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11 The All Jiggles Episode.mp3 (10571 KB)

Number 11 on the top free apps for the iPhone is "Boob Party" and the number 22 app is "Tasty Pasties 18+ Amateurs." Should those apps be listed in the apps list? Apple's policy on this type of content has changed, but Michael thinks it should be in a "Red Light" district with special permissions required. Kids get to see this stuff without asking for it. There are parental controls but that won't filter the lists (this is now verified, the apps still show up in the lists). They also appear in the top paid lists. Michael is OK with content filters, Apple created the store, they should be able to totally control the content/apps. Would you want your mom to encounter this content in the app store? Foursquare. Dave checked in to a hotel and was awarded the "Douchebag" badge. He reported it in the Get Satisfaction support site for Foursquare. Great discussion ensued. They need to make sure that the service is attractive to every age group. Dave thinks the term is potentially offensive. Back to content - let's keep the adult material in a separate part of the store. For clarification, Michael isn't opposed to the content being in the store, it just shouldn't be as easily available. What are your thoughts?

That's a wrap. You can find Dave at http://davetayloronline.com and Michael at http://friendmichael.com . You can find the show at http://boulderopenpodcast.com, iTunes, and Callisto.fm: http://j.mp/6TOXJU

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10 Location Based Games.mp3 (12031 KB)

Geolocation related games. Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla, Yelp - lots of options. Facebook for mobile getting in to the action soon? Checking in to locations for fun, profit, and status. Dave uses Foursquare, Michael steers clear from the location based gaming (but uses Brightkite on occasion). Michael likes the technology, but dislikes the cross stream pollution ( Foursquare > Twitter > Facebook, Etc. ). It all comes back to filtering darn it. Twitter? Hello! Ultimately, it's the discretion of the user to post to other services. Updates should be set to a certain radius. Gowalla sells ads to Incase so that if you check in at an Apple Store you see a larger selection of cases than Apple carries. This is really cool Scifi. Check in at a restaurant in Foursquare, and get an offer for a bar down the street. Brightkite seems old school. LOL. Dave never used Brightkite. Foursquare is better because of the point system for him - he's a competitor. The first week or two with Foursquare is fun because you get a crap ton of points because you're a newbie. There are some security issues. Check in at the airport, and people know you're not at home. Dave never checks in at the bank, the school, and usually never checks in when the kids are with him. Dave has no pictures of his kids online - he wants to protect their privacy. There's a desktop app called Foursquarex that brings the game to the desktop (Mac OS X, 10.6 only). It uses Google Maps to show the location of your friends. When shouldn't you check in on these things? On a date? What if you both check in? They all have security settings... just set the prefs and forget about it? What if McDonalds tracks your checkins and gives you free drinks? Would you be able to see checkins at McDonalds.com? PlayFoursquare.com shows checkins from users. The technology is amazing - Michael is enamored with real-time data. What do we do with all of this data? Decide for yourself how to use these services. What are the implications? Does this stuff work with Second Life. That'd be swell.

That's a wrap. You can find Dave at http://davetayloronline.com and Michael at http://friendmichael.com . You can find the show at http://boulderopenpodcast.com, iTunes, and http://callisto.fm

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09 Google and China.mp3 (8906 KB)

We've noticed. We talk a lot about Google, Apple, Amazon, and Twitter. While we're fans of startups, it seems that those few companies dominate the news in the Boulder tech bubble. Google is leaving China: "We're not censoring content, we're out." The Secretary of State is awaiting word from China on this issue. Google was prepared to accept the conditions, but apparently that's changed. How much of the stuff that happened was more than we all deal with on a daily basis? The Chinese people aren't seeing the whole issue. China is a bit more democratic that we think. Pockets have lots of freedom. What does Bing mean in Chinese? It's hard to separate politics from technology. Haiti - people are overboard on this and penalizing people for their level of participation in Haiti. Boulder is a "blue" city. Colorado Springs is "red." It means there are medical Marijuana dispensaries on every corner in Boulder. LOL.
That's a wrap. You can find Dave at http://davetayloronline.com and Michael at http://friendmichael.com . You can find the show at http://boulderopenpodcast.com, iTunes, and http://callisto.fm

