Signal to Noise » recording

FM Radio is Smart; Mandatory isn’t

Ted Wallingford — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:22:34 +0000

It’s interesting that we’re only now having the debate over whether or not FM radio in cell phones is a good idea, at least on a widespread forum, considering Nokia and others have equipped this feature for 5-6 years now. The fact is, it’s not a good idea—it’s a GREAT idea. Here’s why:

1 – The ratings for terrestrial FM radio still dwarf that of satellite stations, when you look at the local cumes, so while a Sat channel may have 650k listeners at a time, they may only have 15k in a particular local market. Good for national advertisers; bad for community ones. For this singular reason, FM isn’t going anywhere.

2 – It’s free to the listener, can be accomplished anonymously, and requires no subscription or membership.

3 – The digital terrestrial stream (ie. HD radio) is of excellent fidelity and provides a transport for digital (and even interactive) programming beyond what FM broadcasters are currently using, so there’s headroom below terrestrial’s technology ceiling.

4 – Terrestrial radio is more or less weatherproof. Sat radio isn’t.

Now, as to whether or not it should be mandatory–well that just sounds like a war between the recording lobby and the cell phone carriers. I’m of the opinion that the FM broadcasters are generally in favor of it but hamstrung by the recording industry.

iPad/iPhone platform takes the shimmer off OS X

Ted Wallingford — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:39:17 +0000

I couldn’t help but wonder what the iPad hype machine is going to mean for OS X in the long wrong. Sure, OS X is the development environment for the iPhoneOS, but is there enough *there* with the mobile OS to make it the de facto environment of choice for folks like me?

As it is now, iPhone OS does a whole lot of things OS X does not–platform-wide UI support for multi-touch is just the beginning of the list. Still, it seems Apple has gone to great lengths not to cannibalize desktop PC sales, if not overtly saying so. No, iPad is not a desktop replacement, yet. For starters, it synchronizes with iTunes, meaning that it doesn’t actually run iTunes, so its calendaring and music apps are still very mobile in nature. I also wonder if the lack of a user-facing camera was a design scheme to keep the iPad out of the desktop space, as opposed to a financial consideration to keep down manufacturing costs.

But the brushes app seems like an impressive utility with the potential to offset some productivity that’s normally reserved for the desktop. And as I type this on a Macbook Pro, I realize that the iPad will never be suitable for video production, or for audio mixing. Even still, I can imagine great uses for multitouch in these kinds of apps.

Without the UI goodies, OS X shimmers less, and I believe it’s only a matter of time before touch-enabled desktop gear starts shipping from Cupertino.

A GarageBand Track for the Recording Geeks

Ted Wallingford — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:52:41 +0000

It’s been quite a while since I did a recording/music blog. But check this out. I’ve had this track setting on my Maxtor outboard drive for a few months. It’s a pop rock arrangement that was done to test my then-new microphone setup. Here are the techniques I used:

- Recorded two acoustic guitar tracks with XY close condensers. One pointed at the neck, the other at the bridge. One acoustic has a capo so it has that mandolin-ish sound.

- Recorded the drums on stereo track with four mics: XY overhead, inside kick, and close snare (AKG D88).

- Added software-generated keyboard pad.

- Added electric guitar and bass guitar tracks, direct to the mixer.

- Minimal compression on everything except the drums (hence the cymbals sound a little “dark”).

- A little reverb on the master track.

Tell me what you think after you have a listen.

The death of podcasting buzz

Ted Wallingford — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:41:27 +0000

Is it just me, or did the obsession with podcasting just GO AWAY? Perhaps it was the difficulty in monetizing the creativity model. Or maybe it just was never easy enough to produce and consume podcasts. Not to mention the non-live nature of it. I haven’t listened to one in a long time, probably because I’m swamped and I no longer have a iPod hookup in my Pacifica.

Nerds need to realize mainstream dollars are the only ones that matter

Ted Wallingford — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:19:03 +0000

Look, nerds, don’t take this the wrong way (because I’m a nerd too!) but your acquiescence to Apple’s Buck-Thirty DRM-free singles deal is the same as you selling out. Here’s why.

As much as we don’t want to admit it, the mainstream (ie. that 50% plus slice of the population that *still* doesn’t understand bitrates and sampling frequencies) still purchases their music on polymer platter. So when we whine about how we want better bitrates in our music singles, and we want them re-mastered from 24-bit or 32-bit digital sources, we’re crying a lamentation that the bulk of people just don’t care about.

