? iPhone 2.2 Update Brings Street View, OTA Podcast Downloads (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

New IPhone 2.2: The iPhone OS 2.2 Rumor Round Up

OK, so we all knew that the iPhone 2.2 update was bringing Google Maps Street View and walking directions (about time, too). But Gizmodo says it will also include over-the-air podcast downloads. First I’ve heard of this, but a welcome feature that people like me and Dave Winer have been clamoring for from the beginning.

And it suddenly makes a lot more sense why Apple rejected the “Podcaster” app (which downloads over the air, too) for “duplicating iTunes functionality”. At the time, we scratched our heads, because the iPhone had no such capability.

Posted in: google , iphone , linky , maps , os , podcasting , podcasts , software , streetview , update

BitStories 2008-06-27: Intel and Vista, Firefox 3, Snow Leopard, SSDs, FriendFeed, and More (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Here’s this week’s show! Have a listen, and check out the download/subscribe links and detailed show notes below.

Click to play

This week’s show is about 47 minutes long and weighs about 42MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player above, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe!

Here are some free-form notes and links for the stuff we talked about this week:

• Intel’s JF1 Workplace of the future. It isn’t soundproof.
  Josh is not leaving Yahoo.

• Intel’s Not Deploying Vista (NYTimes).
• It’s more complex and subtle than “Vista Sucks”. Really.
• Vista’s not really that bad - we’ve both used it. Stability, tablet features, etc. are much better than XP.
• Why is Josh not using Vista today? Because he switched to Mac. It’s not that he doesn’t like Vista, it’s that he doesn’t like Windows.
• Conspiracy Theory #1: Intel is creating a Linux distro for employees. All the big companies are doing it!
• Conspiracy Theory #2: Does Intel’s processor technology come from aliens? Did they tell us NOT to use Vista?
• Firefox 3 was released! It set the Guinness record for software downloads in a day - 8+ million. Their servers were smoking craters for a while. Speed, stability, new UI, and memory footprint are much improved?
• Is Firefox 3 threaded for multicore processors? We don’t know. Tell us!
• The use of the term “you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting…” Swinging a dead cat is not endorsed by Bit Stories. Besdies, Josh is allergic to cats, except Serious Cat.
• Snow Leopard news - GrandCentral, OpenCL, LLVM, and smaller app footprints.
• Is Snow Leopard still going to have Rosetta emulation for PowerPC binaries?
• Hard drives are only getting bigger and cheaper (can you even BUY a Mac with a drive smaller than 250GB?). So why reduce footprint? SSD (solid state disks).
• Pay more for Windows on a netbook, or keep the price the same and make the SSD bigger?
• SSDs are The Future, but they’re still WAY expensive (it’s a $999 option on the MacBook Air).
• How few moving parts there really are in a laptop (HD and fan)
• Where do you draw the line for legacy hardware support? Apple pushes the envelope because they control the whole stack. Microsoft has it a LOT harder, because they have to support such a wide variety of hardware.
• Are Mac users more forgiving when Apple drops legacy support (smacks us around) than when Microsoft does it?
• Josh cops to being an Apple fanboy
• It’s a miracle that Windows even works at all, given how many different hardware drivers (of varying quality) that it needs to support.
• Intel motherboards have finally dropped support for PS/2 ports. Josh is surprised in two directions - that they finally dropped them, and that they’re still around.
• Incompatibility doesn’t happen as much on Apple, because they control the whole stack. But control comes at the expense of competition.
• It’s amazing that Apple has let Psystar live for so long.
• Twitter and Friendfeed
• Twitter has problems.
• The term “Plurk-up” is just GROSS.
• Josh explains how FriendFeed sucks up and aggregates what your friends share, and let you have conversations around any of those things.
• Josh had been resisting FriendFeed, but two things pulled him in - the conversations that were happening, that he was missing out on, and social gravity. Josh goes where his friends, his network, are. Enough of them are on FriendFeed now to make it worth it.
• The joy you feel when you discover a new, efficient way to connect with people and read (RSS, Twitter, now FriendFeed)
• FFToGo.com - nice mobile version
  FriendFeed is the source of all joy in the universe?