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08 The Dave at CES Edition.mp3 (11484 KB)

Boulder Open Podcast, Episode 8: The Dave at CES Edition. Several trends have emerged. 3D Television, E-Book readers and more. Amazon was the best selling device at Amazon over Christmas. Amazon sold more electronic books than paper books. Every vendor that's showing off 3D TV has specialized glasses. Boo. Once there's a standard, this will make more sense. Dave says it'll actually take root when you don't have to wear glasses at all. Technicolor is making that happen (but only for a private audience right now). It only works in 7inch screens or less. comcast has upgraded to DOCSIS 3 - which makes Michael's download speed 35Mbps. CES is for the industry, not the public. Product buyers, and their teams are the focus of the show. Dave met a guy from Radio Shack and reminds us that they're actually a retail powerhouse. ZigBee is a standard for monitoring your home power use. The device fits between the device and the outlet allowing you to see how much every outlet consumes. You can remotely turn off appliances, and even tell it to turn off certain appliances within a time window. Studies show that people that monitor their electrical usage have lower bills. Imagine if everyone then watched their consumption. It comes down to paying attention, doesn't it? Dave's Smart Grid Test isn't really all that smart. It shuts your air conditioner off for a hour during high demand times. Granular controls like this will change everything. It's a much bigger industry this year over last. TVs - imagine a Best Buy TV wall on steroids. It's as big as a city block with 250 screens wide. It's mindnumbingly amazing. Dave's uploaded photos of the whole thing. ( See http://j.mp/d0ZpW9 for pictures ) . The friends he brought had a tough time with the enormity. iPhoto hasn't been upgraded to match the new permissions within Facebook.

That's a wrap. You can find Dave at http://davetayloronline.com and Michael at http://friendmichael.com . You can find the show at http://boulderopenpodcast.com, iTunes, and http://callisto.fm

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07 The Twitter API is taking over the world.mp3 (9228 KB)

Boulder Open Podcast Episode 7: The Twitter API is taking over the world. Other services (Wordpress and Tumblr) are duplicating the Twitter API on their services to allow their users to post to their services using standard Twitter clients. It only takes one simple change in the app. Posts are mapped to their respective counterparts on the services. Dave likes the idea of a common/standard API (he's reminded of he quote: "Standards are great, everyone should have one.") He's concerned about the same content appearing on every service, and this might just make that easier. Wordpress and Tumblr content isn't the same as the live stream-of-consciousness content that's posted to Twitter. Dave thinks this will contribute to the normalization of these services from the user's perspective. Michael says that the developers can save time by not having to write their own apps if there's a standard API. Seesmic Desktop will already post to several services, as will many other desktop clients. The Wordpress blog post on the subject was authored by Matt Mullenweg. This could be the start of blogs with hundreds and hundreds of teeny tiny posts. Anything we can do to make less work for iPhone developers (gives us a better chance of finding an idle one!) is good.

Big things in 2010: Of course Apple and the rumored iSlate (or whatever). Google has over 300 services and products... keep an eye on Google Voice. And the blurring of the lines between Apple, iPhone, and Kindle. Apple's tablet will supersede the Kindle for lots in Apple land. Dave thinks the OS will be something other than what we currently know. Michael thinks it'll be Mac OS X Touch for the record. The price point is a challenge for the Kindle once the iSlate appears.

That's a wrap. You can find Dave at http://davetayloronline.com and Michael at http://friendmichael.com . You can find the show at http://boulderopenpodcast.com, iTunes, and http://callisto.fm

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06 Getting people on board (AKA The 7 Second Lamar Edit) 1.mp3 (17572 KB)