As it stands now, the hipsters (ie. that 50% minus sliver of the population that lives a digital life and spends as much time online as off) are the only people that care about so-called higher-quality recordings. It’s been this way since long before iTunes. That’s why only .00024% of the population subscribes to Audiophile; that’s why cassette tapes, laborsome to produce and horrible-sounding after the second or third playback, lasted well into the mid-90′s as a primary means of distributing music. The mainstream doesn’t care about premiums. If they did, might we all be driving a Porsche? Same with music. You can charge more for a premium feature, but premiums like an extra 84 kbps of sample bandwidth aren’t going to make mainstream dollars flock to iTunes.The extra bandwidth only serves to attract nerd dollars.

Which was my whole point to begin with. If I’m a mainstream consumer that’s happy with a recording that costs me less to enjoy, I’m going to save my dough. Apple should cut to the chase, sink the idea that you should pay more for something in low demand that does NOT exhibit higher manufacturing costs, and drop those EMI recordings to a buck just like everything else on iTunes.

The increase in quality doesn’t matter to Joe Six Pack. It was just a spoonful of sugar to make the EMI $0.30 anti-piracy fee an easier pill to swallow for people who pay attention: NERDS.

Headset pr0n: how ya like these apples

Ted Wallingford — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:36:30 +0000

After I chided the VoIP Girl a bit about her awesome-but-ample headset, Ken Camp added his fuel to the fire. So, here, I’m posting a picture of my headphones. These are Roland RH-120 stereo headphones, purchased in 1995 for what at the time was probably a week’s pay. I don’t use a boom mic set or anything like that. The built-in mic on my MacBook tends to work well enough. If I need to seriously record a VoIP chat, however, sometimes I’ll plug in my SM57 knock-off microphone into a mixer–one typically only used for music recording. But it’s a sensible low-noise mic that can be used for podcast recording and so forth. Generally though, no special microphone for casual Skyping or Sightspeeding. By the way, this photo was a self-portrait snapped by the Nokia N73 because my MacBook’s built-in iSight is on the fritz.

EFF’s DRM manifesto leaves out some important points

Ted Wallingford — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:07:19 +0000

Tom Keating pointed me to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s page about its opposition to Digital Rights Management, and I read this manifesto in its entirety. I do have a few questions about EFF’s understand of DRM, however:

Major entertainment companies are using “digital rights management,” or DRM (aka content or copy protection), to lock up your digital media. These DRM technologies do nothing to stop copyright pirates, but instead end up interfering with fans’ lawful use of music, movies, and other copyrighted works.

This is partially untrue. DRM does have a measurable effect on the rate of piracy. The more difficult you make it to distribute media illegally, the less piracy will occur. The real problem isn’t that DRM doesn’t stop piracy (which is an outright myth), but that DRM stops media innovation, fair use, and media creation. It creates barriers to entry for artists. And so EFF’s explanation is only half true.

DRM can prevent you from making back ups of your DVDs and music downloaded from online stores, recording your favorite TV programs, using the portable media player of your choice, remixing clips of movies into your own home movies, and much more.

Again, partially true. You still have consumer choice and you still have analog. I know we aspire to live in an all-digital, all-networked world, one which DRM holdouts will be the very last to join. So another problem I foresee is that DRM retards the advancement of social assimilation into the all-digital realm.

The DMCA has been a disaster for innovation, free speech, fair use, and competition.

Amen on this point. And I would add that, though EFF won’t come right out and say it, DMCA-inspired controls have been a disaster for what I call “beneficial piracy”. Pirated music sells mindshare. Mindshare sells albums. Sold albums equals more pirated music. More pirated music equals more mindshare. More mindshare sells more albums; infinity.

Today, these media giants want to use DRM to take away your legitimate fair use and home recording rights, hoping to sell those rights back to you later.

Yup, it’s a twisted scheme of a business model, ain’t it?

Worse still, recent DRM has invaded users’ privacy and created severe security vulnerabilities in computers.

If this is in reference to the Sony debacle, it sounds an awful lot like FUD coming from the EFF. That Sony thing will never happen again, period. Get over it.

Fans shouldn’t be treated like criminals, and neither should the innovators who build the gadgets on which they rely.

