any
idiot would know that what you
want to do is fraudulent, but
what Google wants to do is cool
.
So what is it you want to do?
What is it?
Well, what I propose to do...
I don't really actually want to
do it, but he's released his
book under the Creative
Commons, and so I offered to
download it and change his name
, replace it with mine, and
then go print out a bunch of
copies and sell them, and then
go find a publisher who could
publish my book, and Corey says
, "Oh, no, no, no, that would be
fraud.
You can't do that.
Oh, I see."
Okay, good.
That's good to know.
There is a line in there.
I thought that was good news.
Right, right.
So you're obviously just trying
to kind of kick the boundaries
around a bit?
Well, I'm trying to find out
where the boundaries are for
these people, because basically
they've
been sort of pretending, I
guess, that there aren't any
boundaries.
I didn't believe really that it
would be all right with Corey,
because I can imagine
that he had to go through some
kind of a struggle with his
publisher to get permission to
do
this, because his books are
published by a real publisher
that distributes it in bookst
ores,
and when they look at the idea
of uploading the full text of a
book to a website, they
must think, "Well, that's crazy
.
Why would I want to do that?"
And this is probably their
worst nightmare, so Corey kind
of has to say, "You can't do
that."
Well, as soon as there's an e-
book out there, you just go to
alt.bindingweebooks, and you'll
be downloading it for free the
next day, you know?
Right, right.
And I think you could do that
right now.
With anything.
But the thing that I don't want
is, you know, I used to write
for a magazine, and they used
to change my writing, so that I
would be saying things that
they wanted me to say, instead
of things that I believed to be
true.
And I'd always ask them, "Well,
why do you do that?"
And they would say, "Well, we
're just making it better," or "
They never would have understood
what you were saying," so we
made it so that they would
understand it, but of course in
the process, change the meaning
.
It meant so much to me to be
able to talk directly to people
and say exactly what I meant to
say that I quit, and I don't
get paid for writing, and now
the ultimate insult is that
this big, heartless company,
Google, wants to put ads in the
middle of my copy, not off
the side somewhere, which I
wouldn't like either.
But they want to put it right
in the middle of my copy, and I
'm sorry, it's over the line
for me.
So I said to Puri, I said, "
That's fraudulent," since that's
a word I clarify.
Clearly that's not a good word.
The big issue I take with that
is, you've got no control over
what these things are going
to be linking to, so somebody
could be reading your blog and
think, "Hey, Dave likes that
enough
to put a link in."
Right.
I mean, obviously, there's no
point in re-explaining it,
obviously, but the audience,
yeah, it
could be anything.
Yeah.
Dave likes.
You know?
The Christian Coal.
She did.
Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, whatever.
Yeah.
For that matter, Corey Doctra.
Yeah.
Well, Corey's a little heavy.
He told Scoble, every time Sco
ble said, "What about this?"
Corey's answer was, I didn't
listen to him, but apparently
people tell me, "Corey's answer
was tough shit."
Yeah.
And the Supreme Court of Corey
is a pretty tough place.
So I mean, is it going to
happen?
People tell me.
Our blog is a blog power,
podcast power, is this going to
put a stop to Google's auto-
thinking?
Apparently, people have told me
from the inside of Google that
it is not going to actually
make it out.
And sort of the really weird
thing is that Google isn't
communicating that, but that's
Google, right?
Right.
Google doesn't say very much.
But I'm pretty optimistic that,
you know, the whole goal here
is to make it so painfully
obvious that this isn't going
to be popular, that they say, "
Well, it's not worth the trouble
to do this."
I don't know.
Yeah.
I feel out there, kind of all
doing this, and I'll do the
best I can if it doesn't work.
I'll start using carrier
pigeons to just send out my
writing and fly and up-stream.
So tell me about your vision
for how we're going to be
editing and uploading our
podcasts.
How would you like to be
editing and uploading your
podcasts?
Well, the way that I'm going to
do it, it's a pain in the ass
at the moment, obviously.
And I think if people in the go
, they read these news articles,
they listen to the news,
they read the paper, and they
go, "Like, let's say your dad,"
he goes, "Hey, I want a podcast
."
So he calls up his son and says
, "Let's assume he doesn't have
the feed father for a son."
So what's he going to do?
Is he going to hunt around a
search engine to find out the
answer and maybe have to
install something nasty or get
an FTP client, know all these
various little details.
