Tag Archives: “Leo Laporte”

Lisa Tickled Pink Hates Technology: The Social Experiment

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If you by chanced checked out “This Week in Tech”, you watched as Leo Laporte talked with Kevin Rose, John Dvorak and Clayton Morris talk about events in tech. I had the show on live as I was working on other projects as they did something that was not only interesting, but also shows how someone can turn from a nobody to a social mediate. Someone who didn’t even expect to become one.

They were talking about how Conan O’Brien had announced he was following a random person. They decided that this group could do the same thing. Therefore, Kevin Rose got onto twitter and looked for someone that only had 2-3 tweets. But what he found was the perfect twitter account.

@Lisatickledpink Hates Technology

The foursome started talking about this Twitter, in which all the viewers (about 1,700 at the time) started to follow Lisa Etheridge. They realized that she was in New Zealand and had notifications turned on. Therefore, she got an interesting wakeup call to everyone following her on Twitter.

By the end of the show, she had over 2,000 followers. The news instantly topped on Digg, which helped with more followers. Her count right now? 12,526.

Yep, she did in 2 days what most of us couldn’t do in 3 years. And while a lot of those followers could be bots and soon-to-be-dead profiles, she still has a considerable audience that will receive her status updates throughout the day. An amazing feat and a great way to start her iFame.

I mentioned Conan O’brien before. His experiment has netted a couples’ wedding to be paid in full. Of course, Conan wasn’t the first to turn a nobody into someone. However, with Twitter gaining more users than it ever has before and an average of 600 tweets a second, the world is getting more connected than ever. Where as my Twitter hits something like 0.00002 percent of the population, Lisa has an ear of 0.00025 percent.  To put into perspective, @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher) has 0.092 percent (Based on 4-5 Billion user accounts)

So to Lisa Etheridge – Enjoy this new fame and use it wisely. You have been put in a position that can mean people are listening to you. Don’t forget to mention my twitter handle every now and then, too – @geekazine

Leo Laporte suggestion to change Podcast to Netcast is ridiculous

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TwitI have only meet Leo in passing a couple of times but did not get a chance to talk to him at Podcast Expo about his Netcast idea. He was a Keynote Speaker at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo where he put forth the conceptual idea of promoting the word Netcast versus Podcast. My conclusion was that it was way too late in the game to re-name the media. 100% of the listeners / podcasters I have run this by also agree it is too late.

Many know that a week or so earlier Leo decided that the 2 years of viral marketing around the word Podcast needed to be abandoned, partly because of Apple’s actions against Podcast Ready, and his concern that people are confused on the 2005 word of the year “Podcast”

His suggestion was Netcast and although the suggestion is not necessarily bad this move will add more confusion to the marketplace. I understand that Leo thinks the general public is completely confused about the term podcast. But I also think his suggestion only confuses the matter even more. To illustrate this point let’s look at the actual meanings of the two words.

My definition of Podcast is “Portable on Demand Broadcast” with the emphasis on Portable and Broadcast which covers both Video and Audio.

The word Netcast embodies Net aka Internet and Broadcast.

Maybe Leo has a large portion of his audience consuming his podcast on his website versus having them automatically delivered to a portable media player. My show has a huge tech following as does Leo’s and nearly 70% of the people are down loading the show thru a podcatcher like Juice, iTunes or myPodder.

The thing about the word Netcast that bothers me is that it takes away from the  representation of the media we are creating, and the ultimately the way that most people are consuming the media.

What makes Podcastig different is that we were the first to popularize the automatic down loading and synchronization to a media player this resulted in an explosion of people creating new media. The automation made it simple for the common man to experience what I call “The Power of Walk Away Content”

Sure we have a long way to go in educating the public. But let’s be honest, when I break podcasting down into a 45 second elevator pitch people can immediately say wow that’s pretty cool.

I am not here to dismiss Leo’s idea, but I think Leo should work with everyone to help drive public awareness of Podcasts and not the word Netcast. If we as Podcasters engage our audiences to start spreading the word about podcasting and give them a central resource to find info then I think we can really make a difference.

So my challenge is to Leo will you reverse course and help in the education of this new media.