Hobgit Web Hosting News

Information overload: are you affected by it? How can you better manage it? Are big companies giving us more and better information? How can you determine which information is worthwhile looking at? How to you decrease the noise created by the huge volume of info coming at you everyday?

Photo credit: Mikkel

Information overload is a two-sided problem:

1. The sender does not communicate her message efficiently
2. The receiver is unable to filter the information and evaluate which is the one she really needs

In this brilliant paper Mikkel explains very clearly what information overload is and how it is silently affecting our life.

It does not matter where you were born, which type of religion you belong to or the color of your skin. Mikkel suggests that individuals are just information-driven, they don’t belong to any sociological category when dealing with communication. They should be treated and communicated to only by being highly aware of what specific information they are are looking for.

Here all the details:

Information Overload

In our everyday life we are bombarded with information: advertisements in the mail box, fast paced TV, interviews never lasting more than three minutes, signs and symbols everywhere we go, internet pages, chat sessions, offers to buy this or to do that, and lots of other stuff.

We are overloaded with information: the more input, the more we shut off and become cynical. But ad-people, designers and producers respond by feeding us MORE information!

The reason is that we / they rest in a 300 year old mindset, established and maintained by newspapers: that as much information as possible should be conveyed in as little space as possible. The Latin word omnibus means “everything for everybody” and that old newspaper doctrine shows as a desire to impress through a diversity of features mixed in a big bowl of confusion.

The intention is to show the most products and information, so that each one has a ”scatter-gun”-ish opportunity to reach a target audience: ”Look how exciting I am, here you won’t be bored”. The focusing on features results in everything being emphasized - and therefore that nothing really is!

I call it featureism.

• Featureism is a statement of what the transmitter wants to sell. It’s not a guide for the recipient to find what she wants.
• Featureism is not information. It’s desperation.
• Featureism is to go against our nature. It is to go against the way humans naturally interprets our surroundings.
• Featureism is bad communication and the result is information overload.

But there is another way…

Focused Information

All communication is basically about saying the right thing to the right one at the right time in the right way. The easiest thing in this equation is the external part, finding the target audience, while the hard thing is to handle the internal part: the transmitter:

• ”me”
• ”myself”
• ”I”
• ”we”
• ”us”

The hard part is to shut up. The result, however, is transmitter focus, instead of recipient focus, the result is lost attention and lost market shares.

I know how hard it is, as a transmitter, to focus on the recipient and how easy it is to think of oneself. Besides philosophizing on media, communication and technology, I also (once in a while) design websites. I know the feeling of wanting to sell websites but ALSO sell my ideas (you’re reading some of them now) - because I love both so much and would hate to prioritize between them.

My brain knows that it’s best to split the two areas, but my heart would rather not let go - and the result is that I send mixed signals of who I am and what I do. My customers also know how hard it is to limit oneself - when I create their sites, the hard part isn’t to convince them to try a radical design-idea of mine, but rather to convince them to limit themselves in terms of content. They respond in a slightly desperate tone: ”…but Mikkel, I also do this and that - those things must be included!”

But the customer is NOT always right - and the brochures and websites of even big and famous companies cannot be used as an ideal of well designed communication - to the contrary! The bigger the company is, the worse it’s communication usually is - simply because it isn’t capable of administering and conveying all the information.

Information Tunnels

Focused information often use what I call information tunnels. Communication is focused when it’s precisely adjusted to a certain group of recipients. When a transmitter adjusts a certain message to several groups of recipients, and allow the individual recipient to choose which group she belongs to, the transmitter has created an information tunnel.

Using information tunnels effectively, means that one can divide all recipients in groups - but these doesn’t have to be socio- or demographically based. I believe that dividing people by age or income, or voting pattern, is less important. It’s why they interact with you, their intention, that counts!

To illustrate: all recipients of this very article can be divided into three categories:

1. Those that has found it by curiosity - they are interested in an easy-understandable and entertaining communication.
2. Those that were looking for information on marketing - they want a practical guideline in using the theories.
3. And those recipients that are media- and communication theorists - they desire a scientifically valid communication.

In this case, the recipient’s age or daily-life is of no or little importance, only their intention for reading this: whether they are belonging to 1, 2 or 3.

My claim is that whatever we do, we are not sociologically founded, we are intentionally founded. Key to reaching a recipient is not knowing her age, but what she wants to do. As you see, this article is not an example of information tunnels or focused information (rather it is one of featureism) but this article would have been so, if I had made three of them, each catering to the desires of each of the recipient groups.

For instance, take this example of how to effectively create an information tunnel: On the front page of “www.tag-eksperten.dk” there’s a large picture of a craftsman on a roof, and the explicit text:

”we lay new tile roofs for home owners on Sealand) - specific offer, thorough consultation, a new roof in a league of it’s own, delivered in only four weeks”.

In this way the company’s business, mission, geographic reach and terms of trade are all precisely defined in words and pictures.

At the bottom there are three boxes which might seem like features, but in reality are information tunnels:

• ”Choose tiles”
• ”Calculate price of a new roof”
• ”8 tips on roof renovating”

Thus exists an entrance for those most interested in the looks of their new roof, one for those worried about the price, and one for those with a do-it-yourself attitude. On the other hand, it must be said that the language is the same throughout the website, so in this way it doesn’t abide the principle of information tunnels.

An accepted idea in business communication is integrated communication:

• That all parts of a company ”speaks the same language”
• That communication is stream-lined

Besides this principle being de facto impossible - maybe even undesirable - to realize, it doesn’t influence focused information: integrated communication deals with the company’s communication with, and in relation to, it’s surroundings: what’s to be said. Focused information deals with how it’s to be said.

Focused information is therefore not to change the message, but to vary the delivery and expression, depending on whom the recipient is.

The Trend In Society

Another way to view information overload, is as trend in society. The problem today isn’t obtaining information - the problem is to organize it.

• The history of media started with the invention of writing, which made it possible to convey knowledge across time and space.

• The printing press, with its efficiency and cheapness, made the written knowledge accessible to many.
• The telegraph contributed with a previously impossible speed, resulting in an even greater availability of information.
• The original internet was merely a new form, a technological reincarnation, of the principle.
• Today’s internet, by some called Web 2.0, gives an even greater amount of information, through easy tools for creating, publishing and sharing - this article is an example.

The history of media is thus a single continuous expansion of access to information, now available in enormous quantities - the key word here is quantity. The new is the opposing movement that is awakening: de-selecting quantity and passive reception, to the advantage of quality and active selection. We see it in avoidance of advertisements, traditional media loses readers/viewers, growing numbers even stop watching TV, internet technologies allows customized information channels, etc.

The key word here is quality. For on the one hand, technology increased the availability, but at the same time it has lowered the ”cost of access / entry” and increased individuality. ”Ordinary people” have regained control, in a form of technological democratization. The individual can avoid information overload and increase the amount of relevance in her life.

The New Way Of Living

In everyday life, this reaction to information overload, is seen in a general return to origins, to a lower pace. It shows in an mild increasing interest in spartan ways of living, nudism, and a general “turning inwards”, among other things towards philosophy, religion and emotional health.

The opposite of information overload - silence, emptiness and thoughtfulness - is trendy already: monasteries experience great interest, pilgrimages have returned. The most successful publications are niche-oriented and deals with a narrow subject, or they are dealing with any kind of emotional issue. A symbol of this movement could be Eckhart Tolle: a secretive author that sells millions of books about spirituality.

In the last 20 years, the most talked about, has been that which didn’t strive for being talked about:

• The café that is only discovered though word of mouth
• A membership only obtained through fulfilling secret criteria
• a musician that appears incognito
• A product in limited editions, etc.