And I think what you just need
is a very, very simple desktop
application where you
just, like the Flickr uploader,
I think is a very neat little
kit.
So what would it...
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Because with the Flickr upload
er, all you've got to put in is
...
Well, tell people about the Fl
ickr uploader.
There might be one person in
Antarctica who doesn't know how
that works.
Or a Linux user, it's available
, it probably runs on Flickr.
It probably will be, because I
'm sure it's just written in
Flash anyway, it's just a
Flash wrapped up.
But really, they do their stuff
in Flash, is that right?
Well, it looks to me like Flash
, but in the interface.
So basically you've got this
desktop application, this
little square, tiny little
square box
in it, in obtrusive, and the
first time you run it, you put
in your login details that
you would otherwise use to go
to Flickr.com.
And you just drag your JPEGs
into this window, and then you
hit upload.
And that's it.
And in fact, at that point when
you upload, you can then choose
to batch tag everything.
So like when I upload stuff
from my phone, I just go like "
moblog", and that's it.
And they're away.
Pretty cool.
Yeah.
And would you know what the
interface is like, at a
technical level, how it
communicates?
Yeah, what goes on in the
background?
I think it's just FTP.
Do you think it's FTP?
Well, mind you, actually,
because when you get...
So it's very similar to
upstreaming, then.
In a way.
But when it finishes the upload
of your images, and you go, "
Okay, are you done now, or do
you want to go to a big page of
all the photos you just did?"
And if you just uploaded 100
photos, you got a long page to
download that will then put
every title and description
form field in there for you to
fill in and tag on every
picture.
And the URL string, it's like
that image, that image, that
image, that image, that image,
that image.
You know, it sort of gets on
the...
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
And the...
I have something like that,
actually.
Because I think it's just FTP.
I have something like that that
I call "pixorter", and I think
I wrote it before Flickr
existed.
So that's one of the reasons
why I was such a late adopter
to Flickr, because I had my
own tools.
Right.
And that is, I basically, it
knows where my camera is.
So I dock my camera, and I
double click on the script,
runs the script, it swaps out,
takes everything that's in the
"pixorter" folder and archives
it, and then takes all
the new shit off the camera and
puts it in that folder, and
then it displays them on
a web page, the pictures
themselves, with checkboxes
next to each one of them.
And they're all checked by
default, and then I uncheck the
ones that I don't want to be
uploaded.
And then there's a button at
the top and the bottom, and I
click, and it uploads them.
And then what it gives me, what
it's finished, is the HTML that
's ready to paste into a web
page for all those pictures.
So I go straight from the
upload process to, you know,
select all, copy, do a new blog
post over there, and I know
that they have an interface in
blogging.
See, this seems to me to be the
whole trick between...
But it gets complicated at this
point, isn't it?
Wait, wait, let me just get
this thought out.
Sorry.
Yes, it does become complicated
.
Yeah, yeah.
So what I found out here, for
me at least, was that you want
...
The next thing you want to do
after doing this, well, what is
the next thing?
For some people, I guess the Fl
ickr approach is like, "Okay, I
want to go to Flickr, right?"
In my case, what I want to do
is do a blog post.
That's why I put those things
...
That's why I put the pictures
up there in the first place.
So it's sort of like two
different approaches.
That's why Flickr is surprising
me that Flickr doesn't have a
blogging tool in it.
It does.
It does, yeah.
You can go to an image and you
can go blog this.
No, that's not what I mean.
It can interface to my blogging
tool.
In other words, I use either
Manila or Radio or something
like that.
Anything that supports the Meta
-Weblog API, right?
But why didn't they actually
make it a blogging tool?
Why isn't there...
That's what...
Why aren't they competing with
TypePad?
Probably because they didn't
want to compete with TypePad
specifically, because they
wanted
to partner with them.
But it seems to me they did
everything, but the blogging
tool, the blogging tool in Fl
ickr
would be the tiniest little
corner of the functionality of
...
The Flickr is this mega-model,
I mean, it seems like they must
have had 100 programmers
working on it.
Well, oh no, there's a very
clever guy, something else.
Stuart Butterfield, right?
There was a guy called Cal
Henderson, who's been involved
in all sorts of projects.
You go to imcal.com.
Where?
I am Cal.
I am cal.com.
Cal.com, yeah.
I'll go there, yeah.
Which is cool.
I don't know if you've heard of
a site called beta.com, B3TA,
and it's kind of all memes
and goofy Photoshop postings,
Photoshop re-workings of images
, and it's all nonsense,
basically.