Boulder Open Podcast Episode 6: Getting people on board (AKA The 7 Second Lamar Edit). Social media - is it good for people that aren't already plugged in? Which tools are best? Not Tweetie vs. Tweetdeck, but more Facebook vs. LinkedIn vs. Twitter vs. Blogging, or a Podcast. What does Michael suggest for his mom? When she was looking for a job, he suggested LinkedIn because resumes are passe - no one really uses them anymore. Her concern was more about people finding her that she didn't want to talk to - the same with Facebook. His advice, just don't accept friendship requests from those people. It can't be an age thing, plenty of people 60+ are on these networks and love being there. Dave's answer? Connect with the people you want to, and pass on the others. It can be a tricky situation - it may lead to awkwardness in meatspace social situations. Friendships are accepted in some cases that wouldn't normally be, but one can just hide their updates from the news feed (in Facebook).There are benefits, but long time friendships (people from the past) may not be a compelling enough reason - maybe a better angle is being able to keep up with other family member happenings. Videos, Tweets, etc. Michael's relationship with his parents isn't one of constant contact, but far more casual - once a month or so via phone. His dad is everywhere (not as participatory as some, but he's there). His dad was one of the six people that bought a Droid too (it's a joke dad, I know you love it!). Not everyone needs these networks of course, but they can certainly be fun. Facebook is the premier social network. You can find some great stuff in the pages and groups. There was a special on the local CBS affiliate - a guy posted a toy drive on his Facebook page and it increased toy donations significantly. Topic two: Which tool is right for you? Dave's a blogger, and tweets, etc. Which is better? Dave dislikes people that feed tweets to Facebook. Now Michael knows why Dave doesn't see his updates in Facebook. Each network has update frequency expectations (no rules of course, just expectations). For LinkedIn, it would be weird if people updated every 2 hours. It would be odd to not update that frequently on Twitter. |-) Seeing the same updates in Twitter and Facebook isn't OK with Dave. Where's the line? If "I" wanted to follow you on Twitter I would, so don't send your Twitter updates to Facebook. Michael has his Twitter connected to Facebook, and *never* updates Facebook specifically. The Twitter Facebook updater doesn't include @replies. There's one app that filters the Tweet and looks for #fb and only populates Facebook with that one. Better filters FTW! Dave thinks the filtering possibilities in the news feed have taken a step backwards. Michael thinks it's fine. Twitter is for short form blogging? Has Twitter replaced blogging for many? Dave says the shorter the message, the harder it is to have a meaningful conversation. Broadcast media (30 years ago) had lots of investigative journalism. Today, stories are a minute or two (and they are all about things blowing up and people dying). The same thing is happening with Twitter. Dave prefers the long form review of a movie for example though there are people that really shouldn't elaborate too much. Pick the conversations that suit you and use that medium. Is regular blogging too much of a pain for the n00b? There are lots of great blogging platforms that make long form blogging relatively easy to set up. Five minutes later you have a platform! Speaking of screwing around.. is Lamar's project up? :) How much time are you going to invest in the conversation? In the beginning, there is none... it takes time to build any kind of audience. Follow people that are interesting to you as a start. How to get new friends? Engage in a conversation with people that have more followers and/or influence. [The problem is that the option for everyone to see @replies to people they don't follow is gone baby, gone. A trick to getting that functionality is to put a . in front of the @ when replying] Snipe friends from your friends follower/following lists. When requesting friendship on Facebook or LinkedIn state in the request why you want to be friends - even if it's simple "we go to the same church." Dave gets half a dozen requests a week from people he has no connection to. He ignores them. Check out http://twtrfrnd.com to see how well new followers fit into your circle. Which people do you have in common? Please don't give your Twitter credentials to sites! Experiment, and have fun. This is episode 6, thanks for listening! Find us at http://callisto.fm For more, see http://boulderopenpodcast.com Brought to you by DuctTape® Because without it, it would be really hard to be a parent!

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05 Boulder Open Podcast Episode 5_ Subzero (Oh, and Google!).mp3 (18044 KB)

