CNet has an interesting interview with Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor on his recent experiment with Saul Williams’ debut CD, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust.

Reznor and Williams made NiggyTardust available as a free download, but also let you purchase a higher-quality version for a nominal fee. In the interview, Reznor talks about his frustration with the level of interest in purchasing the CD:

Saul and I went at this thing with the right intentions. We wanted to put out the music that we believe in. We want to do it as unencumbered and as un-revenue-ad-generated and un-corporate-affiliated as possible. We wanted it without a string attached, without the hassle, without the bait and switch, or the “Now you can buy the s**** version if you buy…” No, no, we said: “Here it is. At the same time, it’d be nice if we can cover the costs and perhaps make a living doing it.”

It kind of gets into the bigger picture that you’ve had to face as a musician over the last few years, which in my mind was a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s pretty far down the hatch with me now: the way things are, I think music should be looked at as free. It basically is. The toothpaste is out of the tube and a whole generation of people is accustomed to music being that way. There’s a perception that you don’t pay for music when you hear it on the radio or MySpace.

Reznor goes on to suggest taxing your Internet connection to pay for music:

In my mind, I think if there was an ISP tax of some sort, we can say to the consumer, “All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up your a– if you want, and it’s $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill.”

The middling results of the two most talked about new music experiments of 2007 suggest that prospects for the music industry and musicians is worse than even skeptics imagined.

Daily traffic to video-sharing sites such as YouTube has doubled in the last year and the number of women visiting has doubled, too.

According to the latest research by Pew Internet:

• 48% of internet users said they had ever visited a video-sharing site such as YouTube. A year ago, in December 2006, 33% of internet users said they had ever visited such sites. That represents growth of more than 45% year-to-year.
• 15% of respondents said they had used a video-sharing site “yesterday” — the day before they were contacted for our survey. A year ago, 8% had visited such a site “yesterday.” Thus, on an average day, the number of users of video sites nearly doubled from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007
• Nearly a third of wired young adults (30%) watch a video on a site like YouTube on a typical day and fully a fifth of online men (20%) do the same.
• The percent of women who visit a video site on an average day jumped from 5% to 11%.
• The percent of those ages 30 to 49, whose use on a typical day increased from 7% to 14% (or an increase of 100%)
• The percent ofhigh school graduates, whose use on a typical day grew from 5% to 13% (or an increase of 160%).

The spread of broadband is partially responsible for the increased popularity of video sites. The survey found that 54% of all adults now have high-speed connections at home.

Back in August, we took ReadWriteWeb to task for publishing a gloom and doom take on the state of podcasting.

RRW’s article suggested that podcasting was stagnating, that podcasting was losing steam and that it was even going out of fashion.

At the time, we said that ReadWriteWeb was clueless about podcasting. We called their argument “not just bad, but spectacularly bad.” We went on to say that the article’s author not only failed “to understand what a podcast is, but he apparently doesn‚Äôt understand basic technology adoption patterns.”

Yeah – we were a bit harsh – but it had to be said.

Fortunately, a lot has changed since August at RRW:

• They’ve started their own podcast, ReadWriteTalk.
• They’ve hired some great new writers, including the optimally wired Marshall Kirkpatrick.
• They’ve developed into the thinking geek’s TechCrunch.

Best of all, they’ve gotten a clue about podcasting.

Today they admitted that podcasting is “far from dead.” Let’s hope that this is a sign of more insightful coverage to come.

ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick reports that Wizzard Media, the owners of the Libsyn, Switchpod and Blast Podcast networks, will announce tomorrow that it passed the 1 billion download mark in 2007.

It’s an impressive number, one that’s sure to generate a lot of buzz for both Wizzard and podcasting.

It’s been an interesting ride for Wizzard. Here are some of the company’s podcasting milestones:

• In September of 2006, we reported that Wizzard had acquired podcast hosting service providers Switchpod.com and Blast Podcast.
• In October 2006, Wizzard announced that it was buying Libsyn and that it had secured $1,750,000 investments.
• By the end of 2006, Wizzard declared themselves the largest podcast network in the world.
• In early 2007, Wizzard announced its revenues for 2006. The company recorded record revenues of $2,943,578, thanks in part to (we‚Äôre not making this up!) ‚ÄúRex‚Äù – the talking pill bottle.
• In May of 2007, we reported that Wizzard was serving up over 70,000,000 podcast episodes per month.
• By July, they’d nabbed another $7.5 million in equity financing.
• In September 2007, they announced a partnership with Nielsen/NetRatings to offer certified download data. According to Wizzard, certified download numbers will bring ‚Äúa new level of accountability to podcast ad sales.‚Äù
• In November, they announced a massive 20-podcast advertising deal with the US Navy.

1-billion podcast served is an interesting milestone for Wizzard. What’s really interesting, though, is that Wizzard has demonstrated that it can execute on podcasting’s potential.

NewsGator announced that all of its client RSS reader products are now available free of charge, including NetNewsWire 3.1, FeedDemon 2.6, and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile 2.0. The public beta of NewsGator Inbox 3.0 also began today.

“It‚Äôs all about ubiquity,” said Greg Reinacker, NewsGator CTO and founder. “We found that the more people that used our system, the more relevant we could make the product for each user. By making it easier for knowledge workers to use our clients we dramatically increase the size of our user community. Enterprises that then deploy our server can take advantage of the synchronization and increased relevance for every user supported by the system. Likewise, we can extend these capabilities to our online platform, which currently serves well over 1 million consumers and indexes 7 million new articles per day.”