All this is a a different kind of quality.

Another result of information overload, is the way we relate to each other. Because a greater part of our time is used on a computer, and as being single, an increasingly greater part of our role models and friendships are found in, and through, the new media. The common theme of almost all currently successful companies and technologies, is the fact that they connect people:

• Auction houses
• File-sharing
• Services
• Chat services
• Dating- and meeting services
• Mobile- and internet services
• MMO-computer games, and so on.

The success of a product or service depends on how many connections it opens. The two major themes that has to be considered in any project, is thus that which is immaterial, and that which connects. The third major theme which I’ll write about in another IDmag, is that which I call The CoCreating Consumer.

You’ve now reached the end of my introduction to information overload, and a couple of my tools and advice on how to avoid it. The rest merely requires you to use your critical sense, a little imagination and some courage.

Good luck!

Mikkel

Photo credits:
All images by Mikkel

Originally written by Mikkel for Design Af Mikkel and first published as “Information Overload: What It Is And You Can Avoid It” on September 18th 2008

About the author

Mikkel is a market expert and web-designer. He focuses his attention on communication techniques and how information should be provided to be as efficient as possible. On his own site Design Af Mikkel he writes: “My philosophy is about balance, about holism. About reaching each other in the best way, about doing it honestly and about having fun along the way.” Mikkel has written some valuable papers about information design and “Information Overload” is one of them.

I have had the honor of recently having as a house guest Michel Bauwens, the P2P philosophy evangelist, who, while based in remote Thailand, travels around the world to explain and divulge what peer to peer is really all about.

Photo credit: Robin Good

Peer to peer is not just illegal file-sharing of music files. Peer topeer is a whole philosophy, and if you have enough curiosity to listen, a full approach to social living in a cooperative and mutually beneficial fashion.

In this video interview, I have asked Michel Bauwens about his personal use and experience with peer to peer technologies and his advice about adopting such tools and bringing them into your everyday workflow.

At last, I also challenge Michel on the front where P2P has been receiving the harshest criticism: music sharing. What is the future of music and what role will P2P play into it?

Here his video answers along a full text transcription of each one.

Peer To Peer: How P2P Influences the Physical World

There can be different scales:

• Local
• Regional
• And global

Personally I think that the innovation part - the immaterial cooperation part - can work very well on a global scale, but with the realization part (when you move to the physical/material field), the face-to-face relationships are very important.

I think you can combine local production with global cooperation on the material field so everyone works together on making the best solar roof possible, but different teams make it in different places in the world.

Peer To Peer: The P2P Tools That Michel Bauwens Uses

Ok, well we use a combination of a wiki, a blog, and social bookmarking. And actually, if I should say, in addition we use a community platform which is called Ning and we use a few mailing lists still as well. So it is the combination of those five things that for us make our community work.

• The wiki is for reference. You put in in the wikis encyclopedia, articles, things that can have a long shelf life that nobody gets really excited about at the moment when you publish it. But, when you want it, when you want to use it, it’s there.
• The blog is to share opinions and news.
• And the social bookmarking is to share learning.

So what we have is a network of very bright people all interested in peer-to-peer and we have all those like Clay Shirky, Winegold, McKinsey. And other people in that field who know it very well. And we share bookmarks. So I can see what they discover, they can see what I discover. That’s a tremendous source of value and innovation when you can see what those bright people discover.

Ning is a community form, so how can you make the community visible, how can you know who’s Michel Bauwens, who’s Robin Good. All these names that people see. In the community you have your profile, you have your biography, you have your website. And you can launch discussions. So, that’s public discussion where everybody can contribute.

So, I think it’s an ecology. Every tool points to the other tool, re-enforces the other tool. And all of that is also embedded in face-to-face. I mean, I travel I meet people. Once I’ve met them I can ask more things. And some people I meet first face-to-face and then will come online after. Some people are online first and then they become offline friends or associate.

Peer To Peer: What Makes A Tool P2P?

I have a vision of peer-to-peer as a human relationship and not a technological relationship.

So as long as you can have what I call permission-less actions and engagement, then it doesn’t matter whether the tool is purely peer-to-peer or not. Because the internet allows people to publish, distribute and consume on an individual basis and voluntarily aggregate with others.

The tool does not have to be purely peer-to-peer to be effective for human peer-to-peer production and relationships.

Peer To Peer: How Michel Bauwens Got Started With P2P

I guess for me it was very organic. I started with the wiki, and the wiki didn’t give to me a lot of responses. People used it, but they didn’t write to me.

Then when I started the blog, my number of e-mails went up from five a week to twenty-five a day. And I think the reason is the blog is kind of an ecology. Every blog can talk about another blog and people can comment and link to blog items. So certainly you’re part of not something that stands alone, but has its own visitors, but actually it’s part of a continuum.

Then the next step was the social bookmarking. I would say that accelerated learning. You bring the best mice together they learned from each other and you see what they see. Maybe it’s only fifteen per cent of each other that’s interested in but you will get to see that fifteen per cent. And you learn much faster than if you didn’t have access to it.

And then the next step for me was the Ning community. Ning is like Facebook, but it doesn’t have all the distractions that Facebook has. You don’t have the hugging-and-poking, the cities I love, the books I’ve read, and etc.

So Ning is a more pure working environment. And what that did is that certainly people could see each other. So all the people were passing through me asking: “Michel do you know if…” Now, so we can see each others’ profiles and can start asking each other. So, I’m out of the way. I’m no longer bottle-neck of the community. Now I can go on a trip. I was nearly three months on the road actually now and the community just continues to produce knowledge and exchange as if I were there. And that’s great, because that’s the effect you want to have.

Finally, this very low-tech that we launched a peer-to-peer research mailing lists. And we have had two meetings. We had a meeting in Irving and we have a meeting in Nottingham Trent. So what we do now is getting academics together and researchers to really focus on that more very foible objective knowledge that can be acceptable to universities and institutions. And one of our members or sympathizers is in a process of creating association of peer-to-peer researchers.

And there wasn’t anything planned of all those things, just step by step you feel kind of certainly you have a surplus of energy You have… the blog is working, ok what next. And then you start the community and then you feel, ok the community is running. What next. And so I’m kind of a person. My role in the community is to nurture the community.

When the community goes down, if there’s nobody there to give it water it might stay down. But if there’s soul behind it, a moderator, someone who cares then just that little water you give it and up. The mailing list starts again.

So that’s my role. Whenever I feel something is stabilized, I try to see what’s the next step. What I need to do, what we can reinforce, and the strength of the ideas of peer-to-peer at this stage of our growth.

Peer To Peer: File Sharing And The Future of Music (Part 1)

Your question about file-sharing, what I think about it, and the future of music.

I think with music the issue is very typical, we have something that costs money to make, but once it’s made you can share it at no cost. So its pretty logical to think that people will say let’s share it.

So I think file-sharing is inevitable.

However, maybe you will find it contradictory, but I will not do that (i.e. share music). It’s the same thing as people who jump the line in a Metro and don’t pay for the metro ticket. I understand that young people do it. But it’s just not something that I want to do myself.

I think that when a system no longer works, people first of all show transgressive behavior. They are just going to do what the most logical thing is to do. And the effect it has is to destroy the legitimacy of the old regime. When ninety percent of the people are doing file-sharing (I’m not sure of the actual figure, but I know that in Sweden even the grannies do it. And you aren’t going to throw grannies in jail), it shows that the law is no longer appropriate.

But is it something healthy to live in a society where people have to transgress the law? No.

