Podcast Solutions, the “complete guide to podcasting” co-authored by award-winning podcaster (and Kindle fan) Michael Geoghegan, is now available on the Amazon Kindle.

Geoghegan is the creator of wine podcast Grape Radio (for which he won a James Beard award), and the behind-the-scenes Disney podcast, among others, and creator-facilitator of the Podcast Academy.

We first reviewed the book when it came out (in paper) several years ago. The book, now in a second edition, is still a good resource for content creators who want to produce professional-quality podcasts. There are detailed explanations on every aspect of the medium, and lots of resources discussed when the reader needs to look elsewhere for greater depth of information.

Zune Insider says that programming from “educational” TV network PBS is available starting today from the Zune Video Marketplace.  Shows available for download include public television viewer favorites: Ken Burns’ Jazz, America and American Lives; NOVA, Wired Science, Scientific American Frontiers and, later this week, Carrier.

For even more intellectually enriching Zune content (edutainment?), the Zune Luv podcast and blog recently listed some resources for free audiobooks for the Zune from Audible, eMusic and Overdrive.

Motrin has found itself in the middle of a new media disaster as a result of a heavy handed ad internet ad campaign campaign that makes fun of people that wear their babies in slings (above).

The narration takes a poke at moms (and dads) that wear baby slings – suggesting that they are akin to a fashion accessory:

Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean, in theory it’s a great idea. There’s the front baby carrier, sling, schwing, wrap, pouch. And who knows what else they’ve come up with. Wear your baby on your side, your front, go hands free. Supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience.

The video isn’t extremely offensive, but it’s unfunny and disrespectful of the audience it’s trying to target.

The result?

A lot of pissed-off parents. Parents that have tweeted about it, called for a boycott, and even created a response video.

Here’s a graph of Twitter mentions of “motrin” for the last few days:

Unfortunately for Motrin, nearly all the buzz is negative.

If you’re interested in recording audio with your iPhone, you’ve got a lot of choices.

The latest option, Motion Apps’ $1.99 mVoice (App Store link), lets you record voice notes, memos, reminders, lectures, to-do’s, interviews or anything else that you don’t want to forget.

Features:

• Intuitive, easy to use and cool user interface
• Unlimited recording length – record for seconds or hours
• Customizable recording quality – from dictaphone to studio-like
• Get your recordings on PC or Mac using web browser and WiFi
• Organize your recordings into categories
• Pause / Resume recording sessions
• Powerful playback features as seen on iPod and VisualVoiceMail
• Append new audio to existing recordings

President-elect Barack Obama kicks off his weekly new media address with this video.

Obama plans to publish weekly addresses to YouTube as President, a milestone in the adoption of new media. It will be a little strange to see Obama competing for views against Fred, but it’s sure to drive new audiences to Internet video.

Obama’s campaign was all over the Internet, using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, among other sites. One can only wonder what other ways Obama will use Internet media over the next four years.

Mainstream Internet video startup Hulu has posted a collection of videos that explain the site’s video sharing features.

While you can’t share your personal videos on Hulu, the site at least makes it easy to embed videos in blog posts, share on social medi sites and email.

Now, if they’d just make embeddable videos permanently available!

Griffin has introduced iTalk Premium (App Store link), which is basically an ad-free version of its iTalk iPhone recording app. 

Griffin iTalk lets you record on the iPhone or 2G iPod touch. Your recordings are saved for replay on your iPhone or iPod, and you can use iTalk Sync (a free download) to drag-and-drop them as AIFF files to your computer over a Wi-Fi connection.

Features:

• Choose from Good/Better/Best quality levels.
• Pause/resume and append to existing recordings on the fly.
• Append text notes to your recordings for later reference.
• The one-button recording interface is designed for quick, easy operation in the field, and simple management of your recordings.

iTalk System Requirements: iPhone, iPhone 3G, or 2nd generation iPod touch (2G iPod Touch requires Apple Stereo Headset or similar compatible headset) Wi-Fi connection for transfer of files to computer (iTalk Sync is available for Mac OS 10.4.11+ and will be available for Windows soon)

Information technology research firm Gartner reports that “protail” video – their term for the segment between professionally produced content and user-generated content - is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of the online video marketplace, and is providing advertisers a safe, targeted inventory in which they can place ads.

While Gartner’s choice of terms may be a bit unfortunate, they highlight that video created by hardcore amateurs is creating an important new audience for advertisers. 

The volume of this category of content has grown as much as 600 percent in the past year. Worldwide “protail” advertising revenue is expected to total $75 million in 2008, and grow in excess of $1.5 billion by 2012. 

Gartner defines “protail” as the segment between professionally produced content and user-generated content and consists of the short clips that make up the majority of content on such sites as YouTube and Metacafe. Typical traits include higher-quality production and content produced in a more consistent or episodic manner.

For the second year in a row, Blubrry’s Todd Cochrane plans to abuse his body in the name of podcasting by hosting a 24-Hour Podcast Marathon – a non stop, 24-hour live streaming event that will cover podcasting, technology, new media, podcast advertising and a host of other topics.

This year’s 24hr Podcast event kicks off on Saturday Nov 22nd at 11am EST and finishes up 24hrs later.

Todd has a number of slots open for podcasters that want to share their stories and talk about their podcasts. Last year nearly 30 segments were recorded.

The New Tee Vee conference is underway today in San Francisco. Om Malik, one of the conference’s founders, says they started the event “in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video.”

This year’s gathering features panels and presentations from people involved in “old tee vee” (the creator of the CSI: series, a writer for the popular Heroes program, and execs from ABC/Disney and Fox). They are mixed in with executives from “new” online television outfits Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube, and with the creators of new media (Alive In Baghdad, Fred, Boing Boing).

It sounds like a wonderful slate of speakers and topics. I love San Francisco, and I wish I was there today.

But then, I was reading Dave Winer’s post about watching the conference on its livestream via Ustream. He mentions that he’s following the conference, while also browsing, Twittering, “and listening with about 1/12th of my mind.” More often than not, I end up doing that even while attending a conference, not just watching remotely.

I began to wonder: has new media permanently changed the way we look at conferences?

People participating in a conference are increasingly connected to the rest of the world. Think about the role that back-channel snarking on Twitter played in the acceleration of the audience hostility during Sarah Lacy’s disastrous interview of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

If you can’t make it to a conference, you can still watch it via streaming, watch attendees’ Twitter streams, or catch up on sessions when they are published as podcasts, just to name a few alternatives.

Does it still make sense to spend a lot of money to attend a conference, when you can get the same information online for free?

I might argue that the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made at workshops and conferences are priceless. But “priceless” can be hard to quantify, especially when you’re spending thousands of dollars to get to a conference.  Are the connections you can make with other attendees and presenters worth it?

Conference organizers themselves are questioning the financial burden of putting on big events in big venues. Tim Bourquin, organizer of the New Media Expo, echoed the worries of many when he talked about the many reasons that have made trade shows more difficult and less rewarding (in every sense of the phrase). Even un-conferences like PodCamp Boston, have found it necessary to re-think the expenses incurred when registered participants turn into no-shows.

So, I ask you readers this: can conference organizers use new media to keep conferences relevant?

Or does new media render the traditional conference obsolete?

Let me know what you think.

Image: Frank Meeuwsen