I’ve long held that copyright profiteering should be a felony, and should be well-enforced–but charging a cover and offering free beers during a pay-per-view fight is against the law, and that’s just ridiculous.

Music execs talk from both sides of mouth on DRM

Ted Wallingford — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:53:53 +0000

According to the BBC:

The study revealed that about 54% of those executives questioned thought that current DRM systems were too restrictive.

Also, 62% believed that dropping DRM and releasing music files that can be enjoyed on any MP3 player would boost the take-up of digital music generally. However, Mr Mulligan pointed out that this percentage changed depending on which sector of the industry was answering.

Among all record labels 48% of all executives thought ending DRM would boost download sales – though this was 58% at the larger labels. Outside the record labels 73% of those questioned thought dropping DRM would be a boost for the whole market.

Among all those questioned, 70% believed that the future of downloadable music lay in making tracks play on as many different players as possible. But 40% believed it would take concerted government or consumer action to bring this about.

Despite these feelings, said Mr Mulligan, record labels are committed to using DRM because their digital music strategies revolve around these technologies.

“Despite everything that has been happening the record labels are not about to drop DRM,” said Mr Mulligan. “Even though all they are doing is making themselves look even less compelling by using it.”

It’s interesting how the music execs draw a parallel between DRM and proprietary lock-in. It’s almost like they’re saying it’s Apple’s fault iTunes Store songs only play on iPods. In reality, and Jobs stated this a few weeks back, iTunes enforces DRM in a number of ways–one, by keeping FairPlay close to the vest and two, by keeping the entire iTunes value chain close to the vest. He also stated that he doesn’t really like DRM, but more or less supports it through iTunes as a capitulation to the music industry. I would think the music industry would be flocking to Jobs and Co., seeing as how CDs aren’t generally DRM’d and can be copied using a simple CD-burner. Yet the growth of online sales, which some record execs believe is stunted or below its potential, is being laid at the feet of Apple because DRM’d songs only play on the iPod. Well, hello, guys! It’s your own darn fault. Your insistence on DRM lock-in isn’t compatible with Apple’s desire to stay away from the patent licensing business. Does Apple want to sell security technologies or media solutions? Gee, that’s not a hard one to figure out. Down with DRM. Let’s just get it over with already.

VoIP Call Recorder and Screenpops

Ted Wallingford — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 21:59:30 +0000

Asterisk VoIP News gets the call for exposing a new tool for recording your VoIP calls in OS X. The tool is called SoloRecord, and it permits you to get caller ID screenpops when you receive a call. The way it does this is by snooping the SIP packets coming across your network and then creating appropriate responses in software. I’ve explained the exact technique behind SIP snooping and discreet call recording in my book, VoIP Hacks.

There are a few caveats with SoloRecord’s requirements, of course. The only supported signaling protocol is SIP (Ie. no Skype, Skinny, MGCP or H.323 services are supported). Also, if your service utilizes an exotic sound codec, you won’t be able to record calls. Screenpops should still work, though.

Also, the developers want you to use a Neanderthal Ethernet HUB (because a switch would make the snooping very difficult without supervisory port mirroring or some other method of snooping, such as an ARP poison attack). In my mind, that’s a serious limitation. But most low-end switches don’t offer port monitoring, so you might be better off plugging your ATA into Ovolab’s Phlink call recording software if you really need to record calls.

Also, if you’re using a SIP softphone client, such as Gizmo Project, you’re in good shape, because SoloRecord can grab the audio packets right from the local interface. Cool stuff!

Hey–the guys over at Ovolab and Parliant should seriously considering buying the SoloRecord source code. For a long time, I’ve lamented how those products don’t support VoIP yet. SoloRecord would save them an awful lot of work.

Also, if you’re looking for a way to record Skype calls as well, be sure to check out SoundFlower.

Reaction to Indy iTunes

Ted Wallingford — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:33:57 +0000

Regarding my suggestion that Apple should use iTunes to transform the indy music scene, the reaction was varied, vocal, and very mixed. Alec Saunders likes the idea and provides some good feedback:

Ted’s proposal is just the sort of inspired lunacy, the zig to Microsoft’s DRM zag, that Apple ought to embrace. Let people upload their own music and share the profits from downloads with them. iTunes has more market power than you think, Steve. What would happen if iTunes became the indy “label” of choice?