Some of the stuff that comes
out of that kind of this long
forum is hilarious, but yeah,
Cal Henderson is the, I believe
, the web, although the main
kind of web level developer
for Flickr.
I see, really?
Yeah.
And the one thing I really like
with Flickr is what they do
with the DHTML where if you're
logged in, the text, the title,
the description, everything,
you click on it, and it turns
into a form in front of your
eyes, you know?
We'd say it again, what happens
when you're...
If you log into your Flickr
account and you look at one of
your old posts and you've got
a title and description, you
know, it looks like it's just
in plain HTML, but you click
on it and it turns into a...
So you can edit it, it turns
into a form, right?
It turns into a form field.
That's very rational, and that
's probably why you click on it,
right?
But what I mean is it's not
like with some interfaces where
you would have to click it,
you're effectively clicking
your URL, you're reloading the
whole page, and then you're
coming
up with a form and then you're
posting that form.
It does it on a layer above
that, a little bit of Gmail is
doing things, and these sorts
of very clever use sign of
dynamic HTML and JavaScript
sign is really good, and I
think
Yahoo are now going to employ a
lot more of that kind of stuff.
Right.
Well, of course, the big
question everybody's asking is,
well, not everybody, but many
people
are asking why didn't they just
like...
Why did they do 360 when they
also were buying Flickr?
It seems like there's so many
of these community systems, and
they're really...
You need just one, right?
I know I said I wasn't going to
mention Evan Williams and Odeo,
but I got to say this.
It seems like they're doing the
same thing, that a lot of what
they want to do is basically
reinvent Flickr, which seems
really weird to me.
If Flickr works where the other
social networking systems didn
't work, because it has a
purpose,
because the purpose is photo
photography, and a community
built around photography can
be a very rich community, and
perhaps a community built
around podcasting, but is so
fundamentally
different from photography.
People say, if you're looking
at it from a programming
standpoint, oh, okay, big media
objects.
Oh, well, they're kind of the
same thing, right?
But that's only from that angle
, because a photograph is sort
of rockable in an instant.
Because our brains are built to
rock photographs, basically.
Explain rock.
Rock is a word that, as far as
I know, came from a book by
Robert Highline, A Stranger
in a Strange Land, and there
was an alien in that book named
Valentine Michael Smith,
and he came from Mars, and in
Mars they had a concept called
rocking rock, and to rock
something is to appreciate the
fullness of it.
And it's not just an
intellectual understanding of
it, it's to appreciate the
fullness.
It's not a, you know, so rock
is like a deep understanding.
How did I just use it?
I said, well, anyway, oh no,
you can rock a photograph in an
instant, right, whereas
a podcast, you can't, a podcast
, who knows, I can't, we're
doing a podcast right now,
I don't know how it's going to
end, right, and I'm doing it.
I can't tell you.
We're live.
I can't tell you what we're
going to say.
I mean, although I'll tell you,
it's actually to get really
meta, I think this has been
very interesting so far,
because we're talking about
things, you know, we kind of
don't,
it was the first time we ever
met face-to-face, but we share
these interests and these sort
of software things and why they
work and why they don't, and,
you know, podcasts is just
about that, you know, every
week probably would be a very
good podcast.
It's quite a relief to actually
communicate with somebody who
actually understands what
I'm talking about.
Same here, absolutely.
At times I kind of, I say
things and you can just see it
fly over that.
Yeah, because most people just
use stuff and like it and don't
like it, but don't know
why they like it or don't like
it, but if you want to make
software, then you've got
to understand why people like
it and why they don't.
So my guess is that we don't
need another, that a community
built around podcasts like
Flickr isn't going to be the
freewheeling, fun, interesting
place that Flickr is, just
simply because building a
community around photographs is
great.
And then of course why Yahoo,
you know, we know why, because
they didn't know that they
were going to acquire Flickr
while they were developing
Yahoo 360, they didn't even
know
what Flickr was until somebody
knocked at their door and said,
"Hey, you know, we've
got eight billion members here
and they're all getting ready
to buy stuff from us."
Do you think they bought it
just to kind of snuff it out?
I hope not.
That would be really bad.
It would be.
I think that Yahoo got their mo
jo back, I think they ought to
go look up the word mojo.
It's not about snuffing things
out.
It's about making love, it's
about making babies, it's about
, you know, being sexy.
