Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I pod, I blog, I listen... but who else does?


I pod, I blog, I listen... but who else does?

Manila - I sit at my PC listening to a stream of Music from across the pacific on I-97 a ipod stream out of sunny OK somewhat sunny currently drenched rainy California.

I wonder is this really a radio station that has taken its content and put it on the web via pod casts - or a couple of guys in a office somewhere making good use of extra space on a private networks fifty terabyte server nobody is like really using in some back office of a company or government agency?

A lot of people are hoping to cash-in on people who will buy streaming content on a pod stream for people who will eventually pay to listen to the service provided.

kind of like bloggers who make a little or a lot depending on ads and hits on the sites they have.
I switch casts like switching radio stations and am now pulling in an old song from God knows where on the web into my PC and listen as Adam Ant chants something onto my speakers I have not heard since I was in high school in Tustin, California!

But with all the streams and service providers the question I have is like many who host these Blog sites - OK you blog- you Pod- you video stream - but who is watching or listening anymore- is it stream overload.

I must have 400 to 900 music services I can downstream onto my hard drive if I want to! and that just 80S music.

What is next - is this going to be like niche broadcast cable with 999 channels - on a up link so one can watch 400 versions of i love Lucy or happy days or star trek airing at the same time in as many languages.

If say in some strange configuration of life you have say- 100 million pod, data cast, video, and, mp3 service providers for the say 1 billion on the web at any one time - whats the catch ratio of that?

Will there ever - say - be one service provider to bring all of that into one area or place to be able to make it 1# on the web- certainly apple itunes has hit that mark with its billionth download - but overall - aside from the mainstream will there ever be say a journalist or producer who can say make it on a one man band garage podder - who will bring in the big bucks by themselves and have a story to tell?

I mean everybody has a story in life and and try to find a way or place to sell and play or make people listen to them.

Does anyone really look or listen to all the services out there or have time to go beyond the basic information load we have in our lives and the focus we have in those areas and search out new things.

convergence is the key they say- there will always be people out there in the mainstream media who will look at see what else is out there and do something to make people be dragged to the nest new thing. After all we all want to be in the game as it were.

So I'm going to be podding too soon- video and audio - hope you'll all listen - I wonder if anything will come of it.

When I told a few friends of mine about it there was laugh and chuckle about the whole thing - like "Why do that? why go into it? who'll listen or view something put together by one or two guys on podcast for news or information when there is so much else out there?"

Mix that with a laugh the people I was with dismissed the idea with a little shrug-shrug-chuckle- confident of course in their own paths at a major broadcast outfit.

I remember a long time ago - when I was first starting out in the business's of broadcasting -
i heard something on the radio - a DJ - talking on air.

And I said "Hey I can do that..." was a teenager at the time way back then I heard the little chuckle and the " Ah... sure yeah... OK mike."

When I got into radio and a couple of years later was soon running a small station at the age 19 - I heard the news being done by another announcer and I was intrigued being in college at the time and it was an interesting time Politcal upheaval and protests people were calling for change on the streets... So being a PolSci major - minoring in parties - I repeated my old battle cry...

" Hey can I do that!!!" with a laugh my station General Manager at the time looked at me from head to toe and said "Well... OK... sure..." add a few shrug-shrugs and a chuckle and you get the picture...

I did, took some courses in broadcast journalism; a year later or so I was soon doing radio news reports not only for the station I started with- but for news networks all over that country and the rest of the world. Hopping all over the place driving my mother and her friends crazy being always on the chase and hunt for the story where-ever it took me in SE Asia.

Later- I moved to TV when that small radio outfit I was working with - set up a small TV station. We produced a local newscast out of a one room office and studio - We did OK-

we were local so people watched us.

Later we produced a couple of news cast and further down the road more and more - things like live events and documentaries.

Then while at that station I watched a national newscast of ABS-CBN ther Philippines No.1 at that time; Eventually - like before I said- "Hey...."

flatly I was told ---- "No way... it ain't gonna happen- be happy where you are - I was told - that was the big time - Network TV - 3,800 applicants for like 10 posts - Even my close relatives said - "You don't stand a chance..."

I was told in my small station in Palawan way back then - laughed at for even thinking of it -

Like before - I had the last laugh I started slow- a researcher- became a reporter and later a morning anchor about five hard years later... anchoring special events and becoming a de-facto foreign editor-

Whats even more funny was at the big network one day I saw a few reports on CNN - and said - Hey....- major guffaw - major laughs - major challenges - major intrigue - all over again- I did end up doing "stringer" freelance work for the network Ted built- for a couple of months and later was giggling myself when the same people who laughed tried as hard as they could too to get on the air with them as well.

Anyhow - I left network TV a few years after that shifted to where I am now - a freelance producer doing my own thing - or at least trying to - mostly for a very good network that has little interest in Asia - but is the best news channel in America and also it's sister network in the UK and downunder.

its been a good career so far...

But as far as advancement- I feel I am now coming full circle - back to... me, myself, and, I ...

in a venture of trying to make it on the web and wondering - is anyone reading or listening?

I heard laughter tonight when I told my friends my little idea - freelance journalists selling stories directly to viewers and users on the web - it's only an idea- I saw a lot of shrugs and shrugs... more puzzled looks- and the major question most my fellow broadcasters asked was- WHY?

I'm challenged to try it - oh well - I do hope history repeats itself - because whenever I get laughed at or put down I always seem to bounce up.

Perhaps it's God's blessings for me is when I see that its not road traveled by others I try to take the path- I hope it works.

So here I go - thinking - mike pod - new pod - upod- I guess it's all like farming - like a simple seed - a pod- perhaps it'll take root and grow.

laugh please!

I need success....


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