I never really thought of iTunes being a label, but that’s exactly what it would become. Also, I’d to emphasize the point the iTunes has more market power the most people think. That’s why, despite upstarts like Tamago and Tunecore, iTunes has a better chance at succeeding in the task of enabling indy producers. There’s no question that certain, limited options for indy distribution exist (remember CD Baby?) but I don’t want them to just exist. How many of them embrace the 2.0 community ideal? I want them to have an impact. Imagine the Apple-shaped crater from the impact of a 2.0 iTunes. Om Malik was also digging the idea.

Andy Abramson likes the idea but doubts it will happen. He brings up MP3.com’s Michael Robertson, who has had a similar vision for a long time, citing his experience as evidence that the old guard of record industry powers that be would never allow Apple to truly go indy with the thing. I think the reason MP3.com lost in the end was because they didn’t have the commercial legitimacy iTunes now possesses.

Perhaps most compelling was Michael Robertson’s own response, which he posted in a comment:

MP3.com WAS the Youtube of music. We had lots of firsts:

- Accept every band (major or indie)
- Free band signups
- Free unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Non-exclusive
- Shared ad money (called payback for playback)
- Sold CDs (gave artists 50%)

When MP3.com shutdown a few new sites popped up to take it’s place. Purevolume.com became the biggest initially and then myspace combined band hosting with social networking. Magic happened!

So yes, Steve should sell MP3s. And I have 3 other ideas like publishing the database format for ipods so other software can store files onto them.

MP3.com was a 2.0 company operating in a 1.0 world, and this is unfortunate. MySpace’s arrival on the scene, much to the detriment of a potential indy iTunes, is something I certainly noticed. The problem is, as far as music goes, MySpace doesn’t go far enough. It still doesn’t lower barriers to entry for distribution, which was the crux of my idea. MP3.com did. However, MySpace’s social networking apparatus and community-building capabilities would be a slice of heaven pie for indy producers if their UI was cleaner (a la Apple) and their market posture for music distribution was stronger (a la Apple). Plus, indy music isn’t the main focus of MySpace, so they’ll never cater to indy producers the way iTunes could/should.

Re-read the list Robertson posted–with the exception of selling CDs, that list is a success formula for an indy iTunes. Combine that with easy publishing tools, perhaps in GarageBand or Logic Express, and Apple has a lock on the whole process, as they prefer to.

Commenter Paul writes:

Apple can hardly process the content that is coming in already fast enough and they certainly like to keep (editorial) control over their iTunes stores. What you are describing might be a bit too wild and free for Apple.

If Apple insisted on editorial control over the music content, they would be completely missing the point. Quality Control happens AUTOMATICALLY in a 2.0 world.

Nathan writes:

Apple does have the tools and infrastructure to make this happen. However, its a bit like asking Virgin Megastore to open up a few shelves to local indie bands from the neighborhood. Possible, but highly unlikely.

I agree that it’s unlikely, but then again, so was the iPhone. Apple has a tendency to surprise. And the reason I’m bent on Apple doing it is because I believe they’re the only ones who have the framework for guaranteed success at it. Which reminds me, while I was sleeping last night, several hundred web sites popped up which promise to ‘get your music into the iTunes store’ or otherwise aide indy distribution. Among them–Amiestreet, iJigg, Tunecore, Project Opus, Tamago, and about half-dozen others.

Why the “i” in iTunes should stand for “indy”

Ted Wallingford — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:25:53 +0000

iTunes debuted several years ago, and I continue to be impressed with the simplicity and superiority of Apple’s value chain for music–from the iPod to the Mac/PC all the way up to the store itself. Not so much for video delivery, but that’s a subject for another Sunday. The point is, iPod and iTunes accomplished a far-sighted vision incubated by Jobs and immediately lampooned by lots of naysayers. Of course, Jobs had the last laugh.

But while the last laugh he may’ve had, the last frontier for iTunes isn’t music, and it certainly isn’t merely video. It’s GOT TO BE community-generated content. Look at YouTube. They’ve taken the medium and empowered a collective of independent, usually amateur, video producers by giving an outlet for their art, for their skull-cracking skateboard accidents, and sometimes, for their influence. Isn’t that the heart of Web 2.0?