Your mojo work.
Yeah, it's like not how, it's
not the shape, but it's how you
shake it.
So anyway, so if you were to
like cut to the core, I want to
steer us back around to the
little tool.
Well, right, the thing is that
you could take a monolithic
view towards, you know, what
do people need for podcasting?
They need basically everything
under the sun or maybe they
just need a little tool, right?
You can't create a podcast in
communities, even podcasters
without these people being
at, you know, people can find a
way to record an MP3 file.
I think that's probably the
easiest part.
Once I found a tool that could
do it, yeah, it was easy.
I mean, I mean, I would like a
Windows machine.
You've got to speak up sound
recorder so you can record a
web and then you could find a
way of converting that.
I couldn't believe that Windows
didn't have one built in, they,
my machine has a microphone
built into it.
Why doesn't it have a piece of
software?
I don't know whether it might
be a licensing issue with Fraun
hofer, maybe.
With what?
With Fraunhofer.
Fraunhofer Institute who
developed MP3, so maybe it
might have something to do with
that
because I think there's some,
some dues somewhere along the
line to have to pay.
Right.
Well, Microsoft's rich, why don
't they pay the dues?
They've got, you know, they've
got WMA, so they kind of go,
well, we don't want to kind
of...
Because they, they should just
ask the, they should call it
like the king of pod, what?
Yeah, yeah.
The kind of pod.
He's podcasting.
He's what?
He's podcasting.
He looks like it.
He might be a similar
reflection.
Oh, that's interesting.
There's a guy who's wearing
headphones and a microphone.
He's probably on a, on a Skype
call or something like that, we
might ask.
If he's podcasting, it's like,
we're probably the only two
people podcasting in the city
right now.
There's this interesting
conversation going on in the
background of my podcast.
So.
Sorry, right.
So.
It's a destructive thing.
So tell us, okay, so what are
the basic functions?
Say, okay, you, you were saying
recording is sort of difficult
or not?
Well, record.
Not difficult.
I mean, it's, I would say it's
a, it's a no-brainer for
anybody to look at the model
of the flicker uploader and
translate that to uploading.
Right.
That's what you're saying.
That's all it is.
Right.
The same functionality as the
flicker uploader, except
uploading MP3 files.
Right.
And the next step after that
will be uploading video files.
You know, it's, it'll, there
will be that natural
progression.
It's as simple as that.
And then one.
So what about ID three
information?
You want to, the ID three
information.
Well then what could possibly
happen is maybe you would
obviously, okay, it's going to
be
a simple tool.
And what about generating RSS?
You're going to do that too?
Yep.
Okay.
Simple tool.
Let's say I, I dragged an MP3
file onto the, onto my
application and I hit the
upload
button.
When that file is uploaded, it
goes, okay, so, or in fact,
maybe before it uploads, it
goes, so what's the title?
What's my description?
I already know what the date is
.
I already know who you are.
I don't know who the author is.
I know who the author is.
Do you want to add some tags to
it, to it, to it now?
Do you want to add any, any
other metadata to it to, to, to
, um, right, to make it, um,
more, uh, or to make it better?
Um, now, as far as the tools to
write the ID three tags on the
desktop, it would actually
be easier for me to do it on
the server.
And once it's arrived.
Right.
Because you have a PHP tool
that does that.
Yeah.
Well, there's like, there's,
there's loads of open source.
So what you could do then is
like basically read the RSS
file and take the data off of
that and use, and do that on
the server.
You know, I could generate the
RSS and, um, either on the,
either on the desktop or the,
or the web.
So you're going to, in, in kind
of, you haven't like, like
actually done this work yet,
have
you?
I've, I have, I have, I have,
where would people go if they
wanted to take a look at
what it might look like?
So keep an eye, keep an eye on
podbat.com, P-O-D-B-A-T.
I see.
Okay.
Cool.
Um, yeah.
I'm sorry.
Because.
And the, well, the, the, the
reason why it's called podbat
is because we've got podcatch
ers
out there and catchers.
What are they catching?
You know, you have a batter.
You know, batter up.
You know, get up.
They knew that in Britain.
I thought that was, oh, it's
cricket.
Or you are.
Oh, yes.
It's cricket.
Bowling.
You say building.
Yeah.
You know, whatever.
I can't do that else.
They talking like an American.
So, um, yeah.
So you would read the RSS file
information and throw that onto
the ID, three tags and.