Boulder Open Podcast Episode 5: Subzero (Oh, and Google!) Google is a popular topic. Google Chrome is finally released for the Mac. Yet another browser to test against as developers. Chrome renders the same as webkit (Safari) so how much do we really need to test? Chrome OS isn't going after Windows or Mac, it's about Netbooks and set-top devices. Linux is running the Boxee device. The network is the computer (so said Scott McNealy of Sun back in the day) - oh so far ahead of it's time. Sun will soon become a part of Oracle. Chrome is a decent browser. Michael uses IE8 on Windows. Chrome on the Mac doesn't have extensions today so it's fast. Dave says GMail is slower than it used to be. (brief GMail speed test). What's the point? Do we need another browser? There is plenty of innovation in Chrome. Each page is a process, each plugin is too. Harder to crash. Apple implemented some of the same features that were in Chrome. Dave spends about 50% of his time in the browser, Michael is about 80%. Michael uses Mail.app instead of web based email. Competition breeds evolution. Chrome is more of a competitor to Firefox since it is the only other major browser that runs on all other systems. Chrome should present files in the browser in a sexy way, instead it looks like NCSA Mosaic. Google Chrome OS boots from a dongle which makes it really easy to play with. Would you trust that source? We really protect our Google account names like we used to our bank accounts. Archived email contains receipts and reminders - lots of private data if someone gets into your email. Lots of personal stuff. Michael purges the Trash and Junk folders and stores all of his email on his me.com account - even from other email accounts. Don't rely on the cloud separately. How does Michael back up email if it's all in the cloud? Mail.app keeps a local cached copy of the email stored on the server. Then Michael's email is backed up by TimeMachine. Three copies. Google offline is no longer in the labs. Google is killing Gears because of HTML 5 specs. A company is selling an external keypad for GMail commands (that's just silly, really). Apple went through great pains to make HTML 5 work in Safari (webkit) - it was ahead of it's time. Google was right to use it instead of Firefox. IE8 is nice, Safari 4 is rock solid. Michael tests HyperSites in 14 browsers (Mac, Linux, and Windows). Michael's media center runs Windows 7. Dave's HP laptop doesn't do full screen Hulu well at all. Michael thinks it's the on-board video card or the driver itself. Background processes might be to blame too. The MacBook Pro screams with Hulu. Dave wants a Mac Mini sized media center - Michael's is too big. Boxee released hardware - they worked with D-Link. Boxee doesn't do Hulu but gets around it by integrating Firefox which Hulu allows. There's no spoofing going on so it's all good. Michael and his wife Heather spent about four hours tooling around the new Boxee content. See http://boxee.tv for more. They were announced last year at CES, so this time will be a huge return for them. Boxee was going to embed their software into other devices. Boxee is the perfect software for a TV directly or a Blu-ray player. TVs will have built-in WIFI, etc. expect more at CES. Built-in wireless HDMI over WIFI sounds cool. Dave mentions a standard for up to three yards (ultra-wideband?) he saw at CES. WIFI is going to be too crowded with all of these devices and it'll be reflected with dropped frame rates. Thanks to Townsend & Townsend ( http://townsend.com ) for the space for this show! For more, see http://boulderopenpodcast.com

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04 Boulder Open Podcast Episode 4_ We need filters!.mp3 (5344 KB)

Episode 4: We need filters! Surprisingly spammy stuff is coming from otherwise reputable people on Twitter. World AIDS Day excluded, the MacBook Pro contest is nothing more than free advertising for the company offering the device. The people screaming about ads in their stream are the same ones trying to win the MacBook. So much of Social Media is binary - on or off. Facebook is making it harder to not follow app updates. Dave liked the idea that he could have his own filter on his stream. He's OK with people trying to win a MacBook, but doesn't want to hear about people drinking Martinis. Michael occasionally puts tags into his tweet stream such as -MacBook to signal the people that he'd like those words to disappear from his stream. Atebits (the makers of Tweetie for Mac (and iPhone) will be releasing filters! How much control over the filters will we have? -"MacBook Pro Giveaway" like Google? Dave's on board. Michael wil be happy when he can -Foursquare -"Mayor of" and -"Ousted" or humorously anything within three tweets of a Foursquare tweet. Don't forget to check out the other podcast we do at http://threeinsight.com with Doyle Albee from Metzger Associates.

