Today’s the last day to submit entries to NPR’s Public Radio Talent Quest, a competition that seeks “the next public radio star”. Based on votes from Talent Quest site visitors, and a team of judges, the field of contestants will be narrowed to semi-final and final rounds, culminating in the crowning of winners later this year. Hmm. Does that remind you of a certain Fox TV show? NPR is not immune from the lure of copycat promotional efforts, apparently.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that a lot of my fellow podcasters had already submitted entries, and that many had made the very smart decision to enlist their audiences to vote for them. Some have created edited snippets (contest entries can’t exceed two minutes) from their shows, while others have written and produced original entries.

I would really like to see podcasters move forward in this competition. Podcasters have already demonstrated a high level of commitment to producing audio on a regular basis. Many have earned loyal listeners, and have become accomplished producers and performers. and they’ve bootstrapped themselves into this position through their own creativity and craft. The same can’t necessarily be said for people who chose careers in radio, and who have never had the chance to build their own program and audience completely from scratch. Nor could it be said for folks who nurse dreams of stardom, but feel no particular pull toward self-expression or communicating with an audience

The contrarian part of me is a little disdainful of a contest in which the ultimate prize is not a larger platform for a show that you create and control, but a job as host of a program produced under the auspices of a large network: a network with sponsors and contributors to answer to. I guess I have to wonder whether the price of becoming a star in public radio includes conforming to a large organization’s notion of what it wants, rather than plowing through with a vision of your own.

But my contrarian will probably keep quiet if one or more of podcasting’s own makes the Talent Quest grade. If public radio really wants to open its ranks to amateurs with big dreams, let’s hope those amateurs make the essential creativity and DIY spirit felt in the halls of NPR. Good luck, podcasters.

-shelly

Congrats to Evan Williams for selling Odeo for a reported $1,000,000 and welcome to the industry in a big way SonicMountain. Launched in November 2006 this little known group is obviously filled with folks with big plans as you can see from the news on their website. I’m sure they’ll pay attention to the things not to do as refreshingly detailed by Evan and reported on GigaOM.

- Larry

We should have seen this coming. We eagerly scanned the spreadsheet of results from the past month’s site mini-poll on favorite blogs and podcasts. There were plenty of entries, every one of ‘em with exactly one vote.

Can’t blame anyone for wanting to do a little self-promotion (and don’t forget, we do have a free online B&P Guide for just that purpose). But results like these are invalid since there are no clear winners.

So, we’re starting over and this time making each month topic-specific. And we’re working behind the scenes to offer more feedback on results. For May, it’s all about the music. If you happen to have a blog or podcast devoted to all things music, by all means vote for yourself. But if you don’t, then carefully consider whose site or show you really enjoy and fill in the URL field on the homepage mini-poll. The music category will be up for a few weeks, with the top vote-getters appearing in the July issue.

–Anne

I was going over my handwritten notes from a recent book festival panel and came across this phrase: “kleptocracy of the Internet.”

The speaker was referring to the tendency for online content providers, such as bloggers, to steal content from elsewhere without any economic motive. I believe this was a Keen observation.

I just did an interview with John Havens of About.com who expressed great interest in a pet podcast project of mine called “Random Kindness.” In the whirlwind of the Blogger & Podcaster magazine launch it made me remember why I got into this business in the first place. This is a podcast where I find deserving people in need of a helping hand and tell their stories in a podcast show. Here’s the experiment I’d like you to participate in: Go and listen to the story of Susan Benaszek & Lamonte Chenvert at www.randomkindness.net. Then give a dollar or two and then pass this along to a few friends and ask them to do the same. I think we can change the world through podcasting — $1-2 at a time. $1-2 won’t be a hardship on anyone and by working together we can turn the lives around of this family who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina and is still struggling to this day. Once we get them back on their feet, we’ll take all the extra funds from this grand “experiment” and do even more for other forgotten victims of Katrina victims. C’mon let’s put podcasting on the map as a force for good — $1 at a time!

- Larry

Wired News reported yesterday that new rules prevent Army soldiers, contractors and even civilian employees from blogging, sending personal email or other communication via the Internet without prior approval of their commanders. Before the regulations, which took effect April 19, military bloggers were encouraged to seek input from commanders before posting material “that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum.” but the new rule goes far beyond a common sense guideline intended to protect sensitive military information. It’s prior restraint, pure and simple. See Dadmanly’s blog for an interpretation fo the new regs from a military point of view.

If you’re interested at all in how the Iraq war looks from the point of view of people fighting it, you’ve probably read milblogs. If not, try Black Five and The Mudville Gazette. They offer insights and unvarnished assessments you simply can’t get from conventional media. The new Army regulations could well kill miliblogging.

But these regulations don’t merely affect bloggers: they potentially constrain anyone who sends email to friends and family, posts on MySpace, or uploads Flickr photos. You don’t have to be a blogger to be silenced by these onerous rules. Even if soldiers seek and receive clearance to communicate with the world back home, the requirement to clear every word, picture and YouTube video with a commander will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on speech by military personnel. Aside from the obvious free speech implications, such a heavy-handed regulation will surely do harm to the morale of Army members who have grown accustomed to expressing themselves via the Internet. According to the Wired story, military officials don’t anticipate scrutinizing every blog post and email. So it’s all or nothing. They could censor selectively if they wished to, or simply rule that all blogging is forbidding. And having such regulations in place makes it dead simple to silence soldiers who are critical of the Army.