So I think that the next step is constructive. You actually construct alternatives that are within the law. And I think that Creative Commons is an example of that. So people are going from doing whatever they want, whether its legal or not, to creating a new legal system which allows them to do what they want to do. And then you give people the choice. You can still pay but its an option… a choice. And you can also share your musics.

And the third step, which is the most important actually, is when you start engaging with the existing society. In other words when you become conscious of your choices… when you become conscious of what the old world does not want you or allow you to do (i.e. these new life practices), and then you have to start building a political-social movement to defend your life choices.

I don’t think we are there yet, but we are certainly already in the second phase where people are constructing positive legal alternatives that allow people to be free in their choices.

Peer To Peer: File Sharing And The Future of Music (Part 2)

Well I think the future of music is a little bit like the future of all the cultural industries that work through the internet. Instead of having gatekeepers that you have get permission from order to produce music and reach your audience, what you will have is a bottom-up music scene where people will make music in all kinds of ways. And at all kinds of levels, both professional and not professional.

But once you break through to a certain level of interest and popularity, you will still need help. You will need people to help you. People to help you with marketing, with production, with distribution, and help you manage your business. The change is that these people become facilitators, not feudal lords that you have to sign your soul away to in order to make it.

Also I think that we will have much more choice in music, what is called the long tail. But a lot of people like today won’t be able to make a living through music, but they will still have an audience. There will be more amateur kinds of music. People doing music on the sides. So I think that broader participation brings more choice and overall that is a good thing.

Originally shot and recorded by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and first published on September 17th 2008 as “Peer To Peer: Using P2P Technologies For Collaborative Work - A Video Interview Michel Bauwens“.

About Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens (1958) is a Belgian integral philosopher and Peer-to-Peer theorist. He has worked as an internet consultant, information analyst for the United States Information Agency, information manager for British Petroleum (where he created one of the first virtual information centers), and is former editor-in-chief of the first European digital convergence magazine, the Dutch language Wave. With Frank Theys, he is the co-creator of a 3 hour documentary TechnoCalyps, an examination of the ‘metaphysics of technology’. He taught and edited two French language anthologies on the Anthropology of Digital Society.

Although a student of Ken Wilber’s integral theory for many years, he has recently become critical of aspects of the Wilber-Beck movement, and is a powerful voice for a non-authoritarian peer-to-peer based integral society.

Michel is the author of a number of on-line essays, including a seminal thesis Peer to Peer and Human Evolution, and is editor of P2P News

He now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he created the Foundation for P2P Alternatives and maintains a blog.

He has taught courses on the anthropology of digital society to postgraduate students at ICHEC/St. Louis in Brussels, Belgium and related courses at Payap University and Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

A new class of powerful, inclusive, popular and engaging events liberated from the straitjacket of space-time by the convergence of usable new media technologies is ushering at your door: X-events are next.

Photo credit: XLucas

But let me explain myself better: Online (and offline) events should not be confined anymore by physical the space-time boundaries of when and where the event actually occurs.

The convergence of new media communication and collaboration technologies like RSS, wikis, blogs, podcasts, discussion forums, as well as social media outlets with more traditional information delivery channels like newsletters or mailing lists offers an opportunity for extremely rich, engaged and dynamic communities to be built around the core track topics and themes of any conference or event.

The best way to explain X-events is to start simple.

Consider for example a physical conference for which a community site is built beforehand and in which participants, lecturers and sponsors start interacting and actively engaging with each other way before the physical event starts.

Think also of an event that while takes place in physical space it is also re-broadcast and made accessible in multiple ways, providing access and different levels of interaction to those attending live as well as to those at a distance.

Imagine the breadth and richness of content options that can be skillfully created out of the many interactions the virtual event communities have been able to generate.

Or the many possible compilations, playlists, and collections of user filtered and edited multimedia content that could be created after the event was over.

It is in the ability to merge and synergize the tremendous potential of new media communication, collaboration and community creation technologies with the attraction and interest generated by a live event guests and key issues that revolutionary communication and marketing potential of X-events really lies.

Here more details:

X-Events Overview

Live events are a great opportunity to market, showcase, demo, present and introduce new ideas, as well as products. But, if you have ever been behind one, you will have realized how complex is the organization of the logistics, and how swift, skilled and prompt the team running the show must be.

Given all this investment in organization, and stuff, how significant would be the additional cost of extending the event fully into virtual space by leveraging, in a synergistic, organic and well planned out fashion all of the most relevant new media technologies to enable a community and an extended conversation to form online around the event.

Consider the infinite number of revenue options that can be born out of commoditizing the conference and creating a hot passionate and lively community that generates all kinds of relevant content around any given theme.

Imagine how fantastic it would be if you could engage your favorite speakers before the actual conference and with your questions and contributions shape the topic and discussions for the live event.

I have played with this idea for the first time back in January 2005, when I wrote this article, “Events Break Out Of The Physical Space-Time Prison. Time-Extended Conversations Are Coming: X-Events“.

Some years have passed but my feelings have not changed.

Actually, I am much more convinced now than I was then of the tremendous benefits and advantages that extended-events could bring to all parties involved.

What are X-Events?

X-events or “extended events” are a yet-to-be-realized form of conference that extends well beyond the physical event boundaries, into time (before, during and after th event) and through multiple media formats.

X-Events are events which are planned and carried out in a continuous experience that merges offline physical events and online conversations.

In other words: x-events are typical conferences, social events or physical gatherings of some kind that extend their lifetime, reach and value by extending their active engagement potential with their participants by intelligently integrating community tools, content delivery and distribution channels, social media marketing, live and asynchronous collaboration tools much before, during and long after the actual event has taken place.

Say you have an international event focusing on “web publishing” taking place a few months from now. Say you have a large international audience of interested participants that will come to the event and a good selected group of speakers who will showcase their know-how at the event.

How could you transform your traditional 2-day conference in an “extended-event” that provides greater engagement and value to participants and presenters as well as providing you with broader and longer visibility, extra opportunities for sponsorship and sales as well as greater opportunities for quality business networking among all stakeholders?

How can a physical conference take best advantage of all the new media communication, collaboration and social media tools to extend its lifespan and engagement reach well beyond the physical event itself while generating an engaged and passionate community around itself?

Here some starting ideas to consider :

1) Before the Event

• Open a blog and a RSS feed for the event and start providing, value-rich information about the event in a periodic, consistent and systematic way.
• Create a story around the preparation for the event and around the people involved in this. Find a key character to narrate the story and keep audience on top the latest happenings.
• Open a forum or a Ning-style interactive community where discussion and relevant issues for the event can take off right now.
• Complement forum topics with a distribute video commenting platform like Seesmic which can allow a forum like experience which is not text-based but video based. Video commenting can be very good for engaging in lively, passionate discussions as well as in brainstorming sessions or analysis/focus groups.
• Inject some social media components allowing the community to contaminate and cross-fertilize itself. Let people discover each other profiles and interests, provide feedback on the most followed discussion items and provide ways for users to contribute relevant pointers and links.
• Integrate a presentation publishing platform like Slideshare for all participants to use, and promote relevant and related presentations to the topics of the event.
• Create a set of manually edited newsradars (topic specific hand-edited news channels gathering best news and stories from all sources out there), generated by moderators or community members and focusing on the very specific themes of the conference itself.
• Market the event by using a mailing list and by developing a meaningful story that builds up momentum up to the X-event launch.