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03 Boulder Open Podcast Episode 3 Monetizing the stream.mp3 (16556 KB)

Advertising and/in social media. Monetizing the "social stream." Dave signed up for Ad.ly, and sent a tweet offering the link to his followers. The link he sent was an affiliate link. A few cried foul, and one unfollowed him. No ads have gone out as of yet. Maybe a lot of flitter about nothing? A small subset says "eek" and unfollows when things like this happen. It'll be no more than one tweet in the stream every two days. Sounds un-intrusive given the number of tweets Dave sends out. Michael views Twitter as a personal conversation. Scenario to prove a point: A group of friends are hanging out at a bar, and one stands up and spouts out an a (completely out of context) "Have you heard about the new blah blah blah?" Dave sees that as awkward too, but throws out another scenario or two. No one knows what the ads are going to look like. Maybe it'll contextual, gives a Clooney movie reference. Ad.Ly asked Dave to categorize his tweets, he said only "Film" and as long as ads are centered around cinema it'll be ok. Dave suggests that the friend mentioned above could share the revenue with the table... but that's not the case. It gets fuzzy, and the less you tweet the less annoying it'll be. There's a clear delineation between commercial flavored twitter account, and a personal account. Ads in the commercial flavor might be more acceptable. How does all of this affect those of us that link our twitter accounts to all of our other accounts? Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, MySpace (lol.). What are you trying to accomplish with you social media participation? Dave notes his followers are interested in how he's using SM, and how he's making money. That subset is interested in the ads, from the statistical standpoint. Twitter clients need filtering. If ads were tagged with [adv] then we could filter them out. Problem solved. Tweetie? You listening? Following is black and white right now, and filtering gives us some grey area to play in. Dave follows very few based on his follower count. As does Michael. It's about 3 to 1 for Michael Event hashtags can get annoying, but filters again would fix that issue too. Magpie, Dave signed up for that, no one noticed (except that one guy again). Michael unfollowed plenty of people because his twitter stream was just crammed with people jumping on the Magpie bandwagon. Total insanity. Facebook is doing a great job with ads. They're using and self control, and the user is benefitting. Don't over saturate. Examine the user's twitter stream for relevant ad quantities, say a minimum is 5% of the tweets, and a max of twice a day? Neat idea. People that are 100% in to monetizing the stream aren't people Michael is going to follow anyway. Content needs to be about more than your product of service, then you'll get friends and followers. We have 2 listeners, right? This one is relevant baby! That's a wrap. For more on Dave Taylor, find him at http://davetayloronline.com and for more on Michael, check out http://friendmichael.com

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Boulder-Open-Podcast _e2.mp3 (24690 KB)

Google Andrioid, on the Verizon DROID. iPhone beginning to lose luster with Dave. iCal issues mostly to blame, but the network still stinks. Boulder is full of people ready to jump ship. AT&T sues Verizon, kind of legit says Michael. DROID has fewer apps, the ecosystem is what drives the iPhone these days. A good platform only needs great apps in the major categories. Android feels like Linux to Michael, hardware is cool, but the OS isn't great. Dave's reviewing a Sansa MP3 player, the Sansa has some neat features - Slot Radio for example... $30 for 1,000 songs based on a category. Hard rock not so much, the 80's music is more Dave's style. Very meaningful to have competition in all areas - MP3, phone, etc. - we're happy that people are trying. Apple appealed to geeky unix users (the prosumer?) and that helped Apple sell to the majority. Verizon/Google/Motorola/etc might be doing the same? Google turn by turn is free on Android - and would release it on iPhone if Apple would allow it. iWork is competition for Google Docs and Microsoft Office online. Windows 7 is an effort to become more competitve. Hoping iPhone 4 will drive competition further. iPhone scheduler needs tweaking (LOL!). iPhone comparisons are subjective. Not everyone has the same experience. It's a "perfect" device for Michael since he doesn't use the phone features that much. Apple needs to "Snow Leapord" the iPhone OS. A restore has taken all day for Dave... a new cable fixed it. Droid sells 100,000 units the first weekend. All you need these days is 10% market, look at Apple, BMW, etc. Apple kills it in the > $1,500 laptop market. The DeLL Adamo is on the way, for $2,200. Brief BSG detour (sorry). AT&T's best is iPhone, Verizon has Eris and DROID, Sprint has the Palm Pre, T-Mobile has the G2. Dave had a review unit for the G1. Told them he needed screen capture - they told him to "root" it. Total break down, no coverage. Let people take a screen shot to document things. Dave's daughter has 100 screen shots from Cooking Mama for example. Success with the DROID isn't really important, that it exists is the key. Waiting for Ari's input on the DROID. The dead spot on the hill "doesn't exist." Boulder Valley is the Bermuda Triangle for AT&T. Wrap.

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