I mean, there's no, I mean,
originally, wouldn't it, would
you ping audio.weblog.com to it
?
Oh, totally.
Yeah.
Totally.
I mean, you'd be at it.
All those kinds of things for
people.
All that, all that sort of
stuff could be either end.
Could be on the server end.
It could be on the, on the, on
the, on the application.
What about, um, how about this?
This would be cool.
How about, um, letting them
categorize their, um, their, uh
, their feed and categorize each
post too.
Absolutely.
So that it could be routed to a
directory.
It's a directory.
Yes.
So, so you sort of like do a,
what they call a folksonomy.
Folksonomy.
It's a very nice sounding thing
.
So yeah.
So you could do that too, right
?
Yeah.
So it's sort of like the, the
front end for, and you're going
to also operate the back end
too.
So it's client.
It's a client server.
What protocol did we talk about
that?
What protocol do you want to
use between the two?
Well, you see, this is why I
was trying to work out what, um
, what the Flickr uploader
does.
And, and I, in fact, I was
about to say that it uses FTP
because I've, I've written a
version
of it that uses FTP because the
, uh, the wrapper that I have
for the, uh, for the flash, um,
has, you know, has built in FTP
functionality.
It's a good email.
It could, it could email it if
you want to do, but the
simplest way to do it is
actually
FTP upload, um, and I got a
feeling that's what they do.
I, a couple of years ago, I
wrote something called camovie.
com, which is C A M O B Y dot
com.
And the when, basically when
camera phones came out, I had
one as soon as you get one
and I wanted it to be called a
camovie.
I don't like, uh, in America,
you call mobile phones, cell
phones.
We don't call them cell phones.
What are you calling?
We have mobiles, you know, or M
obi.
Oh, that's right.
Everyone's like, where's my M
obi?
Where's my mobile phone?
It's your mobile.
Right.
Um, in Germany, they call it
handy, you know, it's where it
's, what, it's mine handy.
Mine handy.
It's small.
It has a camera.
What MP3 would call that?
It's nothing about German
accents to crack me up, like Dr
. Strangelo.
Yeah.
It's one of my favorite movies.
Really, I didn't know.
So that's what that means.
So they call them Mobi.
Mobi.
Yeah.
Some people, some people call
them the Mobi.
That's my Mobi.
But, but very few people call
it their cell phone.
And we, that's what we call it.
Yeah.
Yeah, call it our cell.
Um, so, so basically I, I, I
went straight out and bought
like camobi.com.
And every time I talk about a
mobile phone with a camera, I
don't call it a camera phone.
Or, yeah, maybe, maybe I'd do,
but what I wanted to do is make
sure that every time I said
the word or spoke about these
camera phones that I had,
because I was like the first
person
I knew of one.
Um, and then Joe, a doctor, um,
had one.
And the, uh, and I wanted to
just, you know, you keep saying
things enough from people.
It's like podcasting, you know,
if somebody had said blog
casting straight off the bat.
I like blog, blogcasting.
Yeah.
Well, because it, because it
doesn't have that horrible
white plastic ring to it.
I know.
Well, this is something that
you and I both agree on that,
that it's not a very popular
thing is that, that the user
interface of the iPod is like
from hell.
The iPod is a great word.
Actually, something I wanted to
say, you know, the, the
invitation to serious, to
serious.
Oh yeah.
Apparently, um, some people,
some colleagues of mine where I
was yesterday, they said,
make sure you go because they
have these pods, these audio
booths where they record things
and they're like little pods
and they're all kind of like
acoustic kind of.
Yeah.
Oh, pod is a great word.
I have a, I have a Lexus.
Yeah.
Well, it's still around.
When I got my, uh, Lexus RX 300
, uh, SUV in 1999, uh, it has
this sort of ovular rounded
shape to it, sort of like an
egg in a way.
Uh, it kind of looks like one.
And I felt like this was like
my pod and that's what I called
it.
And, uh, I used to tell people
that basically this is sort of
like your standard issue car.
Everyone should be issued one
at birth, basically.
It's sort of like Lexus for our
species.
It's a transportation for our
species.
In other words, I kind of liked
it or whatever.
Some people get like silver
bracelets and like, you know,
and, uh, little, little white
dresses,
but give them a Lexus.
Well, you know, kids got to get
around, right?
Yeah.
Speaking of which, um, two of
my creations are, have their
birthdays today.
Oh yeah.