2) During the Event

• Enable a live reporting platform for any qualified participant or media representative who wants to use to report about specific sessions. Tools like CoverItLive provide all of the features an in-session reporter may ever need. Consider opening up a limited number of seats for voluntary official reporters for each session and monetize the sponsorship opportunity they create.
• Support and make it easy for all participants to access live audio and video streaming tools to enable as wide and comprehensive real-time capture of all of the event happenings from as many different viewpoints as possible. From the live sessions to the informal networking in the allies.
• Let participants engage among themselves and with presenters and among themselves during live sessions by creating dedicated Twitter channels and groups for real-time discussion and feedback.
• Utilize also more traditional and well established real-time communication tools like like text chat and IRC channels. These technologies can still go a long way in providing effective real-time conversation back channels for each live presentation in the event.
• Offer the opportunity to premium (paying) participants and/or to the press to sit down and video interview, alongside other prominent news reporters and bloggers the key personalities presenting at the conference.
• Leverage Friendfeed social aggregation capabilities to provide a parallel information distribution channel for key event related personalities and events.
• Create thematic newsradars (topic specific news channels) on the specific topics the conference covers. Newsradars can provide immediate value to an extended event by providing a comprehensive digest of the most relevant news and issues on any topic.
• Provide conferencing spaces for live events to have a parallel venues available to presenters and participants before and after the live session. Also consider modelling live event sessions around the opportunity to be both live and at a distance by engaging and responding appropriately to both audiences. Allow participants to promote and deliver complementary keynotes, panels and sessions in a barcamp-like spirit on a set of virtual stages dedicated to them.
• Hire editors and moderators to create and maintain key wiki guides on every key session / track taking place at the event. Parallel events, other contributions and related sessions, live discussions, related resources and user contributed materials should all be easily reached by maintaining a well organized and always up-to-date set of wiki pages.

3) After the Event

• Keep the conversation going. Maintain open the key most active forums, discussion and conversational areas and aggregate all of the related content into highly focused content channels. Look at it this way: any event, when transformed to an X-event is an opportunity to put in movement a series of mechanisms that can create / generate a number of highly valuable content channels. These shouldn’t be seen as useless and expensive-to-maintain content marketing channels but as ultimate revenue-generating community-driven dynamic communities bonded together by one of the themes / personalities / issues the event has brought forward.
• Develop and design with your most loyal community participants your next year event, starting from the very discussions you have kept open. Let your newly developed communities design your next conference by participating in identifying topics, speakers, events and formats improvements that they want to see happen. What a great way to bond more with an event audience and to crowdsource its insight and desires to improve your offering.
• Showcase all of the event videos and key presentations. Make it easy and simple to access all of this content in a variety of formats: Streaming video, downloadable clip, MP3 audio, text transcription, premium option on DVD with special selected content. Consider utilizing more advanced presentation delivery tools like Instant Vcasmo to allow participants to create synched mashups of live video recordings with the actual slideshow presentations delivered.
• Integrate social conversational components to each content item. Make it easy for people to add comments, tags and to start new discussion threads under each show / presentation. Allow each one performance to become a smaller pivot point for social aggregation, communication and networking.
• Create visual navigable spaces by using tools like Google Maps or Microsoft Photosynth allowing the participants to enhance the discovery of the physical event physical surroundings, hotels, bar, cafes, nearby social venues.
• Facilitate the user-generated creation of image photo-albums about the event. Beyond the typical tag reference, used in these situations, allowing everyone uploading to public image sharing sites to make his pics associated with the event, reward individual participants to create multimedia photo-albums on specific themes and topics by using some of the many great visual story-telling tools like Scrapblog, Smilebox, VMix, OneTrueMedia, Mixercast, Vuvox, Flektor.
• Create user-generated video compilations of the most interesting sessions and topics by making it easy for participants to edit playlists of their video clips. From YouTube playlists to Magnify or Splashcast powerful features, there are a growing number of tools that do just this.

X-Events Key Benefits

If my vision for X-events is correct, these are going to be outstandingly capable marketing, branding and advertising channels, giving extended life to any physical event while hugely increasing its potential audience interaction and profit potential.

Here are some of the immediately apparent benefits that X-events can bring to any company managing, organizing or designing the delivery of live events like typical conferences and seminars:

a) Larger audiences: As participants don’t need to attend on a specific date/time, potential for participation is tremendously increased. Interested parties can access event recordings after the event at their leisure. For physical events this provides a significant extension of the reach and the possibility of scaling the number of participants to at least an order of magnitude.

b) Extension of communication and marketing reach. As a very significantly larger number people can attend, participate, subscribe, listen and attend asynchronously to extended events so does the reach for your message, brand, sponsorship, or product(s). All of the extended channels offer huge opportunities for highly targeted, contextual, non-intrusive marketing opportunities.

c) Greater opportunity for engagement and individual interaction: Participants both in the live event as well as in the extended post-event conversations have more opportunities to engage panelists, experts, speakers and companies/products being mentioned or showcased. Through the use of RSS newsfeeds, wikis, blogs and discussion forums, event tracks can be kept alive for an indefinite time before the event starts and long after the actual event is over. Multiple “vertical-communities” are created offering valuable high profile demographic with specific interests and characteristics.

d) Participatory design and delivery. Yes, grassroots X-event design is here. Who’s going to grab it first? Participants can now become co-creators, contributors, editors, individual re-sellers and publishing houses for any event. If only we allowed them to! Who is to say that events need to designed by a non-transparently elected group of vested-interests representatives? Couldn’t emancipated participants do a better job of it? Sure they could. Who better then them knows what they will want to buy, listen and attend to? Why take the risk of discovering all this at event time?

e) Great ROI, expanded profit, extended sales marketplace. X-events offer great opportunities to hugely increase event profit-margins by extending marketing and sales opportunities, without a need for expensive physical space and hugely expensive event-related logistical costs. The new X-event is grounded on an extended communication framework not on additional costs for physical infrastructures. The X-event enables major cost-savings matched by the potential for much higher quality output when the organizing team is able to fully realize the direct involvement of participants in the design and delivery of the X-event.

f) Greater opportunities for monetization: X-events generate lots of valuable participants attention on specific topics and issues. X-events can also generate huge quantities of valuable content which can be edited, compiled, annotated and packaged for digital delivery in an infinite number of formats. Such content can be monetized in multiple and overlapping ways by, for example:

• Selling web-based conferencing and presentation space to small companies and individuals who want to run parallel extended sessions within the conference framework and official activities
• Providing paid access to private video conferencing rooms a-la OoVoo for media and premium customers wanting to video interview your event key guests
• Providing paid access to high quality (HD) recorded / downloadable sections.
• Selling sponsorship space on all distributed content formats (RSS, wiki, social community, etc.) . This per se encompasses a wide variety of options (see list of channels available to go x after an event, here below).
• Offering paid subscription access to very-narrow content channels including user created topic-specific RSS feeds tapping on all content generated by X-event.
• Creating premium content offerings including case studies, analysis and report data by selecting, aggregating and editing most valuable content extracted from live event.
• Paid access to higher quality, full screen video of live events as well as to individual downloads and video compilations created according to key themes and topics.

Resources Required

X-events are as great an opportunity for engagement, interaction, social and business networking, user-generated content and more as they are challenging and very complex to plan, organize and maintain.

The key issue with X-events is that traditional event organizer are not too familiar with the new conversational marketing philosophy and do not have at their disposal the human resources and skills required to manage such an event.

X-events require many talented individuals with real experience in managing user-generated content, in moderating forums and in motivating communities of interest to engage with the selected issues, and in particular:

1. Having a talented X-event communication strategist. Someone who can aptly envision, plan and coordinate the unfolding of the X-event as an integrated whole.