Steve Jobs’ recent comments dissing Digital Rights Management as a repressor of the greater media industry got me thinking: What would iTunes be like if it were given the 2.0 treatment? Here are my ideas for ya Steve, free of charge:

1. Allow anyone–ANYONE–to submit music to the iTunes site. Then, allow these independent producers to create communities around that music. Free and open user ratings and reviews of the content, just like the commercial stuff that’s in the iTunes Store. The good stuff will be rewarded and bubble to the top, while the crap will languish at the bottom of the bit barrel, just as it should be.
2. Empower Mac users to create superior content–it bolsters the growth of the platform in way that shoddy .Mac cannot. In other words, give Logic Express and GarageBand features which allow pain-free submission of user-generated music by indy producers. Take your cues from MacJams.com, but make it look Apple-pretty and make it stupidly easy for all us musical blockheads.

3. Share revenue with independent producers who submit music–they’re a lot less likely than Warner Bros. or Arista Records to squeeze you for 94% of the revenue generated, or whatever you’re paying now. Paying indy producers for content sold accomplishes three things–(a) it rewards and encourages the community while increasing the influence of Apple in the musical entertainment space (b) it allows a pathetically stagnant indy music business to be scrappy against the payola wagon at Clear Channel and compete with the big record companies, who would rather publish three platinum albums per year than twenty gold albums, and (c) it could create deflationary pressure on the big labels currently participating in the iTunes franchise, lowering prices and increasing thru volume. Everybody wins.

4. Keep community-submitted music DRM-free. Mindshare is the reward for excellent art. In keeping indy submissions free of DRM, you can prove your point to the big labels.

Steve, you acted like you had a pair of rocks when you mouthed off about DRM. Now, it’s time to prove it. Apple is in a unique position to create a whole new arena for democratized indy music. Where MP3.com failed, Apple can succeed, because it already has a captive audience with iTunes.

Recording drums on a budget

Ted Wallingford — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 04:33:34 +0000

(Note to my VoIP readership: this is an indulgence since I don’t have anywhere to blog about my other passion, amateur recording. So bear with me. After all, this used to be a blog about music.)

I’ve been looking for a good way to record my drum kit, since my home recordings reek of pre-recorded drum loops that scream amateur. This is fine if you spend all day in Reason doing techno music, but not so fine if you like rock and roll. You just need real drums, at least I do, and I needed a good, cheap way of recording my standard setup, a four-piece drum set with ride, two crashes, and of course, hi hats.

So I experimented with a variety of potential setups before settling on something I’m happy with. Keep in mind, I’m using a Macbook without a digital input/preamp device, so I only have two inputs (left and right). The drums, which are recorded using four microphones, are mixed down to the two inputs using a cheapy six-channel mixer, again, with no preamps. Here is the result.
The mic I chose are also cheapies, but I was very pleased with the outcome. A Nady kick drum mic and two phantom-powered condensers. The condensers go overhead, each equidistant from the snare drum. My first couple of takes I tried with just these three mics, and it came out very crisp and clear once I had the levels set right on the mixer. The only problem was, the snare drum wasn’t present enough. I toyed around with moving the overheads closer to the snare, but it just wasn’t good enough. So I ended up close-micing the snare with a trashy 57-style vocal mic, and that gave me just enough volume to bring the snare up to right level of smack I was looking for. The only problem is that the quality of the snare sound suffered when I did this. The overheads were definitely more articulate than the clumsy old mic I put on the snare.

In the end, I came up with a recording that you can listen to by clicking here. Keep in mind, this isn’t a performance, just a quick drum session of several rock beats and rolls designed to evaluate the recording setup. The only post-processing I did was compress the final track a bit and add a hint of verb. There’s no EQ anywhere, not even from the input mixer. This should give a good idea of the frequency range and capability of this particular recording setup. BTW the single stereo track was recorded using GarageBand.
Generally, I’m pretty pleased with the result, considering the mics and cables only set me back less than $200. What do you think about it?

Looks like I’m “It”

Ted Wallingford — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:57:33 +0000

I got tagged by Ken Camp. So, in keeping with prior posts of this nature, I’ll follow suit:

1. I have two great children, Jacob and Madelyn. Both play in the strings program at their school. Jacob owns a Detroit Lions jersey and KNOWS Ohio State is going to be crowned champion this year.

2. I’m a drummer and bass player. I’ve been in and out of bands since I was a kid, and recently played with a country project. I can occasionally be spotted playing at Jam Night at Rocker’s in Elyria, OH.

