rumor mill: iPhone to download podcasts wirelessly

Ho long have I been wanting this? Wishing for this? Rumors are that the iPhone's next software update will include the ability to download podcasts from "the cloud." Niiiice. Only took 18 months, but I won't quibble.

Now, syncing a to-do list with iCal? Helloooo?

Fair Use: Using copyrighted material legally

American University's Center for Social Media recently released a tremendously helpful resource that helps to clear some misconceptions about the concept of fair use of copyrighted materials. There are a lot of people out there that think fair use is any use where they aren't paid... not true! There are a lot of ways a video producer can rely on fair use, and this Code of Best Practices soes a great job of spelling it out. Check it out here.

Best Wifi Hotels

Talk about a great resource for the mobile traveler... I've been surprised to find that sometimes nicer hotels have worse amenities in the WiFi space than cheaper hotels. Now my suspicions and anecdotal experiences have been confirmed by the folks over at Hotel Chatter. Take a look at their 2008 Best WiFi Hotels for more...

Easy Podcast Marketing

Great stuff from Chris Penn... an eight step guide to marketing your podcast.

A sidebar regarding the title... it's funny how some people are staying away from using the term "podcast" while others are doggedly sticking by it. There's no question the technology will be around well into the future as we get more and more adopters, but what might happen is that the name gets subtly changed because of this (silly, in my opinion) fear that the term podcast connotes an amateurish production.

Ok, sidebar over... check out the audio or e-book version of Penn's guide.

How does your iPod's illegal tracks stack up against the average teenager?

The Times of London reports a study regarding the amount of illegal tracks on the typical iPod:

Teenagers and students have an average of more than 800 illegally copied songs each on their digital music players, the largest academic survey of young people's music ownership has found.

* * *

The average digital music player carries 1,770 songs, meaning that 48 per cent of the collection is copied illegally. The proportion of illegally downloaded tracks rises to 61 per cent among 14 to 17-year-olds. In addition, 14 per cent of CDs (one in seven) in a young person's collection are copied.

So, how does your iPod stack up? A quick poll here is definitively "under" but we're a squeaky clean kind of operation...

Podcasting in plain English

Kudos to commoncraft.com:

Podcasting listenership continues to grow

Continued growth in the podcasting sphere... the latest technology poll from Jacobs Media reports an 87% jump in numbers year to year. The survey covered 27,000 respondents, across 69 Rock-formatted stations, so it's not exactly a broad demographic, but a pretty important one. Of those surveyed, nearly one in three people had listened to a podcast before. Lots of room for more growth...