2. Employing a skilled and experienced editorial team. Creating ongoing discussion topics, news radars, webcasts, interviews and podcasts, blogs, wikis and live chats requires skilled individuals who live and breathe the online world.

3. Selecting tools and technologies that are accessible to everyone. Having communication, presentation and collaboration tools that are both easy-to-use and accessible by all types of Internet users is a critical, essential requirement.

Yes, you read it right. A typical X-event setup is likely going to require a fully dedicated newsroom working to support this many, diverse tasks.

Also for X-events, planning from the very beginning where to go as well as defining well ahead of time they key objectives is, as in most other fields, a safe recipe for probable success.

Editor’s Comments - Conclusion

Traditional events are going to transform themselves into ongoing conversations streams, as popular and successful as the topics and people participating and moderating them, and as credible and authoritative as the depth and value of the conversations they are able to generate.

X-events are a natural, spontaneous evolution of traditional physical events and they are characterized by the effective integration of communication and collaboration media with social community technologies to create an extended and ongoing multiplicity of news as well as lively conversation channels, which can start long before the actual physical event takes place and which can go on indefinitely after it.

X-events offer great benefits in terms of community creation, content generation, engagement and interaction, social and business networking, online visibility, marketing and monetization opportunities, by extending the topics and focus of the physical event into virtual space-time with the use of social, conversational and information-distribution technologies (RSS).

X-events represent the new “engagement marketing” frontier and those who will first master how to design, manage and deliver such rich multimedia experiences will likely be the remembered as the pioneers of a whole new of creating and delivering live events.

Even though most of the tools that would be needed to set-up an effective X-event have been out there for a while now, the true challenge is not only in integrating these into a coherent whole but having individuals who can see this vision and bring it to a plan that is certainly more challenging and complex than bringing together the typical tech conference. But so would be the success and rewards, I believe.

What it takes to make x-events happen, is greater appreciation of such an approach by those who organize and finance events. X-events require organizers to first understand what it takes to start and maintain multiple conversation channels open and alive. They must appreciate the value of creating topic-focused communities that are highly engaged. These are not easy tasks but this is what I set out here for myself to do.

Whether X-events will become more of a reality in 2009 it is hard to say, but given the visibility, engagement and opportunities for monetization that this new extended conferences can bring, it should not be long before we start seeing one we are interested in.

In my next article about X-Events I will look at all of the technologies needed to enable an effective extended event.

Photo credit: Originally re-written, edited, updated and mashed up from previous writings by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on September 16th 2008 as “Live Events Strategy: Mashing Up Physical Conferences With Online Extended Events - Live Events Become X-Events”

Sending large files is much less of an issue nowadays, thanks to a growing number of web services dedicated just to this, that we have also recently covered. But lo and behold, surprises never end for for us technology explorers: in this issue I have included a cool new service that lets you send files up to 10GB each, along new tools to share documents , hold web conferences and meetings, and more.

Photo credit: Ktsdesign

Here eight new collaboration tools that I have selected for you this week:

1. File Savr: Upload and get a sharing link for all of your files up to 10GB
2. ZohoDocs: Create, edit and share documents of any format online
3. OpenACircle: Meet other people in your private web meeting room
4. PlanZone: Organize your team, assign tasks and manage your projects
5. Zapproved: Let other people approve or deny your ideas
6. BlastGroups: Invite people in a group,start sharing media files and organize events
7. ClearWiki: Create wiki pages for your team at absolutely no cost
8. BigString: Connect to multiple IM account on different networks

Here all the details:

1. File Savr
   
   File Savr is a free and easy service that you can use to send any type of file to other people. With no sign up required, you are able to upload files of any format and up to 10GB of size, and to get a direct public link to them that you can share via IM, email, or any other way in order to allow people to download the file. The service is completely free to use and requires no registration.
   http://www.filesavr.com/
2. ZohoDocs
   
   ZohoDocs is the latest addition of the online Zoho suite, and this one lets you create, edit and share documents of any type on the web. You can create or upload files online, and invite as many people as you want to collaborate with you in real-time: all this without installing and software on your machine. ZohoDocs is completely free to use, and offers you 1GB to store all of your documents.
   http://docs.zoho.com/
3. OpenACircle
   
   OpenACircle is a beta web meeting system that allows you to create your private room where you can meet other people. After you invite people, you can share documents, have video/audio calls, give live presentation sessions, share your screen, and more. Currently in free beta, the service is completely web based.
   http://www.openacircle.com/
4. PlanZone
   
   PlanZone is a new project management solution that lets small and medium businesses organize their on-going projects. You can easily create new projects and invite people to join you in our web based space, where you can create pages, manage activities, and also share files with all the other members of the group. The free trial gives you up to 2 projects, 5 users, and 25MB for your files. Else, you can check the paid versions.
   http://www.planzone.com/
5. Zapproved
   
   Zapproved is a free system that makes it easy for people to approve or deny your ideas. You can write any type of message, to which you can also attach files, and wait for the other people, who will receive an email with two buttons, to approve or deny your proposal. During the approval process, everyone involved can monitor who has read the email and how each person has responded. Free to use during beta phase.
   http://zapproved.com/
6. BlastGroups
   
   BlastGroups is a free service that you can use to create groups of people. Just enter a name and a URL for your group, and you are ready to start: you can share photos (up to 5MB each) and videos (from major sharing sites), organize events, post messages, write blog posts and more. BlastGroups is completely web based and free to use.
   http://www.blastgroups.com/
7. ClearWiki
   
   ClearWiki is a web app that lets you create wiki pages for free. You can create a new wiki for free, which will offer 10 pages, 256MB of storage and the possibility of having up to 10 users, where you can write whatever you want with other people and share files with them. Other versions can be checked here for more users and storage space.
   http://www.clearwiki.com/
8. BigString
   
   BigString is a web based multi-protocol instant messaging application that enables you to log into all of your IM accounts from one single place. You can access your IM accounts from different services (AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo and MSN) and mix your contact lists into a new single one which will include all of your buddies. The service is free to use, with no registration requires, but you can also register to make BigString save your usernames and passwords.
   http://bigstringim.com/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on September 15th 2008 as “Online Collaboration Technologies - New Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Sept15 08“

Online video to MP3 conversion tools are web-based services designed to easily convert any video file into an MP3 audio-only file format, without requiring you to register or to download or install any software.

Video to MP3 conversion tools generally provide the possibility of uploading your video files to be converted directly from your computer, or, in the case of video already published online, of pointing them by using their specific web address.

Some of these video to audio conversion tools also enable you to output your original selected video to a variety of other audio and video file formats. Conversion features and controls may include bitrate settings, max video file size, resolution and quality.

Here the two basic steps you need to take to convert your selected video clip into an .MP3 audio file:

1. Grab the video URL of the video you wish to convert, or upload it from your local hard drive
2. Click the convert button, and wait for your MP3 file to be processed and ready for download

If you are now convinced of the ease and effectiveness of these video to audio conversion tools, you may want to check this comparison table I have prepared where I have put side by side the differentiating characteristics of the video to audio conversion services I have found on the net.

• Max file size: Indicated in minutes or MegaBytes, the maximum dimensions of the video that will be converted
• YouTube only: Determines whether the service only supports YouTube or even other sharing services (Blip.tv, DailyMotion, Veoh…)
• Hard drive or direct URL upload: Gives you the possibility of uploading a video directly from your PC and/or by providing its direct URL
• Other available formats: Shows if other output formats, rather than MP3 only, are available

Here the comparison table and a full set of small reviews introducing the best video to audio conversion services available online:

Best Online Video To MP3 Conversion Tools and Services - Comparison Table

go to the table!

