Watch Arabic Tv Online

Byline: Robert MacMillan

The great thing about the Internet is that it keeps people occupied for hours or whole days with their personal Web sites, blogs and now, podcasts. Even former VP nominee John Edwards is wowing Democratic foot soldiers with a podcast of him and wife Elizabeth talking about March Madness, breast cancer, blogging... and, sigh , why President Bush's Social Security reform plan is such a stinker.

"[Edwards] is now one of the few politicians to venture into the world of podcasting," reporter Brian Faler wrote in an article that ran in today's Washington Post . "It is populated, mostly, by otherwise anonymous individuals who have posted recordings of themselves discussing everything from God to wine. Their audio files can be heard online or downloaded onto portable digital audio players." Faler said Republicans also are podcasting from the party's national committee Web site .

The Edwards-on-Edwards act already has one admiring reader, Bill Riski (whose Internet domain charms the pants off all of us here: riski.biz), who chimed in on Podcastingnews.com : "Amazing, just amazing. So refreshing to hear a politician in this candid fashion. Let's hope it does start a conversation with John Edwards, his wife, and an interested American community -- and that the result is more podcasts from them. Mark my words, in about one week this podcast will be all the buzz around Washington and the MSM (main stream media). March 2005 will be remembered as an inflection point in podcasting." Bill, tell us the truth, your real e-mail address begins " howard.dean @..."

Anyway, this podcasting phenomenon illustrates a law that I am sure exists, and probably has someone's name attached to it, like "Moore's Law" or "Murphy's Law." In this case I'm calling it "Robert's Law" until someone sets me straight. Here it is: The faster the rate of innovation, the more quickly the innovation grows stale. It sounded profound a moment ago, but now that I look at it, I bet that this is a well-known principle in any macro econ 101 lecture hall. At marketing agencies that try to enslave children through cookies and toys, I bet they call it "conventional wisdom."

Call it what you will, it's happening with podcasting now. People started delivering their opinions through online audio files, others started listening. And like other ideas that seem cool at first glance, it morphed into a fad and now it seems like everybody's doing it.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer even ran a how-to guide in an article today. It also provided the inspiring story of Brian Ibbott , whose www.coverville.com podcast reaches 10,000 to 14,000 listeners per show. That's nothing to Clear Channel or Viacom , but it's amazing for a total amateur. The P-I also asks the important question: "What kind of stuff is out there and what can you create? An oral blog -- it's your life, in sound files, baby. You can put together a radio program -- ever wished they played more Mark Sandman on the radio, less Nelly Furtado? On RadioYou, they do."

But when everybody's doing it, we stop listening. At least with blogs we can stop reading whenever we want and find another blog we want to read. Well-written, insightful blogs will survive and thrive, along with the demagogues who know how to talk to their audience without making them think too much.

Podcasting, on the other hand, sounds like pure hell for someone who considers "This American Life" or "Prairie Home Companion" to be ingenious torture methods. I don't mean that to sound like podcasting is a tool devised solely by liberals with suede elbow patches on their corduroy blazers. People allergic to being stuck in a traffic jam with Rush Limbaugh 's voice on the only radio station with good reception probably won't suffer podcasting gladly either.

Now I don't mean to sound like I'm "against" technology. The Web and all those "on-demand" technologies it fostered allow anyone to be a publisher, as the flabby, pasty-faced malcontent student informs the stuffy, scowling professor in that Xerox TV ad . Technology really is a great democratizing force all over the world. It will change our ways of communicating, hopefully for the better.

But that's a lot of high-level thinking. On the daily level, let's face two facts: Most of us have too much to do to concentrate on what our closest friends and relatives are saying, let alone thousands of people allowed to chatter away for as long as they want. And most of us, with unedited access to public communications channels, say boring things. You don't believe it? Watch cable access on any given day and get back to me.

What hopefully will happen with podcasting is what's happening with blogs, Web sites, bands and writers -- millions exist and some survive. Hopefully, the ones that make it will do so because they're fresh and good, and the rest of us will try our best not to bore you.

Graffiti Bridge

Here's a project that has New York University written all over it. Check that... Maybe I should say "Here's a project that has written all over New York University." Wired.com reports today on Grafedia , a project that allows people to interact with graffiti artists through their art. "Created by John Geraci , a graduate student in New York University's interactive telecommunications program, grafedia is part public art, part advertisement and part subversion. It's also a newfangled take on old-fashioned graffiti," Wired reported. The idea is that people see the e-mail address or keywords written on a wall. They enter that into their computers or phones and retrieve virtual images created by the artists.

Why? you ask? "Today, companies with big advertising budgets are the main players in interactive media, engaging in activities like online ad campaigns or billboards encouraging some sort of viewer involvement. Geraci would like to change that. 'Grafedia is the option for the little guy to get involved in that dialogue,' he said." Geraci also offers other deep thoughts: "Like, graffiti is so self-centered. It's like a dog pissing on a pole or something -- 'I was here.' Grafedia, at least the stuff I was trying to do, people see something totally new that they hadn't noticed."

So far, Wired reported, examples have turned up in New York and San Francisco, as well as in Brazil, France and England. Yes, very subversive. Expect young Basquiats to pop up all over middle America by 2050.

Now Hear This: Shut up

Technology is getting us to pay dearly to experience something that most of us no longer have: silence. The New York Times reports today that yoga and tai chi retreats -- even Carmelite convents -- are seeing a larger influx of refugees who seek asylum from noise. "More people seem to be coming to the same conclusion. Maybe it's a reaction to the endless brrrrrings of cellphones and the relentless barrage of messages by e-mail, fax and BlackBerry, but silence, for many, is becoming the great escape," the Times reported.

"At Sky Lake Lodge , a Shambhala retreat center in Rosendale, N.Y., centered on a Western form of Tibetan Buddhism, there is often a waiting list for 'Resting the Mind,' a weeklong silent retreat held every July. The White House Retreat , a Jesuit-run retreat center in St. Louis, is averaging 600 new participants a year, 'and more calls than ever before because we're on the Internet,' said Genevieve Eiler , the office manager."

Note to readers: If you know of any monasteries, convents or other religious retreats where the visitors are luxuriating in silence but the holy orders are digging their iPods, you know where to reach me .

Konundrum in Kyrgyzstan

Opposition forces now reign supreme in Kyrgyzstan , the latest ex-Soviet republic to fall out of the grasp of former apparatchiks and toadies. Even though several online news services based in the country's capital, Bishkek, seem to be unreachable via Internet, the Times of Central Asia remains up and running.

The Times has a nice online quiz space on its homepage as well, but today that quiz is devoted to more pressing matters than instability in the streets: "Kyrgyz registered NGO Muslim Women of Kyrgyzstan would like to introduce polygamy and hijab (clothing covering the full body). Do you think Kyrgyz people and the Parliament will support such request?"

I'm not sure that the women who would vote for this would be allowed to take the quiz, but I'm no expert. I did see a fascinating article just below that on an Austrian chocolate maker's joint venture with an Arabic camel farm to create camel milk chocolate, but that's a bit off-topic. PS, you have to register to read the articles, but the site is free. And if anyone has samples of camel-milk chocolate, please let me know.

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com .

COPYRIGHT 2005 Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group

Learn How To Tighten Your Belly Fat Fast - Sponsored Link
Ad - Read My Shocking Story How I Lost My Stomach Fat Without Dieting! :)