Todd Cochrane (Blubrry, GeekNewsCentral), creator of the People’s Choice Podcast Awards, is looking for a new home for the event:

I am working on my plan for the 2008 People’s Choice Podcast Awards. I am looking at some major changes, part of it has to do that we have no venue at New Media Expo this year.

We have been able to hold the event on a very small budget in the past, and I do not think this is possible this year with the NME being in Vegas the cost are considerably higher. I am open to suggestions.

If you’ve got ideas for Todd or can help line up a venue, let him know.

In the last year or so, everybody and their mother seems to have taken time off from the social media fad of the day to blog that podcasting is dead:

• Information Week says podcasting is dead.
• John Dvorak says podcasting is dead.
• The Bioscience Education Journal says podcasting is dead.
• PodShow thinks podcasting is dead, so it changed its name to Mevio.

Somebody forgot to tell Urban Outfitters, though. That, or they know that the audience for podcasts grew about 40% in the last year.

Urban Outfitters is selling a $120 Podcasting Kit.

You know – for the kids!

The Ion Audio U Cast features a USB microphone, headphones, sound editing software and tools for publishing your podcast. It’s compatible with MAC (OSX or greater) and PC (Windows XP or Vista) compatible.

It’s interesting to see a podcasting kit mass marketed by a major retailer – but we’ve seen the Ion U Cast kit sell for a lot less!

Former Rocketboomer and ABC onliner Amanda Congdon‘ has a new gig – SometimesDaily:

The teaser proves Congdon’s still got a pair of fans – but will more tune in after her long  absence from podcasting? And is Jason Calacanis still ready to fight for her like a rabid dog?

We’ll see when SometimesDaily kicks off May 5th.

The latest episode of NYT’s Only In New York podcast celebrates the history of Take Me Out To The Ballgame.

The lyricist was Jack Norworth, a 29-year-old actor and monologist, who was performing that spring at Hammerstein’s in Midtown, and who had already written another classic, “Shine On Harvest Moon.”

Supposedly, Norworth was riding the old Ninth Avenue El when he spotted an ad for the Polo Grounds, the Giants’ home field, in upper Manhattan. For whatever reason, he drew a doodle of a slightly frazzled iconic New Yorker whom he named Katie Casey and wrote in pencil:

On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show but Miss Kate said No,
I’ll tell you what you can do —

The immortal chorus followed, including the enviable product placement for “Cracker Jack” and the “one … two … three strikes yer out,” which forever glorified not the hit, but the pitch.

The composer was Albert Von Tilzer, a soulful 30-year-old former shoe salesman in Brooklyn — as the authors say, there’s no business like shoe business. His music was being featured at the time in a Lincoln Square Theater burlesque about an Irish politician’s son who falls in love with his father’s German political rival.

You can preview this audio history of baseball’s greatest hit below . The NYT site has a full list of their podcasts.

Image: McBeth

ABC wants to test your limits to see how much advertising you’re willing to sit through to watch Lost, Desperate Housewives & other shows online

According to a Hollywood Reporter article, Disney-ABC Television Group plans to test inserting multiple commercials into ad breaks for primetime series on its broadband player.

“It would be premature for us to say people only want one ad,” said Albert Cheng, executive vp digital media at DATG. “We want to push it a little bit to see how it would go.”

Cheng believes the key to sustaining viewer interest in ads is tailoring them for the Internet. Although most Web ads simply are reformatted 30-second video from on-air, he noted that ABC research indicated dramatically higher results for commercials that encouraged interactivity like casual gaming.

“Those who package 30-second spots into the ad pod do poorly,” Cheng said. If research shows that users don’t want more ads per break, Disney won’t pursue that strategy, he added.

ABC would be wise to test a broader variety of options. The company’s current technology for ad insertion is weak, encouraging online viewers to check their email or switch to other tasks for the duration of the ads. Shorter ads that are much more targeted could go a long way towards minimizing this.

Another sign that the iPhone is the new laptop: Google announced today that Google News is now available formatted for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Today, we’re happy to announce that Google News is now available to iPhone and iPod Touch users in over 30 countries. This means that you’ll see a full-fledged version of Google News on these devices, improved Google News results and, where available, relevant YouTube videos embedded with news stories.

There are a few ways to get to Google News using your iPhone or iPod Touch:

• Go to www.google.com, click on the “more” tab and follow the link to Google News
• Go to www.google.com and do a search, then click on the News link at the top of the screen
• Go directly to Google News at http://news.google.com in your browser

Google automatically recognizes your iPhone or iPod touch’s browser User Agent and formats the page correctly.

ooVoo has announced the launch of a Mac version of its free video chat client & recorder.

With the new Mac version, users will be able to connect face-to-face with up to six people at once, regardless of whether they on Mac or PC. ooVoo Mac’s features include the ability to send and receive video messages, exchange files and text chat messages, as well as import contacts from other programs.

ooVoo’s multi-party video chat, with a resolution of 320 x 240 at up to 15 frames per second, can be used with a standard broadband internet connection and requires 128 Kbps (up and down) of throughput.

Full system requirements for this software version include:

• Power Mac – G5 with 1Ghz or Intel Mac with 256MB of RAM
• 20MB Hard disk space
• Mac compatible Webcam and Headset
• Broadband connection
• Tiger, Leopard (OSX 10.4 and up)

Details at the ooVoo site.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York today made public a decision in the proceeding to determine reasonable license fees to be paid to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo! for their online performance of musical works. Total payments to be made to ASCAP and its membership by these three services for that time period could reach $100 million

The decision covers license fees for periods starting as far back as July 1, 2002, and continuing through December 31, 2009, for the performance of musical works in the ASCAP repertory by AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo.

“It is critical that these organizations share a reasonable portion of their sizable revenues with those of us whose content attracts audiences and, ultimately, helps to make their businesses viable,” said ASCAP President and Chairman, Marilyn Bergman. “This decision will go a long way toward protecting the ability of songwriters and composers to be compensated fairly as the use of musical works online continues to grow.”

While the decision may be a boon for songwriters, it may limit the growth of Internet music offerings.

MacRumors reports that AT&T hotspots are now offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users.

Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and presumably AT&T’s 71,000 other Wi-fi hotspot locations are now offering iPhone users a custom portal to access free Wi-Fi. A special iPhone formatted page asks for your mobile phone number. Once entered, you can access the Wi-Fi access for free.

MacRumors has been able to confirm this finding at a local Barnes and Noble. Blurry photo provided:

AT&T recently partnered with Starbucks (displacing T-Mobile) to provide Wi-Fi access to Starbucks’ 7000 stores nationwide. This partnership allowed existing AT&T broadband customers free access and AT&T promised that it would “soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers”, but no official announcement has yet been made.

Even better – this functionality is based on the iPhone’s user agent – which is easily imitated with the browser on your computer.

We haven’t had a chance to give this a try yet. If you’re at one of AT&T’s 71,000 hotspots today, give this a try and let us know how it works!

Update: This service appears to have been disabled, at least for now. No official word on this from AT&T.

According to a Hollywood Reporter report – Apple’s iTunes store will be getting more movies and getting them sooner.

Apple is expected to announce today that it has struck a deal with a wide array of movie studios to sell new releases at its iTunes Store. The move would come as many bricks & morter options for renting and purchasing DVDs are disappearing.

Apple has been criticized for the limited number of movies available through iTunes and on the Apple TV. We noted earlier this year that iTunes lags about 89,000 movies behind NetFlix.

The new agreements would help address address that; it is expected to involve Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate and New Line.

Update: Apple has now made this announcement official.