Online Video To MP3 Conversion Tool List

1. ConvertTube
   
   ConvertTube is an online video converter that you can use to download YouTube video clips in various formats. Without any registration, you just have to copy and paste the video URL, pick between the available formats (mpg, mov, 3gp, flv, mp4 or audio-only-mp3), click convert, and download the file. Completely web-based and free to use.
   http://converttube.com/
2. FLVtoMP3
   
   FLVtoMP3 is a free video conversion system that you can use to convert any FLV file to MP3 audio format. Just paste the URL of the video into the box, or upload it directly from your computer (up to 100MB), and click OK. After a matter of seconds, your new audio file will be ready for you to download. Free to use.
   http://www.flv2mp3.com/
3. Vixy
   
   Vixy is a free web video converter that lets you convert FLV videos to other formats. After you paste the URL of the video (be it YouTube URL or a link to the video file), all you need to do will be to select the output format among AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP and MP3, click OK, and wait for the video to be converted. You can then download on your machine, without any registration. Free.
   http://www.vixy.net/
4. SoyBe
   
   SoyBe is a YouTube downloading service that lets you provide a URL and get the video converted in various video and audio formats. After you paste the URL, you can decide whether to convert the video in AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG and MP3-audio-only format, and click the convert button to process and download your new file. Free to use.
   http://www.soybe.com/
5. ListenToYouTube
   
   ListenToYouTube is a free web application that you can use to extract an MP3 file from any YouTube video. To get your audio file, just grab the URL of the video you need, paste it into the box and click go. After a while, your MP3 will be ready for you to download. Free to use, no registration required.
   http://listentoyoutube.com/
6. MovietoMP3
   
   MovietoMP3 is an online service that enables you to get an MP3 file out of any video hosted on a sharing site. Supporting YouTube, MegaVideo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Veoh, Myspace, Google Video, and more services, it easily lets you convert any video to an audio-only MP3 file, just by pasting its URL and clicking a button. MovietoMP3 is free to use and does not require any sign up procedure.
   http://movietomp3.com/
7. Media Converter
   
   Media Converter is a free file conversion system that you can use to convert any file to any format. You can use to convert videos from major sharing sites, URL, or even from your hard drive to any video/audio format (MP3, WMA, AVI, MOV, MP4) and more. It also lets you customize settings as codecs, quality, size, resolution and more. Free to use, no registration required for files up to 100MB.
   http://mediaconverter.org/
8. CatchVideo
   
   CatchVideo is a free service that anyone can use to download and convert YouTube videos. Just paste the URL of the video into the box, select the output format between mpg, mov, mp4, 3gp, flv, audio-only-Mp3 and wav, and click convert. The video will then be processed, and ready for you to download. Free to use, no registration needed.
   http://catchvideo.net/
9. Mux
   
   Mux is a free video conversion tool, that you can use to convert videos online. You can convert any video from video sharing sites like YouTube, or any video that has a public URL(Avi, Mov, Wmv, Mpg…), into other major formats. All you need to do is paste the URL, select the output format, and wait until your video is converted. Free to use, no registration needed.
   http://mux.am/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on September 14th 2008 as “Convert Video To Audio: From Online Videos To MP3 - Sharewood Guide“

“The growing complexity of technology and tools for designing learning leaves us at an interesting point: should educators/trainers become technologists? Or should the tools of design become so easy to use that technical skills are minimal? Or do we move the technology to specialized design teams and educators remain the subject matter experts?“(Source: George Siemens)

Photo credit: Stephan Ridgway

School, in most countries I have been to, is still an indoctrination gym where there is yet very little opportunity to learn the key skills a young person may need the most today: effective communication, critical thinking, analysis, source evaluation, game design, media literacy.

But nonetheless I fully realize how bad this educational system really is, my focus is often in looking ahead, at what I am dreaming to build rather than at reforming the institutions that shaped my abilities and leased the most open-minded years of my life. And this is where I should stop to reason a bit more.

Unless you and I take some serious time to stop bitching about our schools and start DOING something that, without trying to revolutionize academia, brings in new ways for learning and sharing knowledge together, things are likely not to get much better.

Like every week, connectivism evangelist and educational technologies expert George Siemens, brings in the most interesting issues, research, and news pointers to the stories and technologies that are drastically changing the way we live, learn and work.

If you like to be a change-agent into shaping how your tomorrow is going to be, this is a good place to start.

Intro by Robin Good

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Internet Optimists And Pessimists

The sign of a field beginning to mature, in my opinion, is that distinctions and terms become clearly demarcated. At the beginning of any discipline, the details are hardly a point of focus.

Instead, we see a “glob of stuff” as our effort is to understand what the entity is. As a discipline progresses, distinctions begin to emerge. And divisive or even polarizing discussions begin to emerge. As Sayre’s Law states: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue“.

To that end, a nice compilation of books advocating optimistic and pessimistic views of the internet.

The Future Of Search

Since about 2005, Google’s continual release of new tools has gained greater attention than its search service. While much innovation in seen in Google Earth, GMail, Google Reader, Gears, etc., searching with Google is a similar experience as it was in 2000.

What are some of the challenges that need to be addressed in web search? A few considerations:

“In the next 10 years, we will see radical advances in modes of search: mobile devices offering us easier search, Internet capabilities deployed in more devices, and different ways of entering and expressing your queries by voice, natural language, picture, or song, just to name a few. It’s clear that while keyword-based searching is incredibly powerful, it’s also incredibly limiting.“

Storytelling 101

Great example of blending presentations with storytelling: Storytelling 101 (via Workplace Learning Today). Lecturers, trainers, presenters, and anyone with a message to share, will find this as a useful guide. Alan Levine’s 50(+) ways to tell a story is another valuable resource.

Multimedia Design

The growing complexity of technology and tools for designing learning leaves us at an interesting point: should educators/trainers become technologists? Or should the tools of design become so easy to use that technical skills are minimal? Or do we move the technology to specialized design teams and educators remain the subject matter experts?

Different institutions answer these questions differently. At University of Manitoba, responsibility for developing content still rests heavily on faculty, with some options for support of complex learning activities or simulations. We’ve used Pachyderm somewhat for faculty to create multimedia learning activities.

Today I came across a fairly new tool Xerte - also open source, but installation on your own server is required. The demonstration I attended was quite informative. The tool looks exceptionally easy to use (the interface was built on a previous scripting-based version directed at programmers), with lots of potential. Creating a simple interactive flash learning activity took a matter of minutes. Looking forward to exploring this tool more.

Twitter and CERN

Today, I had the pleasure of reading about the activation of the Large Hadron Collider on CERN’s Twitter feed. Lovers of Twitter will hail this as significant. And for good reason. It is. It was a fascinating experience watching updates. I guess a bit like people hanging on international news via a telegraph a century ago. But in this case, accessible by everyone.

What If It Really Does All Change?

I have periodic moments - whether delusional or not is too soon to tell - where I’m struck by the enormous potential that many of our most foundational frameworks of society will unravel in the next several decades.

TV has fragmented in the form of YouTube. Newspapers are similarly reduced to single articles read via Google News. And why would someone write a book these days (as I’m in the process of doing)?

Do you ever get the sense that the framework that we now call a book - a cohesive structure of hopefully coherent thought - can be duplicated in a distributed manner online? For example, how is the act of writing a book different from blogging for a few years? All the content of a book is in the experience - but it’s not as coherent as a book and it’s filled with more clutter and tangents. But a book-like framework can be seen to exist.