Using NewsGator products and solutions, you can subscribe to news, information, podcasts and other relevant content efficiently. Users have access to RSS information via the Web, Microsoft Outlook, mobile devices and both Windows- and Mac-based desktop clients.

CES: Digital video recorder purveyor TiVo Inc. has announced that its subscribers will soon be able to select Internet video (i.e. podcasts!) for playback on televisions, expanding the digital recording service’s capabilities beyond TV offerings.

The new feature, announced Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show, will let users apply their “Season Pass” recording capabilities to video content available via RSS feeds. Users would need to use TiVo’s software on PCs for the feature, though TiVo said it will provide a guide within its TV-based menu system to record select Web video sources as well.

Here’s TiVo’s explanation of how it works:

TiVo users can subscribe to and watch a broad range of content available on Real Simple Syndication (“RSS”) feeds, including everything from network nightly newscasts, to vignettes and original content from major networks such as Comedy Central or Discovery, as well as niche interest and hobbyist videos covering areas far more specialized than cable and satellite channels, not to mention new, independently produced media content such as DiggNation and Ask A Ninja.

The Web video recording capability is scheduled to launch in March concurrent with a new version of the TiVo desktop software, which will cost $24.95 for new users (and is a free upgrade for current users).

If TiVo’s base of users adopts the idea of subscribing to video podcasts, television and Internet television start to blur into one. This could be the start of something big for video podcasting.

Update: “Content creators have about a month and a half to figure out the technical details including the right kind of filetype and feed,” says Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron. “The people who do decide to figure it out BEFORE TiVo unleashes this feature, will likely be in a TINY minority. Thus, it could be a great opportunity to try and stick out from the pack.”

Mark Hopkins at Mashable adds “This is clearly a good thing for online purveyors of video, and couldn‚Äôt come at a better time for independent producers, who will be willing and available to fill the gaps of entertaining content brought about by the WGA strike.”

Update 2: More big news for podcasting – Wizzard Media has announced that it served up 1 billion podcasts in 2007.

CES: Taser may get the prize this year for introducing the most stupidtactular product at the Consumer Electronics Show – a leopard-print “fashion Taser,” with an MP3 player holster.

While everybody else was putting iPod docks onto televisions and refrigerators and speakerphones, Taser had the audacity to something truly unique and, well, possibly insane!

The $379.99 TASER C2 and matching $72.99 MP3 player holster let you listen to your tunes anywhere, like other portable media players.

But unlike your iPod, the Taser C2 offers neuromuscular incapacitation!

The C2 has a replaceable cartridge, containing compressed nitrogen, that launches two small probes that are attached to the C2 by insulated conductive wires at attackers or victims up to 15 feet away. The C2 transmits electrical pulses along the wires and into the body, affecting the sensory and motor functions of the peripheral nervous system. The energy can penetrate up to two inches of clothing.

“Don’t tase me, bro,” never sounded so good!

Yahoo today announced a new free browser-based MP3 player that you can use and freely embed in your page.

Here’s how it works:

• You add links to MP3s in your web page. These can be anywhere on the web.
• You add a line of code to insert Yahoo’s Javascript library.
• Working play buttons appear next to MP3s in your page. Click on them and it brings up an MP3 player.

It sounds kind of cool, at first glance. In fact, the guys at TechCrunch are calling this “a good thing”.

They’re wrong. Here’s why:

• First of all, Yahoo’s player duplicates the functionality of a lot of existing Flash-based MP3 players. If you’ve got MP3s to share, there are free plugins for the popular blogging platforms that embed players into your pages.
• You don’t want to outsource control of your site’s look or functionality to a third party. If you put a middle man between your content and your audience, they can change the features, introduce advertising and even hijack your content at any time. It’s happened before.
• You especially don’t want to rely on Yahoo for this. Remember how Yahoo unceremoniously killed their podcast portal last year? They could drop support for this MP3 player at any time, which would break every page that you used their player on.

Steer clear of Yahoo’s MP3 player like the plague. If you really want to see it in action, though, you can check it out below.

Open Source nerds, rejoice: This week, The Linux Foundation is launching a podcast series, Open Voices, featuring conversations with “the leaders of open source.”

The series kicks off with the first of a two-part conversation with with Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux Operating System, and fellow at the Linux Foundation. Part II will be available in early February. In this interview, Torvalds maintains his insistence that he does not plan to license the Linux kernel under version three of the GNU General Public License anytime soon.

Upcoming Open Voices installments will feature President and CEO of networking pioneer Novell, Ron Hovsepian; Martin Mickos, CEO of Open Source database company MySQL; and Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the community developed, linux-based operating system Ubuntu Project.

CES: JBL introduced the JBL On Stage IIIP high-performance loudspeaker docking station for use with the new iPhone.

It comes equipped with an IR remote for iPod track selection, menu navigation and volume
control; it also includes a mini stereo jack for use with non-iPhone/-iPod devices. And with the option of AC power or battery operation, the JBL On Stage IIIP docking station can be used at home or on the go.

Incorporating the Apple iPod Universal Dock adapter, the JBL On Stage IIIP system is compatible with all docking iPod models and the iPhone. And the JBL On Stage IIIP system’s OnePoint design lets the user charge a docked iPod or iPhone, and enables connectivity with a USB 2.0 cable for synchronizing an iPod or iPhone with a Mac or PC.

Pricing and Availability

The JBL On Stage IIIP system has a suggested retail price of $169.95, it will be available in February 2008 online at www.jbl.com and at quality retailers nationwide.