Hulu not only had the smartest Super Bowl ad last night, but they’ve put together an embeddable Super Bowl Ad Widget.

It’s a great idea, but their execution has one major flaw: Hulu is showing ads before the ads!

Fail!

Anyone who says thinks that advertising is dead on the Internet, though, only needs to look at the incredible discussion on Twitter last night (#superbowlads) to see that, while new media may change the rules, advertising can be as effective as ever.

This YouTube video game, described as the “first ever interactive photo hunt on YouTube,” makes very clever use use of clickable annotations in videos to create an interactive recap of the Oscar nominations.

It was created by Joe Sabia for DailyFill.com.

via BoingBoing

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=15224E8026F36F8E

This series of videos demonstrates how to make a podcast with Garageband.

The videos are very Apple-centric, but cover a lot of territory if you’re thinking about making podcasts on Macs.

Time magazine has published an article today about podcasting novelists. In the article, they note that podcasting could be publishing’s next wave:

Scott Sigler of San Francisco missed out on getting his first novel published, with a deal collapsing in late 2001.

But he built a big Internet fan base on novel podcasting, which led to a 2007 deal with The Crown Publishing Company (a division of Random House), one believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sigler reached a milestone this month by cracking the New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list withContagious, a first for an author emerging from the podcast genre. The print run for Contagious is 80,000 copies and it has made the bestseller list despite Sigler’s getting his reluctant publisher to allow him to put out PDF files and podcasts of chapters of the book for free on his website.

The article is interesting – but it would have been a lot more interesting if it had been published in 2006, when podcasting novels was news. 

Any mainstream coverage of podcasting is good for podcasters.

But you have to wonder if magazines covering trends like this –  three years after they were covered online – is just another reason why magazines are dying.

Alesis Product Specialist Rob Bachi gives an overview of the Alesis ProTrack at the 2009 NAMM Show.

The Alesis ProTrack is a $200 gadget turns your iPod into a digital audio recorder. You can record 16-bit, 44.1kHz or 22kHz stereo digital audio without connecting any additional equipment, using ProTrack’s onboard pair of cardioid condenser microphones.

The on-board mics are fixed in XY configuration for stereo imaging. ProTrack also has a pair of combo XLR-1/4″ inputs enabling you to connect condenser and dynamic microphones and mixer outputs. ProTrack can also supply 48V phantom power to its inputs for operation with external condenser microphones.

Details below.

At the 2009 NAMM Show, Alesis introduced their USB Recording Kit – a kit that puts together Alesis mics, monitors and an audio interface to make a relatively cheap (approx. $260) project recording studio.

The video above is Alesis’ intro video from the show. 

Details on the Alesis USB Recording Kit below.

Alesis product Specialist Rob Bachi gives a quick overview of the Alesis MultiPort iPod Mixer – a device that lets you use your iPod as a fairly sophisticated audio recorder.

Podcasting gear update:

Tascam’s Johnny DeLeon gives an overview of the TASCAM DP-004 Digital Pocketstudio at the 2009 NAMM Show.

TASCAM’s DP-004 Digital Pocketstudio is a portable digital audio recorder that can record two sources at once to the included 1GB SD Card. It retails for about $200.

Details below.

Maingear Computers has announced the availability of a new PC targeting Photoshop, graphic design, video production, pro audio creators, the Remix Workstation.

Starting at $2,000, the Remix Workstation features high-end audio and graphics features, liquid cooling and sound insulation to minimize noise.

This video captures a KRON news report about The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle’s forays into online news – in 1981.

It’s an amazing look back at the technology that was high-tech in 1981, but it also foreshadows the current state of online newspapers when the Examiner’s David Cole explains, “We’re not in it to make money.”

Is that the most accurate prediction in the whole report?

via BoingBoing