A unified field theory of publishing in the networked era advocates a similar view:

“The emergence of the web turned this vision of the book of the future as a solid, albeit multimedia object completely upside down and inside out. Multimedia is engaging, especially in a format that encourages reflection, but locating discourse inside of a dynamic network promises even more profound changes“.

For The Brain, Remembering Is Like Reliving

Scientists have managed to record individual brain cells processing/accessing memories: For the Brain, Remembering Is Like Reliving.

Main point: remembering is very similar to doing. Similar patterns of activation exist on recall as they do during the completion of the activity that is being recorded.

Educators obviously know this in theory: want a student to remember something? Get them to do something - interact, build, create. Still, it’s intriguing to see the continual developments in understanding (and having evidence for) how our brains work. We’ll continue to see much more of this.

Do You Challenge Queue-Jumpers and Line-Cutters?

What does research on our reactions to people who cut in line have to do with online learning. Very little (unless you want to push things a bit and ask how our reactions to rude behaviour differ in online or face-to-face environments). However, it’s interesting to note that we spend about 4 years of our lives standing in line… if you travel, I’m guessing it’s much more.

The meekness of responses to cutting in line seems quite surprising - Do You Challenge Queue-Jumpers and Line-Cutters?

Social Networking In Higher Education

Social networking is still part of the hype cycle of educational technology tools. And for good reason. Involvement in a network can be a surprising waste of time… and a surprisingly effective way to learn.

Social Networking in higher education looks at various common tools like Facebook and Twitter, and concludes “We’re incredibly excited about the things we can do in online and distance education with social networking…”

As is often the case, the real story is where the action isn’t. It’s where the action will be. And I see that as the methods and approaches that we use to design curriculum, education, and our institutions. How long do we explore new tools and concepts until we are forced to consider the very spaces in which they occur?

The Dominance Of The Elite?

Gerry McGovern writes: “Web 2.0 is part of the shift away from the dominance of the elite to the innovation of the collective.”

The statement is accurate in principle but false in practice. People still like to be individuals. Sites like wearesmarter.org (remember the vision of hundreds of academics writing a textbook together? Yeah, well, that kinda bombed) indicate the value of individuality.

There is enormous value in building on the work of others, in creating together. But the experience has to preserve the individual. The collective is not a space of innovation. Individuals who are networked and building on each others idea is what drives innovation.

The collective can enact the innovation, but not create it.

Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies

I was sure I had mentioned this project before - Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies. However, I can’t find record of it. So, rather than ignore this valuable resource (put together by Curt Bonk and a global group), I’ll risk linking more than once :).

The last year has brought about a tremendous surge in interest in emerging technologies. I don’t fully understand why. What’s different this year than in the previous 8? Oh well, whatever it is, resources like the one listed above will become increasingly valuable as more educators discover the opportunities of extending interaction and content creation to the network.

Photo credits:
Internet Optimists And Pessimists - Zach
The Future Of Search - Google
Multimedia Design - The University of Nottingham
What If It Really Does All Change? - Dzmitry Stankevich
For The Brain, Remembering Is Like Reliving - Marc Dietrich
Do You Challenge Queue-Jumpers and Line-Cutters? - Tom Mc Nemar
Social Networking In Higher Education - Marc Dietrich
The Dominance Of The Elite? - topalov
Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies - WELT

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on September 11th 2008 as weekly email digest on eLearning Resources and News.

About the author

To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.

CarCast is a new hybrid Internet audio capture, playlist library and automatic audio synchronization system which allows you to take just about any audio track you hear on the Web to your portable and car-friendly USB music player.

If you are looking for an easy and straightforward way to convert into downloadable and portable audio audio content what you normally listen to on the web, CarCast may likely be the only tool you need.

If you, like me, have been frustrated by the myriad of different formats audio formats out there and the ton of commercial recording utilities claiming to be able to capture your favorite audio streams, you will find the WebCarCastRecoder to be a marvellous new technology capable of recording automatically just about any audio stream you run into.

The CarCast audio system is a new service consisting of a web-based personal audio library, a unique Firefox-based on-the-fly audio-recorder (it can record anything you find on the web) and a small utility to download and synchronize your favorite audio to your USB memory stick.

“Thanks to CarCast with any USB memory stick, an Internet connection and a USB in our car, we can always keep us updated and listen to our favourite programmes: just select online the content that we are concerned and, each time inserting our memory stick in any computer connected to the Internet, it will update with new content always ready to be heard while on the car between a traffic light and a jam!“

Here all the details:

CarCast Overview

Launched in Beta about two months ago, CarCast is a new hybrid (Web+software) system capable of ripping, recording, saving, organizing and converting most any audio you can run into on the Internet. CarCast is also a simple to use to audio, web-based audio library service which allows you to pick and add any podcast or on-the-fly recording you have made to it, much like you would do in iTunes.

Behind this very useful and innovative new service are the great guys of Inrete, who launched over a year ago the unique television-to-web personal recorder, Vcast / Faucet.

The cool innovative differentiating trait is that CarCast also allows you to record just about any audio you may run onto on the Web. Even the one from video clips out there. You just go to a web page where the audio is and CarCastWebRecorder (a Firefox plug-in) automatically records it for you.

Not only.

CarCast provides you also with a cross-platform utility which you can use to download all of your favourite audio recordings, podcasts and music to your favorite external device, be it a USB stick, portable media player or an external disk.

This unique recording software gets installed on your USB memory stick and it synchronizes the content that you collect inside your CarCast audio library to your external memory device any time you insert it in an Internet-connected PC or Mac. Your browser is only needed when you want to add new content or update the audio playlists you have created. All the rest is automatically done by the USB memory stick itself.

But there’s more: now your audio-synchronization becomes truly “nomadic”, meaning that you just need a computer (Mac and even Linux are all supported) connected to the Internet to update the music / audio recordings you have in your USB memory stick.

Last but not least, CarCastUSB, the synchronization software that you first install on your USB drive, does also work on ANY removable media, as much as it does on ANY fixed hard you have.

Still in full development and released as a Beta, CarCast keeps adding new features and capabilities on a weekly basis.

CarCast Components

CarCast is made of three parts:

1) The CarCast Website

The purpose of the CarCast website is to help you manage your subscriptions and define what to put on the USB memory stick. By providing the proper information you can set which podcasts to receive and how many episodes to keep from each one.

2) USB software

The CarCastUSB software needs to be installed on your USB memory stick. What it does, is to synchronize the content you have selected from the web and placed into your CarCast audio library with the contents of your USB memory stick. The beauty of this USB-based synchronization system, is that all of it happens automatically and with a single-click any time you insert your USB drive into an internet connected PC or Mac.

You can download and install CarCastUSB for your platform of choice:

3) CarCastWebRecorder

CarCastWebRecorder is a powerful audio ripper / recorder, dressed as a Firefox plugin capable of detecting and capturing just about any audio you happen to browse.

CarCastWebRecorder is “always on” and relentlessly checks the content of your web pages for multimedia content. When it finds it, it attempts to access it and cache it in the background, without ever interrupting your browsing activities. It records everything you listen to and more.

CarCastWebRecorder can be immediately downloaded and installed on Firefox.

The CarCast My Audio Library

The My Audio Library
The web-based, iTunes-like audio library for the CarCast system is called MyAudio.

Inside it you can see all of the audio tracks you have recorded and added to the library as well as any podcast you have subscribed to. From the library you can listen, rename or delete any of the audio tracks.

To add content to this MyAudio library you can either:

a) Subscribe to any audio podcast

b) Add it directly from your computer

c) Save it in the MyAudio library from your collection in the CarCastWebRecorder shelf.