Scripting news is eight years
old today and, uh, and frontier
is 17 years old.
17 years old.
17 years.
And so as I said today in my
post, uh, if it were a human
being and 17 years old and
be ready to reproduce, ready to
drive and pretty close to
leaving home.
Old enough to do a lot more.
And as a parent of such a 17
year old, one would have to say
it's time to let go.
It's kind of a suspicious in a
way that last year was the year
that all this wonderful
technology was released under
the GPL.
And, uh, and slowly I think a
community, a new community is
developing around that.
And some cool things are going
to happen there.
So let's go back to your thing.
So you're running a backend and
a front end.
Your backend is just simply for
processing the, uh, putting the
ID three information
and maybe maintaining a
directory.
I did.
Hold on.
Doing some pings too.
The other thing is I have to
say kind of step one will be,
will be, uh, simple, um, simple
client and simple desktop and
even the, uh, um, I don't know
how to forget that the,
the backend will do some
processing.
But if I can do it so that
there's no backend processing,
so all you need is red space.
Right.
That would be pretty good too.
Absolutely.
There you go.
That's it really.
You know, if you can do that,
then problem solved.
And if, and if it's easy, there
's no problem with the client
doing the pinging and sorting
things out for tags and stuff
like that.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a no brainer, but
also the, um, uh, you mentioned
, um, earlier about, uh,
was it, um, what I was going to
say is it could also be a catch
er, this desktop client as
well as being a batter could
also be a catcher because as
well as putting in my FTP
details
or, or, um, uh, the details to
my website, um, I could also
put in the drive letter that
my media player plugs in out
and bingo, I'm just doing a
file copy.
You know, I, I can do, I can do
download with nice, pretty
progress bars and little,
little
aliens jumping around and
bouncing around.
Well, let's don't underestimate
the importance of aliens
bouncing around.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
The problem with a lot of these
tools is that there's like,
there aren't any good, we're
the good Easter eggs.
You know, it's 2005.
Where are your Easter eggs?
You know, we need to, there's
no problem.
We don't need to have fun, but
what the hell?
Exactly.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
Well, I think you're going to
do the, the, the creation tool
first.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I've built, I've, I've
already built half the, half
the, well, I've built the,
an upload of what I haven't
done is do the RSS beer and
that's great.
Right.
So you think like maybe like
tomorrow or.
In terms of what I could get
done on the plane, in terms of
how much I sleep on the plane.
You might want to catch up on
your sleep on the plane.
I might.
I might have to do a bit of
that.
So you're flying tonight.
You're flying across the ocean
tonight.
Yeah.
I'm going to take off at about
10.
And you arrive at 7 in the
morning?
9.
And I arrive at, I arrive at 10
, I think Saturday.
Is that right?
Saturday morning.
Right.
So I'm just, I'll fly through
the night and chase the sun.
That's pretty easy.
New York to London is easy.
San Francisco to London is not.
So what you've got, we did
Vegas, Vegas to London from CES
.
And that was, I've never done,
I've never been west coast
before.
Really?
I've never been to San
Francisco yet.
And that's where I, I had an
ambition to go and work there.
You know, that was, that used
to be my ambition.
I was like, okay, I'm going to
do this.
Establish myself and what, in
what I, in, in my realm of what
I'm good at.
Workout work.
You're just a few years too
late.
You would have, they would have
welcomed you with open arms
during the dot-com boom.
Exactly.
And spit you right out.
Yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah.
Maybe I would be really.
You're probably better off
having been where you are and
get a real job.
Yeah.
So we've been doing this, this
is 34 minutes into it.
So I think we said that we
would, yeah, I think you said
that we would try to keep this
in, you know, because we both,
I have to check out of my hotel
, you have to check out of
yours.
I gotta get back over and check
.
Um, just a little bit of
housekeeping.
What's your email address?
Uh, hotbat@gmail.com.
Hotbat@gmail.com.
And a lot of people asked me
for my dad's email address in
the last one that I didn't want
to put it on scripting news
because I didn't want to like
subject him to the spam and
whatever.
I would have happily put it
into the podcast that he did,
um, because that would have
sort
of meant that people would have
had to listen to the podcast.
And just say things.
No, I just want to say his
email address now.
So if anybody wanted to write
him, it's Lwiner9@yahoo.com.
Interesting.
I was just thinking of with
Gmail.
You listen, by the way, you
listen to my dad's podcast.