3. I used to be a consultant to Amiga Inc. when they were owned by Gateway. I sold my last Amiga on eBay about three years ago. (My first writing gigs were for Amiga Informer and Amazing Computing–remember those?)
4. I personally took a picture of Steve Yzerman hoisting the Stanley Cup in downtown Detroit on parade day a few years ago. Everybody went to work that day, but nobody worked!

5. I’d be happy to give a $50 tip to the first person who can get me a Nintendo Wii for MSRP. Skype me at tedwallingford if you can find one.

Now, who to tag next. I’m going to pick somebody outside the VoIP world and call on John Palmer, another Clevelander who hails from the radio broadcasting industry, and who writes about business.

Talkster

Ted Wallingford — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:10:21 +0000

Alec has a write-up on Talkster. The service might be of interest to Ken Camp, who doesn’t want to be forced to have more phone numbers, and to others who would sure love to save on LD if only it was practical for them to do so. Alec includes a couple of photos of the service in action–they appear to be web-page-driven user interace elemtents but I could be wrong.

Microsoft: Know Thyne Enemy

Ted Wallingford — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 02:41:41 +0000

Russell Shaw has a good point:

Right now, I am cranky. And when bloggers get cranky, ooh boy, better watch out.
Kill switches are NEVER, EVER OK.

Russ is talking about the lock-out “feature” of Vista, which allows Microsoft to basically lock users out of PCs that they consider to be running pirate software. This occurs as Google is gearing up an onslaught of code that, for the first time in a long time, makes me reconsider Microsoft’s position of dominance in the PC industry.

Take Writely/Google Docs for example. Here you have a very basic word processor that’s free, service-based, and works on just about every platform. (Got a 7.0 browser? You’re rockin’.) Add to that Blogger, and now you’ve got the ability to blog from the Google web platform. But it doesn’t end there. Check out Sketchup, which provides 3D modeling capabilities, and Google Talk, which gives you voice and text instant messaging. Not to mention Calendar and Picasa, which let you schedule and share photos, respectively.

And all of this stuff is free. And Mac/Linux compatible. And Firefox-compatible. And very good. So why aren’t all your friends using Writeley and Sketchup? One reason could be that they only cater to the least common denominator of features. Another reason could be that people have such a heavy investment in “the Microsoft way” that they’re experiencing an attitude ritard. Ie, “I paid $300 for Microsoft office, so by golly I’m going to use it!”
Yet somewhere beneath the facade of quiet giant Google is an inability (or timing issue?) that prevents them from really hyping all the goodness they have stored up in their warchest. I say inability because–when was the last time you saw a Google commercial?Â Is the word-of-mouth that made Google the dominant power it has become good enough to get the ordinary consumer beyond Google Search and into Writely on a regular basis? Or is Google merely waiting, waiting to meet its enemy for all to see on the field of battle…

The fact is, Microsoft’s approach to software is outmoded. Services now rule the day, and monetizing services in an unconventional fashion is Google’s mode of operation. Look, I want Microsoft to be successful. I want Steve Balmer to be right when he poo-poos Google’s business dealings. But you know what? I don’t think Balmer has half the consumer identification skills Sergei has.

Seriously, I think Microsoft is stuck in 1993. Figuring out how to out-AOL AOL. Figuring out how to out-Apple Apple. Thinking of advertising as advertising instead of realizing and embracing the power of the consumer. Look, I used to run Microsoft click ads on web sites that I’d developed, and my click-thru rates have never been as high as when I ran Google ads. Why? Because Google has developed an understanding of how consumers think of content. Ads are content, and so are applications.

This an idea that was fostered (perhaps 6 years too early) by Fleecy Moss and the boys over at Amiga. It’s too bad they aren’t on the Google team, where their ideas about the ubiquity of content and content-advocacy could be welcomed. It’s also too bad that their revolutionary ideas about content were scandaled by the tarpit of the Classic Amiga community, to whomÂ they felt beholden, and mired in unfortunate business dealings that landed them as a syndicator of second-rate card games and Arena Football League licensed stuff that runs on Windows Mobile. If Bill McEwen, Fleecy Moss, and the rest of the visionary Amiga gang had been empowered by a true-to-life revenue stream the way Google has been for the last several years, then Amiga might very well be in Google’s position. But ideas only get you so far. At some point, rubber must meet the road.