• The addiction factor - isn’t FriendFeed just one more time sink?
• It’s a balancing act - you have to be judicious on what you follow - feeds, Twitter, or FriendFeed. But the social aspect (things bubble up) of FriendFeed make it more efficient/potent, so you don’t have to search and dig for the interesting/important stuff.
• The other obstacle - the “real time factor”. Interruptions - tweets pop up, distract.
• Josh and Brian both have major FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.
• You have to train yourself to ignore, and to be compelled to read every. single. thing.
• Use tools like Summize to track your name, topics, so you don’t miss the REALLY important stuff, and then be OK with the fact that most of the rest of it is a river. Stand in the middle, let it flow by, grab what’s interesting when you have time/attention.
• FriendFeed helps with FOMO, because the interesting stuff bubbles up
• Brian and Josh argue about which of us is more ADD.
• Unread Item Syndrome - all these made up dysfunctions that we have…
• Use a client like Twhirl or Twitterrific.
• Be the boss of the tools, not the other way around
• Training for “social media tools for software engineers” that Josh is working on, Brian to be a Guinea Pig
• We can geek out over anything - never had a problem filling time.

Are you thrilled that the show is back? Mad that we changed something? Think we suck for being gone so long? Just want to say hi? Post a comment, and let us know! Seriously. We crave the validation that your feedback brings. You have no idea how fragile our self esteem really is…

Posted in: bit stories , podcasts

Video: Hacking Intel and Web Services, presented in Second Life (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Click To Play

This video is about 40 minutes long, and weighs about 56MB. Quicktime format, 640×480. You can click to watch it, or right-click, save as this link to download it directly.

Intel Software Network web coding guru Kevin Pirkl goes by the name ZombieBob Zenovka in Second Life, and he recently gave a seminar/how-to on some web programming techniques - AJAX, JSON, etc. He also showed off the free sample web services that Intel makes available for you to include and use in your own site, like Comments, Voting, Email a Friend, and a Video Bar. Here’s a sample page with the code - view source to check it out.

I bet you didn’t know Intel offered those - pretty cool, huh?

There is audio from Kevin, and the people in the session participated via in world chat. Kevin shares lots of code samples and useful links, so this isn’t just a guy talking. Lots of web code goodies.

We think this was the best Second Life event that we’ve done so far, and we look forward to doing lots more like it. Check out the video, go play with the code and web services that Kevin covers, and let us know what you think!

Posted in: podcasts , video

Video: Intel Software Network launch in Second Life - Elliot Garbus (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

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Here’s some quick video and audio of Elliot Garbus of Intel’s Developer Relations Division (my boss’s boss’s boss doing a “keynote” at the beginning of our Intel Software Nework launch day in Second Life. The video is about 13 minutes long, weighs 22MB, and can be downloaded directly at this link (right-click, save as).

Come check out our DevZone - search for Intel Software Network in Second Life. We’re all about developers, not marketing, and we know we’re not going to get this perfect on our first try, so come by, tell us what you like, what you don’t, and if you want to, help us make it better!

I’m Gadget Mandelbrot in world (the guy with blue skin and orange hair and shoes ;-). Feel free to IM or Friend me, and let me know if you have any questions! I’ll send you a landmark if you get lost (we’re kind of hard to find, we’re working on fixing that). Thanks!

Posted in: podcasts , video

Intel Quad Core Chopper (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

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Posted in: podcasts , video

I just posted an awesome HD video on Silverlight over at Intel Software Network (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Last week when I was at MIX07, I got to sit down and do a Channel 9-style video interview with Tim Sneath, technical evangelist for Silverlight at Microsoft. The video turned out really well, and I just posted it up over at the Intel Software Network blog:

If you’re at all interested in what Silverlight is (Tim gives a great explanation!), what you can do with it, whether it will ever be released for Linux, how it performs, what you need to use it (hint: a text editor), and lots more, you’ll enjoy the video.

It’s about 40 minutes long, but I posted an index of the topics we talk about and their timecodes, so you can jump around. And I was super impressed at how great the video looks and how small the Quicktime file turned out. The video was shot in 1080i HD originally, and encoded at 640×360 using iMovie. The resulting file is only 93MB (I was expecting hundreds)! I credit the tripod for this - there’s not a lot of motion from frame to frame, so the H.264 compression really shines.