For each audio item you add to the MyAudio library you can specify and edit the track title, author and description.

Then, when you insert your USB “CarCast-ready” USB-key, all of the audio contents of this library will be reflected on your USB stick.

But there are two more major options as well:

1) You can also SELECT which types of files to download in your external USB drive by choosing among MP3, MP4 (mp4, m4a, m4v, aac), DivX (avi, divx, xvid), Windows Media (wm, wma, wmv, wmf, asf).

2) You can choose which type of file organization you want to use among CarCast three possible alternatives:

• FLAT
  Everything goes inside the MyAudio folder of the USB memory stick.
• FOLDER
  You define the different folders inside MyAudio where you want to put the files, so that you can easily find the audio tracks you want to listen to.
• PLAYLIST
  All audio files are in one folder but you can organize them into separate playlists.

Other Key Features

• Capture any audio format
  One of the key goals of CarCast is to keep improving this system and to make it soon capable to record just about any audio stream type you can think of. For example, as of now, live streaming music stations like Somafm.com cannot be recorded by the CarCastWebRecorder though support for these will come in the near future.
• Format conversion
  CarCast integrates an .MP3 automatic audio converter which makes it possible for you to get even the audio track from your favorite video lecture or video music clip into a standard audio music format.
• Other output formats
  In the future CarCast will convert also to other formats as well. In particular, Giorgio Bernardi of Inrete reported to me that Divx support and ability to convert to what he calls the “portable media player format“, which is a MP4 320×240 pixels multimedia file that can play over Ipods, PSPs, Nokia cell phones, HTC and BlackBerry devices and more.

  The output to video format is meant to support playback on Ipods (which do not play flv - Flash video files) and USB-stick playback from DVD players (under the TV) equipped with USB port but which support only DIVX formatted video content.

• Max Number of Recordings - Limitations
  CarCast has implemented a self-sustainable viral marketing strategy by limiting the number of “tracks” you can pile up inside your audio library. The limit, which is now set at 50 max recordings, can be easily overcome and pushed to the next level simply by inviting someone else you know to use the CarCast service. Just like Google did with GMail, everyone is encouraged to use the service and recommend it directly to his friends.

  To overcome the 50 items limit, inside the CarCast “MY AUDIO” page you can now click on “Get more Items” which allows you to send an invitation directly to a friend or colleague. Please note that the limit is not fully lifted but simply extended to allow you another 50 recordings to be added inside your audio library. In addition the bonus is granted only when anyone of your invited friends does effectively complete the CarCast registration.

How To Use CarCast

Here is the basic workflow you need to adopt to use CarCast correctly.

1) Log in to CarCast, install the Firefox plugin, and access your MyAudio Library.

2) Add relevant podcast and audio recordings you have been able to capture with CarCastWebRecorder to your library.

3) Organize your audio contents by creating folders and playlists as you need.

4) Download the CarCastUSB software and install it on your external USB key drive. (See detailed instructions here below)

5) Plug your USB key drive into any computer USB report and synchronize your USB key drive with all or some specific content from MyAudio library.

6) Take your USB key drive into your car and plug it in to listen to all of the audio selections you have saved.

How To Install CarCastUSB on An External Drive

CarCastUSB is the software that you need to install on your USB drive (or to any other mass storage device of your choice). The CarCast system has been designed to provide a useful service for car drivers who want an easy way to get audio and music they hear online into their portable music devices and so the USB type memory drive is used here as a most fitting example.

The first important thing to know is that the CarCastUSB software needs not to be installed on your computer.

You only need to save it on your USB key in an uncompressed format.

Here the specific steps to take to install CarCast USB from a Windows PC computer (Alternative instructions if you are on a Mac - Linux geeks need no help I suppose):

1. Download the CarCastUSB software simply by clicking on the Windows icon that appears on the CarCastUSB page.
2. Plug the USB key in your computer and take note of the drive letter that gets assigned to it.
3. Right-click on the CarCast USB.zip file that you have just downloaded and select to extract the zip file contents to the drive letter you have identified in step 2.

Disconnect the USB key once the process is finished.

From now on, no matter in which computer you will insert that USB key, you will see immediately
a control panel that will allow you to automatically start the synchronization of your CarCast MyAudio library with your USB key.

Examples of Web Audio Sources That You Can Record From

Here is a rather short initial list of online music sources that I have personally tested against WebCarCasrRecorder ability to record Internet audio from the most diverse places.

• Musicovery.com
• Last.fm
• Mixwit.com
• Jango.com
• Tunes.co.uk
• Any YouTube video
• Most any web-page-embedded online video clip.

If you know of more relevant sources that should be listed here, please let me know via the comments section below.

In the future:
Streaming stations like Somafm.com and similar ones will be captured as well

How To Get CarCast On Your Computer

If you don’t have already a friend using CarCast (who could invite you in) nor an Invitation Code, you may still be able to get access to CarCast.

In fact, if you are a blogger or someone interested in testing and trying out this new tool and willing to provide feedback to the team behind it on how to further improve it, you can ask for a Invitation Code directly to CarCast Labs. Send an e-mail that introduces you and your reasons for wanting to try CarCast out to carcast [at] staff.inrete.it

Summary Review

Pros - Key Strengths

• Automatically detects and records many types of audio and video content
• Cross-platform - Firefox plugin works on PC, Mac, Linux
• Easy to use
• Provides offline access to Internet audio content that would be otherwise difficult to listen to
• Works not just on USB key drives but on just about any mass storage device that you want to use it with
• Free - there is for now no cost involved in using CarCast or anyone of its components
• MP3 automatic audio format converter
• Automatically recorded audio clips can be added in one-click to the CarCast audio library
• CarCastWebRecorder recognizes audio it has already recorded and it does not record it again if it is already available

Areas for improvement

• Official CarCast web site interface and its navigation
• My Audio library - interface and usability - lots to do here - iTunes is a distant memory, but ehy not use a true iTunes-like open-source product like Songbird or a similar solution?
• CarCastWebRecorder support for automatic recording of more audio formats and types
• Automatic recognition of music titles and artists name - Names of songs often go unidentified as the recorder can guess about information that is not reaily contained in the web page or feed where this is coming from. (see Gracenote capabilities)
• Improved usability and functionalities inside CarCastWebRecorder - Navigation among recorded items is frustrating at best. You need to keep moving your mouse up and down to play different items. It takes time to go through the audio library to name properly items and to clean up junk or incomplete recordings that have ended up in there. A double click option that would playback any item so invoked would be much more usable. Furthermore a simple audio playback interface allowing easy access to stop / play / next / previous functions would also be very welcome.
• Better detection of relevant audio content
• Product presentation, marketing and video introduction

Editor’s Comments

CarCast is an innovative solution to a growing pain: taking any audio or music you like on the Internet and bring it with you offline anywhere you want. The iPod is one step in that direction, but the iPod doesn’t allow you to grab a song you hear on an Internet radio station or a cult groove you have just discovered on a digital mixtape that a friend has just sent you, or a great undeground tune you have just spotted on Somafm. Same if you are on Musicovery, Jango or Last.fm. You can listen but you can’t record and take that stuff offline with you.

Or can you?

I am not talking from a legal viewpoint but from a technical one. How do you record that stuff?

If you start searching for tools that claim to record audio from the Internet you run into a barrage of utilities claiming to work only with certain formats or audio types. But which one is right for you? And what happens when you want to record something else? Most of these tools cost $20 to $30 so you easily risk to waste your time and money unless you know pretty well all of the tech issues involved in doing this.

CarCast, attempts to solve ths very need by providing a free, universal