GNC-2008-12-05 #429 Jam Packed Show Tonight

Podcast

Podcast Awards Ceremony is this Saturday been working all week on the event. I will be in DC the week of the 8th would like to do dinner Friday night if your up for it let me know via email. Lots of things cooking here tune in and get informed.

Go Check out the complete Podcast Show Notes Here!

Please Support my Show Sponsors!:
[Save 10% off on any order at GoDaddy.com!] Use Code Todd
[Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days at GoToMeeting.com/techpodcasts. No credit card needed.]

Twitter Me http://www.twitter.com/geeknews
My Facebook Profile
FriendFeed GNC Room!!
Comments to 619-342-7365 e-mail to geeknews@gmail.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More

Mogulus Pro Offering Way to Expensive

business

2008mogulusThis morning I received an email from the folks over at Mogulus announcing their pro-streaming service. When I looked at the price of the Mogulus Pro offering I just about fell out of my chair.

Their prices start at $350.00 a month with only 25gb of bandwidth allowance, plus if you bust your 25gb cap you will be charged $1.50 per gig. Someone over there is smoking crack.

They must think content producers are stupid. I have used a variety of paid streaming services for about 1/3rd the monthly cost they are planning on charging, and have been able to have my own branded player and many of the other options that are offering with this pro-offering.

This is a opportunity for all of those companies that have been streaming live content for years to step up and compete with Mogulus on their pro-offering.  I was fully expecting Mogulus or Ustream to come out with pricing that was aggressive, not pricing that is more expensive than many competitors in the space.

They will have to come up with an offering that makes sense. I think in order to get people like me to consider signing up for their pro-service it is going to have to be an offering a monthly price range in the $100-$150 range along with a healthy initial bandwidth offering.

I hope that Ustream.TV does not make the same mistake as Mogulus has made, because it is evident to me that with their pricing scheme they have not targeted content creators like me.

Even With Technology, It’s Harder to Work when Your Sick…

Geek Culture

I have been beefing up my websites. I also have been working on some external projects hard. But all of that came to a crashing halt last week.

Why? I got sick.

I felt this illness coming down on Monday (Nov. 24th). I didn’t think much of it, but after my Podcast on Tuesday, I pretty much knew I should take some downtime and relax a bit while ingesting something like lots of Liquids. (Here is a keynote – If you have a fever and your lips start to dry out quick, you might want to get some water in your system. )

By Thursday I was pretty much on the back and forth thing – Morning I would be OK, but then by evening I was burning up and freezing at the same time. Saturday I had to play with the band and by the end of the 3rd set I was hurting more than I ever hurt before. If it wasn’t for the little catnaps between breaks, I would have probably not made it.

Monday – Feeling better but coughing entered into the mix. Still did my shows. Tuesday – Coughing getting worse. Still did my Podcast – then took a 3 hour nap before going to a local Podcasters meeting I started up here. Wednesday – After 3 PM I went downstairs, plopped in front of the TV and stayed there all evening.

Now it’s Thursday and although I am still not 100%, I have to catch up on everything I’ve missed. I planned to post some videos, but they’ve been sitting on the back burner. I planned a couple GeekNewsCentral Articles, but once again, back burner. Even the contract stuff I do pretty much was set aside as I couldn’t focus or concentrate.

The funny thing is that I could have done any of the stuff in question. With technology today I could have laid on the couch and put the videos together. I might not have been able to write the articles, but I could’ve at least put together some notes.

It’s interesting how an illness can debilitate a person. Thinking “I can do it when I’m better”, then when you are more level headed you realize how much more stress you put on yourself. Still, when you are sick, you really need to put some attention to getting better.

I am not sure how much longer this will go on. I keep hearing “Everybody’s getting this bug”. Hopefully it’s not something that might warrant a doctor visit. But I do know that it’s time to start catching up on my projects or else I might find myself in a hole I can’t get out of.