Anyway, please do go check it out, tell your friends, and let me know what you think!

Posted in: blog , podcasts , video

Video: Intel Menlow UMPC prototype, hot off the camera from IDF Beijing (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

Some of my Intel blogger friends are attending IDF Beijing this week, and this morning, one of them sent me a heads up for this video they had just shot, showing a brand new second generation Ultra Mobile PC prototype, codenamed Menlow. This is the follow-up to the MID Linux based devices they have been showing, and is supposed to be out in 2008.

The device that gets demoed has a Silverthorne processor (based on the 45nm Penryn chip), which runs at 0.6 or 2 watts of power consumption. At 2 watts, it delivers the performance of a Pentium M (not bad at all). It’s smaller than current gen UMPCs, and I love the slide-out keyboard. Has a touchscreen. Expected battery life is 4 to 6 hours.

I really, really want one of these, and you can bet that I’m going to be hounding the folks in the Ultra Mobile group to see when/if I can get my hands on one. For now, just check out this video demo, and drool along with me.

(Update: Here’s the original post from Mark Parker, the guy with the hands on experience with Menlow, on the Intel Technology blog).

Posted in: podcasts , video

Video: Spitty Gabe (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

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Posted in: podcasts

This is what a UMPC will be able to do for you. I want! (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

Check out this video (by Intel) about the potential future of how an ultramobile device, like a UMPC, could work for you in your life. Sure, this is all “vision”, and future stuff, but it’s what we’re working towards, what we’re trying to make happen. At IDF Beijing next week, Intel is going to take the wraps off of the 2nd gen Ultra Mobile PCs. I haven’t seen or heard any details about it other than what’s been publicly available (I need to cultivate better friends in the Ultra Mobile group!). But it’s a step towards the kind of thing that you see in the video.

Check it out. Some parts of it are kind of hokey, and some can be done today, but I love to think about what cool new stuff I’ll be able to do with new gadgets. Sure, I love gadgets just for themselves - who doesn’t love a new toy? But there’s real, life-changing benefit to them, too.

What do you wish technology could do for you in the coming year?

Posted in: podcasts , video

Video: A World Without Software (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

A little birdie sent me this YouTube link to a video that shows what the world would be like without software. Made me smile.

Posted in: podcasts , video

Twitter 2007-2007: The Exodus (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Twitter may be dying, but not for the reason you might think. It's not a matter of it not being monetized, or the servers crashing under popularity, or people losing interest. The reason is its name.

Last night, Leo Laporte, Chief TWiT, announced he was leaving Twitter to avoid confusion between it and the TWiT (This Week In Tech) network, especially in light of mashups like Twit Box, Twit This, etc. The now deleted Tweet said: "I've asked Ev to delete my Twitter account. I'm concerned about confusion with TWiT. I'm moving to Jaiku: account is ChiefTWiT. CU there!"

Robert Scoble thinks Leo is setting up for a trademark suit, since Leo does own the TWiT trademark. He's not doing it to be evil, but to simply protect his trademark. Trademark law states that if you don't protect a trademark, it enters the public domain.

Leo moved to Jaiku and I noticed right away it was down, no doubt due to Leo's switch. Leo is the most popular Twitter user according to Twitterholic, and his move also prompted Scoble (#3) and Paul Terry Walhus (#10) to jump onto Jaiku. That's three of the top 10 Twitter users that have moved to a competing service. And it's not just in the short head: there's been a lot of buzz on Jaiku, as a Twittersearch reported 210 tweets in the past 9 hours mentioned the competing service.