Yeah, yeah.
He thought it was pretty good.
Hello, the guy.
I got so much positive feedback
on it.
Yeah.
My brother from, yeah.
He said, I'm just listening to
Dave's dad.
We're going to try to do one
with my mom and my dad tonight.
That was good.
Yeah.
We kind of said hello briefly
to your mom.
When you Skype with her, you
just played the, the, the, the
blood cast.
Oh, she listened to it.
I don't think you ever talked
to her, but she listened to it.
Oh, I thought she was there in
the background when you said.
No, no, I was in Florida, but
no, my mother listens to all
the podcasts.
She's a real, real, you know,
she's probably listening to
this right now.
You know, hi mom.
Hi Dave's mom.
And so yeah, I'm going to try
to do one with both of them or
maybe just her tonight or
whatever.
So you get to meet the whole
clan.
There was, there was something
else I was going to say then,
but it's slipped my mind.
Maybe he'll keep.
I'm sorry for, I interrupted
you.
Oh, we can wait.
It's okay.
We have nothing better to do.
That's true.
Kelly time, drinking coffee.
Oh yeah.
This is really morning coffee
notes after all because we,
they gave us a full pot of
coffee
here.
So we feel obligated.
I was, I was, I had just said
your email address, which is h
odbat@gmail.com.
I was going to say the Gmail
thing.
Yeah.
Obviously, you know, like the,
the darling of the web mail now
, obviously the, uh, now
are they going to be putting
author linking into the email
copy?
Yeah.
Is that, I mean, I know.
Oh yes.
Of course they are because,
because they have had since, I
mean, I, I like the ads that
they put on in Gmail because
they are relevant to something
I might be talking to somebody
about.
Right.
And what if I'm talking to
somebody about.
And they're easy to do now.
Right.
Well, that's exactly it.
You know, it's like you can,
you know, you don't notice them
unless you kind of just,
oh, look, there's ads and the,
the, uh, but if links start
appearing in my email.
Yeah.
No kidding.
You know, get out of here.
Yeah.
Get off my email, you know,
that's like, that's, that's.
That's the funny thing about
the auto link thing is that it
's going to creep up on people
and they're going to wonder why
nobody complained about this
when the first appeared.
Would you mind if, would, would
you be less, what about the
argument about if they would
use like dotted lines, wavy
lines.
No, I wouldn't, that would not
be enough for me.
And in fact, what I have
suggested to them, although
they didn't really want to hear
this
is that, um, is that they do
the links off on the side the
same way they're doing the
linking and ad copy, you know,
um, in other words, create a
frame over on the right-hand
side of the page, if you must
do this and just say related
links and then boom, boom,
boom, boom, you know, link to
things that you need,
absolutely need to link to so
that
they're segmented so that it's
very clear that this isn't part
of my content.
It's in a frame off by itself.
Uh, I, I still wouldn't like
that because they're not,
because I don't have ads on
most of
my web pages.
The ones that I do have ads on,
sure.
That's fine.
See, Google AdSense is all opt-
in, right?
And I'm a member of it.
I use it.
I get my check every month.
I deposit it.
It helps to free my costs of
web hosting, but I only put it
on non-editorial pages.
I put it on weblogs.com.
I put it on, you know, like XML
or PC, which is by the way,
really high flow site.
So I put an ad on that because
there's basically just an
archive.
There isn't a whole lot of new
stuff being posted in, you know
, so I make my choice about
where the ads go and I put them
there.
And I'd be perfectly happy to,
to continue doing that.
Why they're not, I think it's
kind of obvious.
They want to make more money.
And they, if they can cut me
out of the equation, they'll
make my money and their money.
Number one.
Number two is if they can put
ads everywhere and when I will
only put them some places,
then, you know, then that makes
them more money too.
But I would vastly prefer that
to the idea of them messing
with what I write.
Messing with what I write is
just totally non-acceptable.
We're going to have to, if that
is the way the web is going to
work, we're going to
have to leave the web.
And not only am I going to have
to leave the web, but any
publication with integrity is
going to have to leave the web
because the reader simply isn't
going to know who's saying
what anymore.
Well, people won't trust the,
won't trust the HTML, won't
trust the web browser anymore.
What they're seeing.
What they will trust is smart
little bouncy applications
written in flash that are
really
good at reading RSS feeds.
So there's the data, there's
your content, your content's
there.
Well, that opens the whole,
everybody, this one, when
people really...