Where Will They NOT Sell Advertising?

advertising

USAToday is reporting on a high school teacher in San Diego, who has started selling advertisements on his test papers in order to pay for printing costs for his class. He felt it was the only way to subsidize the costs of printing for his classroom; his budget is $300, but his printing costs about $500 per school year.

Most ads, at this point, are pretty innocuous. Inspirational messages from parents top the list of ads, but ads have also been bought by local engineering firms and an orthodontist.

What concerns me about this is that this marketing gives advertisers access to children. Our children are the most vulnerable to advertising, without the maturity and life experience to weed out the obnoxiousness that is advertising. I can block advertising when my kids surf (ad blocker plus for Firefox) and keep the television watching to a minimum, but if my kids are getting advertising at school on their tests and homework papers, I have absolutely no control over that. While I would trust that the teacher would not allow questionable advertising to be printed on his test papers, when it comes to the almighty dollar, often greed trumps good sense.

I can appreciate the teacher’s ingenuity, but I think there is probably a better way. If he only needs to make $200, couldn’t he have had a small class fundraiser that targeted the parents, who should be supporting their kids’ education anyway? I have to think this teacher went too far.

GNC-2008-12-02 #428 The HP Magic Giveaway

Podcast

I talk about the HP Magic Givaway and the concerns I have about what Ustream is doing at the beginning of the show along with a host of other things. Do not forget the People’s Choice Podcast Awards Ceremony

Please Support my Show Sponsors!:
[Save 10% off on any order at GoDaddy.com!] Use Code Todd
[Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days at GoToMeeting.com/techpodcasts. No credit card needed.]

Twitter Me http://www.twitter.com/geeknews
My Facebook Profile
FriendFeed GNC Room!!
Comments to 619-342-7365 e-mail to geeknews@gmail.com

Listener Links:
Pownce Dead Pool
Surgeons Weld Wounds
Square Trade
Don’t Spam Facebook
NASA Tool Bag in Orbit

Show Notes:
Bad RSS
Time Machine Nightmare
Vista SP2 in April 09
Pownce Acquired by Six Apart
Antivirus Definition Lag
Firefox to 20%
Mac to 8.8%
Play Poker Online be Swindled
Soviet UFO Disclosures
Sandisk and SSD Improvements at CES
Media Point Device and Blockbuster
Nokia Big Announce
LHC could be offline to 2010
Apple Tells Mac Users Get Antivirus Software
Clearwire + Xohm = Clearwire
Electronic Standby Mode
Do you read TOS?
Cheaper – Higher Resolution Cameras from Mistake

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More

Ustream.tv removing critical comments in Messsage Forum

internet

Yesterday after seeing ads injected into my video stream I asked the question in the Ustream.TV forum if there was a way to shut the ads off. The reply was no. The moderator then closed the message topic from further comment.

Seeing he closed the message topic I posted a second message that outlined my concerns and hoped to get a constructive conversation going. Well they not only closed that discussion before anyone could respond they actually deleted the comment in order to stifle debate. This was a second slap in the face.

The question that needs to be asked does Ustream.TV want to have a conversation with it’s family of content contributors on their own site or do they want to have the conversation here?

I find it very curious in over 2 hours of viewing shows that are featured on the main page of Ustream.TV that none of those shows has the advertising we saw yesterday popping up. But as you dig in deeper, and leave the front page the advertising is very apparent.

What it appears they are doing, is making the shows on the front page look inviting without the intrusive advertising, and then sticking advertising into the content producers streams that are not on the front page of the website. Good strategy if you do not want to scare off perspective new content producers.

I have received a Twitter from someone at Ustream saying they would like to do a call. I will talk with them but they need to understand that they need to start being a bit more transparent and be willing to take the heat of criticism in their own forums. More as this develops.

To be fair I found out that Mogulus has started doing the same type of ad injection as well. Which really disappoints me that neither of these two sites informed their content producers or have given us a pro-offering that we could pay to play without advertising.