I don't see Twitter disappearing tomorrow, but Evan Williams (founder of Obvious, the company behind Twitter) needs to change the name of the service yesterday if he wants to keep Twitter's 1999-like growth going. The sooner Twitter becomes something else, the less time people have to rally behind Leo on Jaiku. For the sake of TWiT/Twitter fans, this needs to get resolved right away.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, TWiT, Jaiku, This Week In Tech, Leo Laporte, Twitterholic, trademark

Posted in: law , podcasts , social networks , trademarks , twit , twitter

Video: Intel Laptop Gaming TDK at GDC2007 (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

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Posted in: podcasts , video

Video: Why Intel 915 graphics don’t have a WDDM driver for Vista (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

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Posted in: podcasts , video

Video: DeepFish Mobile Web Browser (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

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Posted in: podcasts , video

What web apps / sites work in China and podcasts (Put together quickly (Haligan)) by michaelb

With Carol’s extended trip too China fast approaching I’m trying to find out which web apps, sites tools work and which don’t. Things like which email providers (Yahoo, Gmail) or IM services(Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google) work, does the video chat in iChat work, and can anyone comment if they can connect and post to a WordPress blog hosted at Textdrive from China. So if you’ve traveled or live in China I would love to hear about your experiences with the above.

I’m also looking for recommendations for a small tool to record podcasts form anywhere, while I’m driving to work, sitting at home or what ever. We’re both going to try to record a few podcasts to share parts of our days with each other in between my trips to visit Carol. And any recommendation on the bets tool for a Mac to record and create one would be welcomed too.

Posted in: china , podcasts , web services

What web apps / sites work in China and podcasts (Put together quickly (Haligan)) by michaelb

Posted in: china , podcasts , web services

What web apps / sites work in China and podcasts (Put together quickly (Haligan)) by michaelb

With Carol’s extended trip too China fast approaching I’m trying to find out which web apps, sites tools work and which don’t. Things like which email providers (Yahoo, Gmail) or IM services(Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google) work, does the video chat in iChat work, and can anyone comment if they can connect and post to a WordPress blog hosted at Textdrive from China. So if you’ve traveled or live in China I would love to hear about your experiences with the above.

I’m also looking for recommendations for a small tool to record podcasts form anywhere, while I’m driving to work, sitting at home or what ever. We’re both going to try to record a few podcasts to share parts of our days with each other in between my trips to visit Carol. And any recommendation on the bets tool for a Mac to record and create one would be welcomed too.

Posted in: china , podcasts , web services

Video: Unboxing the Asus R2H Ultra Mobile PC (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

Having been lovingly introduced to the world of the Ultra Mobile PCs (hereafter UMPCs) by getting to play with a Samsung Q1 for a week, courtesy of the guys at Intel Software Network, I was hooked, and had to make arrangements to get a UMPC for myself. I do IT support for my brother’s moving company, Wright-Way Moving & Storage, in Seattle (give them a call if you need a professional mover!), and he’s interested in trying UMPCs out for his sales staff. So we ordered a couple to try out.

I chose the Asus R2H over the Samsung Q1 and others, because is has more RAM, a bigger hard drive, an SD slot, a camera, and GPS, for the same price.

Here is the Unboxing Ceremony video of the R2H - from very beginning, to getting everything plugged in and up and running. I cover all of the in-box accessories (which vary from country to country), and try to get as in-detail as possible. Lots of closeups, and some personality thrown in courtesy of my 3 year old daughter Emma, and my lovely wife Rachel manning the camera for the first half. I did my homework on this device, and felt like I knew it inside and out before I even cracked the box. You can probably see how excited I was in the video.

I ordered the two UMPCs from ProPortable, and their service was excellent. Not only were they practically the only ones to have these relatively new devices in stock, Sean in sales was very responsive to my emails, and the founder, Justin, is active in various Tablet PC and laptop forum communities. And you’ll see how well they packed the UMPCs for shipping in the video. I highly recommend them for your UMPC and laptop needs. If you do order anything from them, tell them that Josh Bancroft from TinyScreenfuls.com sent you. I have a feeling I’ll be doing business with them again.

The video is about 34 minutes long, and weighs in at about 200 MB. You can download it using the “download” link, or get this and other audio and video podcasts delivered to you automatically by subscribing to the TinyScreenfuls feed in your favorite podcast aggregator, like iTunes. Brian Enigma informed me that my last couple of videos weren’t compatible with the iPod, so I made sure to use the “iPod” encoding option when exporting this one from iMovie. Of course, it’s still very viewable on a computer. Let me know if you have any problems.

Enjoy, and let me know if there’s something you want to know about the R2H! You can bet that I’ll be doing a more in-depth review, and sharing my impressions after living with the device for a while. Expect more podcasts and videos, too!