And this is the great question for Microsoft: is the Google rubber going to meet the road with applications? If it does, then Microsoft may be the next Commodore. It’s time for Microsoft to take it to the next level. Free, service-based applications from Google? Feh. It may be only a matter of time before a fully-functional suite of service-based operating environments appears, perhaps from Google, and Microsoft, with its lethargic retro piracy-checking lockout workstation sillyness, will look like yesterday’s news.

At least that’s what Google is hoping.

Now would be the time Microsoft. Now would be the time.

Ted Wallingford — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:02:18 +0000

Hmm, this is cool. You can post blog entries from Google Docs AKA Writely. So, this is an experimental post. It still feels weird; let’s see how weird it feels when I put a picture in. OK, since we a VoIP blog, check out these two VoIP phones: the D-link DPH-540 and the UTStarcom F3000G. No, that’s not an illusion. The HP-540 really is THAT BIG.

Realtime: More than Just VoIP

Ted Wallingford — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 02:11:24 +0000

Many of you know Ken Camp, the man behind IP Telephony Demystified (a book which I leaned on as a reference while developing Switching to VoIP) and the personality behind IP Adventures, coiner of the phrase “Digital Common Sense”, and coordinator of the Realtime VoIP Community. This community is growing, and changing its name, to reflect a focus on the broader subject of unified communications. The name of the new community and blog is Realtime Unified Communications. Not quite the same ring as Realtime VoIP, but I think the change in direction is important.

It signals a change in how the thought leadership is changing in our industry. VoIP is a means to an end, a specific way of applying toolsets to facilitate voice communications over IP, and a way of IP-enabling telecommunications. But the revolution that’s occuring presently in the IP communications world breaks the boundaries of VoIP, and people who previously considered themselves “VoIP people”, like myself, are now looking to other forms of IP-enabled media, to other meanings of “convergence” besides voice and data.

Pulver’s increasing and very vocal interest in video is another signal of this expansion in thought leadership. YouTube is proving something: Our industry, our great drive to IP convergence is connecting people in forms which are well beyond the traditional enterprise telephony and systems management disciplines the majority of us hailed from originally. Today, our best and brightest–Alec Saunders, Martin Geddes, Tom Evslin, Bruce Stewart, Andy Abramson, Tom Keating, and others–are shining the light on how humanity is achieving a form of social convergence that is enabled by the invisible network that exists between us. And this is a network that has so much more at work than Voice over IP.

VoIP is just one piece of the converged communications puzzle. Realtime data-networking, wireless convergence, IP-enablement, and increasingly human-friendly media delivery are all playing important parts. But each is a merely an ingredient in the recipe for greater human connectedness, the farther and farther geographical reach of human ideas, faster and stronger social impact for anybody at all who has something to say, and the very democratization of human interaction itself.

iTunes is NOT a 2.0 service

Ted Wallingford — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 03:02:01 +0000

I must confess that when the iTunes movie store originally launched, I was skeptical. I thought, nobody is going to pay a buck a track when they can just hop onto FastTrack and find whatever they want. Then I realized, over time, that the quality and availability of illegally shared music wasn’t ever really as good as it was cracked up to be. And, with the passing of that first iTunes music store year, Apple’s selection got better, and the lesser known labels were well-represented.

But I think Apple is still missing the point of grassroots, community-driven content, as this notion seems to be conspicuously missing even now from their online music store. Sure, people can rate the songs/shows/movies, and make their own favorites lists, and even write reviews. But that’s not what I’m referring to when I say grassroots.

I thought, when GarageBand came out, “Wow, this is so tight. Amateur musicians are going to gain a distribution outlet through iTunes!” I mean the lightbulb went on immediately. There were even rumors of a content-syndication tool that would allow independents to gain access to the iTunes distribution mechanism. Imagine all the DRM, CD cover image processing, and content-rating tools that the big labels have placed in the hands of mere normal musicians with no budget. Imagine YouTube-like publishing tools combined with GarageBand and the iTunes Store. Revolution, right?

Well, apparently not. The rumored syndication tool never made it past vaporware, and all we got was amateur podcast syndication. And while this is certainly very cool, it doesn’t empower the first constituency of iTunes and the recording industry at large: music makers. After all, I hold that the first and most important use of personal recording isn’t Podcasting, it’s music. This is where iTunes’ roots are. Do I like podcasts? Sure. But I listen to about 2155% more music than podcasts. Call me quaint.