The browser is dead, everybody.
Well, now, I don't want to go
that far because you can just
leave it there and see if you
take it back after I say this
though.
Is that when people really give
this discussion serious thought
and don't just dismiss it out
of hand, the issue, next issue
that comes up is, well, what
about blog lines?
Like, when they put ads on your
copy, how do you feel about
that?
And, you know, blog lines is
showing up more and more in my
referral logs.
I mean, there's a lot of people
reading my stuff in blog lines.
And so, you know, I'll tell you
, the answer is I don't think
that's as objectionable as
what Google does because there
's no question when people are
reading it in blog lines that
they know that they're reading
something that has been
processed.
So, they're less likely to
believe that I put the link
there.
On the other hand, you know, I
don't think it's a good idea
and I don't want them to
do it.
And would it stop me from
publishing an RSS?
Probably not.
Would it lead me to do
something like blocking blog
lines from subscribing to it?
In other words, all that this
is going to accomplish in the
end, all this crap that these
technology
companies want to do, or at
least Google, you know, let's
not, like, speak on behalf of
the other technology companies
so far, it's just Google, is
that they want to just balkan
ize
the web.
They want us to put up a, you
know, we'll put up a Berlin
Wall.
We'll try to keep them in, you
know?
They already have phenomenal
problems right now with, I mean
, Google, actually, very few
people are focused on this and
it's kind of hard to switch the
focus without sort of sounding
a little alarmist, but Google's
having a lot of trouble keeping
maintaining the integrity
of their index because people
have become so good at spamming
it.
And so, you know, you'll do
searches on things that seem to
have absolutely nothing to do
with Viagra, but somehow Viagra
will be the first hit.
Boy.
That was a good one.
Right on, everybody.
Yeah.
Oh, I don't want to say what I
was thinking, but yeah,
everybody.
Sorry.
Boy.
Yeah.
Anyway, so everybody, we are
now at 42 minutes.
Wow.
So we're going to have to do
this again sometime.
We'll have to do it.
You know, we have, this is our
second podcast, right?
We have Skype.
Yeah.
And I'm going to, the last one
we did, it kept kicking out.
My Skype kept kicking out.
We're going to have to figure
out how to do that.
Or I'll come to London and we
can do one over there on the
other side of the earth.
Well, I think there are some
people who may be wanting to
see.
Even if they don't want to see
me, I can afford to pay my own
way.
You know, that happens
sometimes too.
And you've got a big birthday
coming up too, haven't you?
I do, but I also have to get
eye surgery.
So that's sort of sitting in
the middle of it.
Right, when's that going to
happen?
I haven't scheduled yet.
So, you know, I'm going to try
to leave myself free to go have
, yes, I have the big 50th.
So today's 17th frontier.
It's eight for scripting news,
but that's nothing compared to
the next one.
Which is coming up in a month
and a day, which is my 50th
birthday.
In fact, there's a guy, there's
a guy, when you do come over,
because, oh, yes, you will be
coming to London.
You know, you will.
How about the girls who are
saying, oh, yes, he will be
coming to London?
Oh, yes, you will be coming to
London.
The girls don't talk that way.
The girls talk like that.
Oh, dear.
Tangent.
We're having too much fun here.
That's 43 minutes.
43 and 17 seconds, 18 seconds.
This guy, there's like one day
between your birthdays.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Now I have a story to go with
that, too.
They were trying to have me
born on my grandfather's
birthday.
I think you're only a week away
from my father's birthday,
actually.
Yeah, I was one day away from
my grandfather's birthday.
He was born on May 1st.
It's not Gemini, is it?
Taurus, which means obstinate
and pushy.
Yeah, I'm Gemini.
And what does that mean?
Diplomatic.
Some people would say two-faced
.
I would say diplomatic.
No, but I avoid arguments by
trying to see both sides of the
problem.
No, I think it's good to have
people like that around.
I mean, that's kind of...
You also digress. You should
have that on your business card
.
I digress.
Me? No, I don't.
I'm just like this recurring,
this there.
Recursive.
It's okay. You need somebody
around.
You need somebody to tap on the
table.
That's right.
Okay, so everybody, this is now
43 minutes, so we've talked
enough.
Thank you.
Coming to you from New York
City, the basement of the U.N.
Millennium Plaza Hotel.
This is Morning Coffee Notes
for April 1st, 2005.
It's all been a joke.
(laughing)