To be sure, there are tactical plans and activities that should not be compromised via blog or email. The military has an interest in maintaining operational security. But these regulations go far beyond what’s necessary to do that.

-shelly

So, I’m next to feed the blog, and have been for a few days now. I started to riff on a South African’s rant about bloggers’ expectations of privacy. Then I wanted to weigh in on a New York Times story about the impact of literary blogs on the book review world. But by the time either was almost ready to post, they were old. For big businesses like IBM, a few hours amount to a nanosecond; in the real-time realm of the Internet, things seem stale in minutes.

One thing successful bloggers and podcasters all agree on is that the best Web-based publishers come up with original ideas or offer unique takes on well established ones. Everyone else tends to fall into the enormous “me too” category, producing content that’s already out there in one form or another. To avoid that trap, I’ll attempt to use my weekly appearance to offer a peek inside this magazine.

I’ve conducted quite a few interviews this week, and at the end of each, I’ve been asked either directly or indirectly how we’re handling the “feedback.” We’ve gotten a lot of encouraging comments and, of course, numerous nasty ones. One need only Google us to see examples of both. We’ve privately debated staffers’ different interpretations of the snarkier commentary. We’ve also begun acting on the more constructive criticism to improve on processes and policies.

Some of those improvements have been immediate; others won’t be realized by the reading and listening public for a couple of months. For example, we’ve had to adjust our publication dates to the first of the month due to printer and podcast producers’ schedules. That means the next issue will be out around June 1. Eager to see how the next issue’s received? If the content continues to meet the needs of a targeted, tempermental audience? If the naysayers eventually carry the day? Yeah, me too.

–Anne

Like a lot of bloggers and podcasters (no really, almost everyone I know on Twitter seems to be one or the other), I’ve succumbed to the allure or Twitter. I haven’t been able to bring myself to call what we do on Twitter “microblogging”, but I may be changing my mind. Twitter has certainly begotten a lot of interactivity, enthusiasm and community-based effort that has resulted in good things happening. These represent values prized by bloggers, and made possible by that medium.

Last week was one of those amazing times for me on Twitter, when examples of its power to connect people were everywhere.

On Monday the folks in my Twitter circle began counting down the days, hours, minutes (?) until Steve and Maureen’s baby was due. Steve’s a prolific Twitter user, and I chat with him several times a day. Every time a new tweet from Steve came over the line, I checked quickly to see if this was the moment that he would leave work to join Maureen for the birth of their first child. As the week wore on, I felt bad about asking “any news?” because the baby had apparently decided the time was not right. Since Maureen is also on Twitter, we awaited her messages, too. “What are you doing?” indeed! I posited that if Maureen would only let Steve know by Twitter that her contractions had started, the suspense for the rest of us would be eliminated. No comment from the parents-to-be.

On Friday, Steve’s announcement winged its way into my Twitter client: “We’re having a baby.” We knew he wouldn’t let us down. We knew that before he put his car in gear to rush to his wife’s side, he’d alert the Twitterverse. We sent him off with best wishes and prayers for a safe and easy birht. As it turned out, 24 more hours would pass before Steve had more news for us. In the interim, my home Internet had gone out, and I felt profoundly out of touch until we managed to get back online, just in time to read the news that Rebecca Blair Loopipe had entered the world. By yesterday, we had pictures!

Also last week, Matt wrote in to say that his grandfather had died, and that he wouldn’t be doing his podcast this week. Friends offered condolences to Matt, and one quickly spoke up to say “I’ll do your show for you.” another friend, and then another chimed in. It was a joke at first, but within 15 minutes, and with Matt’s blessing, five of us (including Steve and Maureen, as it happened) had agreed to use Matt’s format, his bumpers and effects, and his feed to produce an episode of The Redboy Podcast. We jumped off Twitter and into email to plan and ship files around, then recorded the show via a Skype quad-ender (each participant recording his or her own audio). The instigator of our group took on the job of editing, and within a few days of Twittering our offer to keep Matt’s weekly show on track, we had published an hour-long episode.

These aren’t the kind of stories you read in business books, or hear about during presentations at technology conferences. They are utterly homegrown, and utterly human, not commercial. But the accessibility and community spirit they suggest will be just as crucial to those who have larger, more mercenary goals for their Twittering, or who see the service as a way to stay connected in real time with “big ideas”. This stuff is pretty cool.

-shelly

Apologies for the delay in getting out our podcast edition. Most of the April stories are now finally posted on our website, but the RSS feed still needs to be created. This will happen shortly and will enable you to download the entire issue (or just the stories you care about) and listen when and where you desire. Thanks for understanding as we work through our launch “kinks.”

- Larry

Maybe this is like those 4 Things About Me memes that tend to sprout, bloom and then die quickly, but I haven’t seen too many initiatives like the campaign calling for a blogging Day of Silence on Monday in honor of those lost in the Virginia Tech shootings and victims of violence worldwide.

Outreach is one thing, and there seem to be a lot of personal blogs spreading the word of this pending demonstration of solidarity in this Web community. But there also have been some questioning the gains from leaving Monday’s post for another day. So I’m curious, especially for those of you with financial or business obligations tied to your blogs – are you going to keep quiet and just enjoy what appears to be a community-sanctioned break from blogging? Or will you ignore it, and if so why?

–Anne