Let me make this point a little differently. Rewind your time machine to mid-1999. Napster is scaring the crap out of Warner Bros. and everybody suddenly has access to a music repertoire they wouldn’t have touched otherwise. I discovered organist Conrad Kleiger and RE-discovered Falco. Do you think this would’ve happened without the empowerment of Napster? Not likely. Arista Records wasn’t going to reach into the vault and start hustling “Rock Me Amadeus” back onto the airwaves in mid-1999. But, thanks to Napster, I got to grok Falco in all their English-as-a-second-language glory.

It was BECAUSE music was available through Napster that the consumption of music increased (yes, even Falco), and the spirit of community involvement was what excited people about using Napster. It wasn’t that they could rape Falco out of their 2 cents a copy. It was because people simply cared about rediscovering and sharing music. “Hey look, this guy’s got Owner of a Lonely Heart” or “Hey look, this guy’s got Super Freak.”

Many people hoped that this drive to share and trade would eventually free the lowest ranks of the recording arts from the stranglehold the big labels maintained on distribution. Why can’t the musicians you know make a living off of their music? Because, partly, the distribution apparatus would rather sell 100 million-copy albums per year that 1000 ten-thousand-copy albums per year. And where does this leave the working musician?

Well, it leaves him working in a factory. Or at a Gap store. Or at a McDonald’s.

No, I’m not pinning this unfortunate circumstance on Apple. But it bothers me that iTunes has not lived up to its potential to the music community. Rather than capturing the deep sense of empowerment during the brief “Napster generation”, iTunes has played it safe, cow-towing to the big boys in order to turn a profit. No, I’m not saying iTunes should’ve been a sharing service.

But I am saying that I think Apple views iTunes strictly as a support mechanism for the iPod and for the iTV. OK, this is an honorable strategy, but it’s a strategy that leaves the market as inaccessible to fresh blood as it’s always been. Just imagine the potential of an iTunes that actually embraces the desires of the community it serves: empower content creation and distribution with the 2.0 philiosophy in mind. Rating songs? Rating artists on a 5-star scale? Come on, Amazon’s been doing that stuff since before the iMac came out. I’m talking about placing an unprecedented distribution mechanism within reach of the art production community. Give the GarageBand kid with the techno remix of Beethoven’s sixth symphony a chance to show off a bit, like what MacJams is doing, but better. Copyright worries? No problem. The user indemnifies Apple. RSS feeds for your favorite amateur producer’s latest creations. You’d have a hundred LonelyGirl15-type stars born overnight.Â How about that high school kid wondering why he should bother with his violin that his parents have been nagging him to play? Now he’d get a global community to share it with on a higher-profile basis.
Warner Bros. would say that the industry would collapse. I say it would explode.

Instead, we’ve got Wal-Mart threatening to pull distribution from content producers who do business with Apple. We’ve got iTunes dominated by marketing hype for the same ilk of artistsÂ which have been controlled directly by the same power-brokers that boxed out independents for a century,Â the RIAA and the confederation of songwriter syndicates such as AMI that keep their lights on by selling “associate memberships” to artists who are ensured an utter lack of the opportunity for distribution. These syndicates dangle royalty opportunities like a carrot for the vast, vast majority of independent artists to chase idealistically and uselessly.

It’s time for a change. And iTunes is the best place to make it happen.

Mac Skype to add video; Softalk to add H.264

Ted Wallingford — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 20:15:45 +0000

Some video news of note. First, all us Mac geeks can breathe easier knowing that it only took Skype the better half of the year to get video-conferencing added to the Mac version.

Also, it seems that Packet8 has jumped aboard the H.264 video bandwagon, adopting the codec for its new edition of its Softalk soft phone.Â I’m beginning to think that Eyebeam is a good investment target.Â Let’s hope all of their licensees can keep up with accounts payable.

Flight 93

Ted Wallingford — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:01:22 +0000

I just saw the movie Flight 93 and I it was the most devestating thing I think I’ve ever watched in a film. I just can’t imagine what the people onboard that flight went through in reality and I hope so much that the man that orchestrated it is found and dealt with, soon.Â God Bless the victims and their familes.