Posted in: podcasts , video

CalacanisCast Reaches Beta 2 (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Jason Calacanis has put out a second beta (read: second episode) of his podcast, CalacanisCast. I'll admit I haven't subscribed to it yet because I'm trying to get my unplayed podcast count down to 0 in iTunes (only 4 to go!) before I add it, but I've been a fan of his blog for a while so I'm sure the podcast will be great as well. Can't wait to hear it as the reviews of the first beta episode have been generally positive.

Technorati Tags: Jason Calacanis, AOL, Weblogs Inc, Netscape, Podcast, CalacanisCast

Posted in: aol , podcasts

TinyPodcast: A week with a Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile PC (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

I wrote a teaser post a few days ago in ink, about a new device that I got to play with for a week. To top off that week in grand style, Brian and I got together to record a podcast, old-school style. Just two geeks in a conference room with a mic, some gadgets, and a whole lot to talk about. The show is about an hour long, and 27MB. You can play it directly from the player on this post, or use the download link. Or even better, subscribe to the TinyScreenfuls feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes) to get it automatically.

Aaron from Intel Software Network was nice enough to arrange to get me a Samsung Q1 UMPC to use for a week (it’s actually the same unit you see in my video with Aaron). “But you have to blog about it!” he said. I didn’t blog about it while I had it, because I was saving up to talk about all of my impressions on the podcast with Brian (Aaron was invited, but couldn’t make it). Aaron, I hope this podcast makes up for it.

What’s a UMPC? For those who don’t know, it’s basically a very small Tablet PC. It runs full blown Windows XP Tablet Edition, and can be hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and used just like a regular PC. But the Ultra Mobile part is what’s so cool about it. About the size of a paperback book, with a 7 inch touch screen, you can take it anywhere. Imagine what new uses you could find for such a powerful, small device in your life. I know I have…

So, here you have a full hour of pure, geeky TinyPodcast goodness. Brian and I talk about the Q1 and UMPCs in general. Brian bought himself a Q1 UMPC a few months ago, and has been living with it daily since then. He loves it, and has been blogging about it over on his blog, Geekblog.org. In the podcast, we go over what we each like and don’t like about the hardware, design, software, and general usage of the UMPC.

What’s the verdict? Well, all I can say is the best way to sell these puppies is to let people use one for a while. I fell in love pretty quickly, but no one who reads this blog will be surprised by that. I had to give it back this morning, and that was HARD. Even worse, I now have a terrible case of “gadget lust” - you know, the irrational yearning for a new toy that leads to you being willing to rack up the credit card debt just to get your hands on the object of your desire. My wife is NOT amused.

For me, though, it’s not the Samsung Q1 that I want. Brian tipped me off to the Asus R2H, which is the same form factor and price as the Q1 ($1000), but has more RAM (768 MB vs 512 MB), a bigger hard drive (60GB vs 40GB), an SD slot (instead of CF - more useful to me), integrated GPS (turns it into a full navigation system), and a 1.3 megapixel camera. NewEgg has them for $998, and I’m telling you, it’s SO hard not to reach for the credit card! I have to sell some old gadgets or something to come up with a way to finance this, because I REALLY want one of these! If anyone wants to sponsor TinyScreenfuls for a while by getting me one of these, let’s talk!

Hope you enjoy the podcast - as always, let us know if you have any questions or comments. You know how to reach us. And before you ask, yes, Brian and I are going to start doing the podcast regularly again. So stay subscribed!

Posted in: podcasts

Video: Going Deep on Multi-Core with Intel’s Charles Congdon (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

Charles Congdon is a software architect at Intel, and in this 1 hour 22 minute (186 MB) video, he gives the best, most in-depth explanation I’ve ever heard about what the coming age of multi-core in general, and in particular, what it means to you as a developer.

The time when your app got a free performance boost when a faster processor came along is going away. Now, with the advent of two, four, and many-core systems, there are some pretty fundamental changes that have to happen in your applications in order for them to keep up. Parallelism, mutli-threading, being threadsafe, and more. It could be that one of your competitors “gets” multicore more than you do, and therefore his apps perform better on multicore systems. Or, worst case scenario, your app could be just plain broken on multicore.

But fear not! There’s hope and help out there for you. Intel Software Network has a vested interest in helping you make your code ready for the multicore era. There are lots of tools, resources, and people available to help you. And watching this video is a great place to start. Charles gives a very easy to understand explanation of everything from the basics on up to debugging tips, etc. I’m not a real developer, but even I could follow his explanations.

So grab this video file, set aside an hour and twenty minutes or so (or break it up into smaller sessions - there are logical stopping points in the video), and go deep with Charles, to get up to date on developing in a multicore world.

Posted in: podcasts , video

Video: Intel Software Network’s Aaron Tersteeg (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by jabancroft@gmail.com

Update: Some people reported that this video wasn’t compatible with their iPod. Sure enough, I don’t know what the exact problem was, but it wasn’t working on mine, either. I re-encoded the video out of iMovieHD, this time picking “iPod” as the target format. That should fix the problem - if you were experiencing that issue, you can re-download the video file. Sorry!

This is a video interview I shot with Intel Software Network’s Aaron Tersteeg. Aaron is a great guy, and a true geek. He’s the Mobile Community Manager for Intel Software Network - basically, he works on building the community of developers that use the tools that Intel makes available for developing mobile-friendly applications (like the Laptop Gaming TDK, etc.) He also gets to play with some cool toys, and was even kind enough to hook me up with one to use for a week (I’ll be doing a podcast later this week to talk about what it is, and my week using it). Aaron was also one of the first public bloggers on Intel.com - check out his blog on Intel Software Network.
The video was shot in his cube, and is about 13 minutes long (64 MB). It’s 320×240, Quicktime, so it’s iPod friendly. You can download it, watch it in your browser, or subscribe to the TinyScreenfuls feed in your favorite podcast aggregator, like iTunes, etc.

I hope to have lots more videos like this to share in the future, and I’m shamelessly following the Channel 9 style and philosophy, so if there’s something you want to see, just let me know!

Posted in: blog , podcasts , video

ScobleShow Review (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

I'm just about done watching every episode of Robert Scoble's ScobleShow put out so far. As someone who hasn't touched his DSLR in a very long time, my favorite (and most inspiring) episodes are the Photowalking with Thomas Hawk series of videos.

The best part of his show is that it works. I've subscribed to Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection and checked out Zoomr (though I'm still partial to Flickr). And while I haven't checked out all of the companies he's featured, I have checked out a few of them (Become.com [video] and Cuts [video]). And while I probably would have checked those sites out if Robert would have linked to them on his blog instead, they are a lot more memorable if I can put a face to the site I might just look at a handful of times. In other words, the stickiness factor of video is much higher than that of text.

My concerns about video podcasts apply to the medium in general, not just Robert's show, but I think it's worthwhile to mention them here:

One of my big concerns with video podcasts, and particularly ones so full of content, is the inability to comment effectively. While I can easily quote a section of one of Robert's blog posts, it's currently impossible to similarly comment on a particular snippet of video without making people download the entire show and manually search for the part I'm commenting on. Perhaps Cuts (a video-editing app featured on the ScobleShow) could help with this.

Another factor affecting the amount I comment is that the iTunes -> web browser link isn't quite there. I know that Ze Frank and Rocketboom have active communities, for example, but they're non-existent to me because of the effort it takes (yes, I'm lazy) to go from a given video in iTunes to that video's comments. Contrast this to the simplicity of the NetNewsWire -> web browser link, where I can just push the right arrow and have the post load up for me in the background.

Finally, I feel that Robert's videos are a bit too long. The product demo episodes have been short enough and require video so I'll watch those straight through. The interview episodes tend to be a lot longer and keep my attention for less time. My main concern with those is that they often don't convey any visual information - I can keep them playing behind a bunch of windows and not miss anything by just listening to the audio.

All that said, Robert's show does give us some great behind-the-scenes content as well as also providing footage for those of us not in the Bay Area with which to refine our mental images. Unless I fall too far behind (which doesn't look likely given my ever-decreasing count of unlistened podcasts), I don't see myself unsubscribing any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, ScobleShow, video podcast, vidcast, Thomas Hawk, Zoomr, Become.com, Cuts, Ze Frank, Rocketboom, iTunes, video

Posted in: blogs , itunes , podcasts , review , rss , video