Podcasting News has been covering new digital media product launches at the NAMM Show for several years. This year, though, we’ve invited veteran podcaster and new media strategist Ron Ploof to give us his impressions of the show.

Here, Ron talks with Dave Dysart of HHB Communications. HHB has an interesting microphone, the DRM H85, that also has a built-in Flash digital recorder. 

About Ron

Ron Ploof has the broad perspective of being both an experienced “indie” podcast creator and someone who has helped companies weave podcasting and new media into their corporate fabric. He blogs about B2B social media strategies at RonAmok and has helped pioneer storytelling podcasts with Griddlecakes.

Perhaps it is fitting that when the economic climate is stormy, people take pleasure in small, modestly-priced amusing things. Or maybe we’re just on a “cute little gear” kick.

Whatever the case, the Mikey iPod microphone from Blue was one of the newer pieces of podcasting hardware that caught our eye at the 2009 NAMM Show this weekend.

Intended for on-the-fly recording of lectures, voice notes, live music, interviews and such the Mikey model features Blue’s stereo condenser capsules, 3-position user selectable gain settings, and a built-in speaker for playback. The user can “fine-tune” the Mikey’s sensitivity to record everything from the barest audible sound to extremely loud sources without losing audio fidelity. The microphone has a user-positionable head which can swivel 180°.

Furthermore, the Mikey also boasts user adjustable gain control, requires no software installation, and can continuously record up to 1.5 hours of audio.

The Blue Mikey works with the iPod nano 2G, 3G & 4G; iPod Classic, iPod 5G, and is compatible with most protective cases. The Mikey has a suggested price of $79.99.

At the NAMM Show this weekend, we’ve been looking at a range of music, audio and video gear that might be useful to podcasters and other media creators. One of the things that caught my eye was a prototype of the upcoming Samson “Go” microphone.

The Go Mic is a neat little USB condenser microphone that can clip right onto the edge of a laptop display, or twist, as shown here, to sit unobtrusively on your desk. This mic is both Mac and PC-compatible, no drivers required.

The Go Mic can be used for recording music, podcasts or away-from-studio recording, but could also be for use with voice recognition software, iChat, or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications.

The Go Mic boasts switchable cardioid and omni polar patterns, and a frequency response of 20Hz – 18kHz and a 44.1kHz/16-bit resolution. The little mic also comes with a 1/8″ headphone jack. Also, did we mention that it’s also really inexplicably cute?

The Samson Go microphone is expected to be commercially available later this year, and will retail for about $49.

I’ll bet you wondered how I knew? Well, the ABC-tv affilliate in Chicago reports that Motown is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a series of podcasts about the legendary label, its artists, and classic songs.

The series promises to be mighty-mighty: The first episode features Smokey Robinson’s recollections of Motown’s early days. Bi-weekly episodes range from discussions with Motown founder Berry Gordy Junior, to Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and songwriter Lamont Dozier of the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team. The Motown site promises insights into favorite songs ranging from “My Girl” to “Love Hangover” to “Brick House.”

Some of the podcasts will also look at Motown from a contemporary perspective, with acts like Nick Cannon (Mr. Mariah Carey) and Q-Tip discussing Motown’s influence on the music they create today. However, when looking at the music that shaped romantic and dance music for decades to follow, as they say, “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing.” We’re looking forward to hearing the originators of the Motown Sound themselves telling stories about some of our favorite music.

Among the handheld digital recorders we’ve looked at at the NAMM Show, the Olympus LS-10 looked really interesting.

A bit taller/longer than some of the other recorders we’ve seen (and will write up soon, we promise), the LS-10 captures sound in extremely high fidelity, 24-bit/96 kHz Linear PCM Recording, that “sounds twice as good as a CD,” according to the company rep. In the noisy confines of the Anaheim Convention Center (one of the most chaotic, noisy places on earth), playback through headphones really did sound surprisingly good. 

The LS-10 offers the standard variety of audio file formats: WAV, MP3 and WMA for recording and playback. It has built-in 2GB NAND Flash memory, and can accommodate a removable SD/SDHC card up to 8 GB. It runs on two AA batteries (and can supposedly run up to 8 hours on these alone), and has an AC adapter as well. The Olympus recorder also has built-in high-sensitivity and low-noise stereo microphones and mic jack for use with other microphones. 

Olympus, more famous for its very nice cameras, is advocating the use of the LS-10 for field recordings, as in documentary work and the like. The recorder can be set up on a small tripod, and controlled via a wireless remote control, both of which come standard with the LS-10. The user can unobtrusively capture audio.

Royal Pingdom has released stats that show the free blogging platform WordPress is the most popular platform for blogs and new media. 

They ranked the Technorati top 100 blogs, investigated what blog platforms they are using and found that WordPress has more than twice as many blogs in the top 100 as Movable Type, the blog platform that came in second place.

• WordPress is used by 27 blogs in the top 100.
• Movable Type is used by 12 blogs in the top 100.
• Only 8 of the top 100 blogs use a custom-made blog platform.
• Drupal is the only general-purpose CMS with any presence worth mentioning, with 4 blogs in the top 100.

Blogging Services

Though WordPress is more popular among the self-hosted blogs than Movable Type, the situation is reversed when it comes to the blogging services based on these blog platforms. Typepad (based on Movable Type) is more popular than WordPress.com (based on WordPress). Blogger comes in at third place.
Traditional media like Entertainment Weekly, CNN and Wired often use blogging services for their blogs, and most seem to have chosen Typepad.

More than one third of the top 100 blogs use a blogging service.

• Typepad is used by 16 blogs in the top 100.
• Blogsmith is used by 14 blogs in the top 100.
• WordPress.com is used by 5 blogs in the top 100.
• Blogger is used by 3 blogs in the top 100. (Including, of course, The Official Google Blog.)

While Royal Pingdom’s focus is on blogs – the stats are relevant for podcasts and new media publishers, too. Many of these sites features podcasts and video podcasts – and WordPress plays just as a significant role there. 

Google has announced YouTube For Televison – its initiative to bring Internet TV to your living room – is now available on Sony PS3 & Nintendo Wii game consoles:

Currently in beta, the TV Website offers a dynamic, lean-back, 10-foot television viewing experience through a streamlined interface that enables you to discover, watch and share YouTube videos on any TV screen with just a few quick clicks of your remote control. With enlarged text and simplified navigation, it makes watching YouTube on your TV as easy and intuitive as possible. Optional auto-play capability enables users to view related videos sequentially, emulating a traditional television experience. The TV Website is available internationally across 22 geographies and in over 12 languages. 

As previously blogged, YouTube has partnered directly with major TV and set-top box manufacturers to bring YouTube into the living room. Still, very few such devices today contain a Web browser or provide access to YouTube. Our hope is that this site may help to accelerate an industry evolution towards open television access to Web video. Over time, we plan to add support for additional TV devices that provide Web browsers. 

Google’s multi-platform Internet TV thrust, along with Apple’s announcements about Steve Job’s health troubles, mean that 2009 will probably see the state of the art for Internet television devices move on from Apple TV to something else. 

The field is wide open, though. Any guesses on how this will shake out?

At the 2009 Winter NAMM Show, Alesis announced that its iMultiMix 16 USB mixer is now available.

The mixer is a “prosumer” level mixer that offers professional recording direct to iPod. 

iMultiMix 16 USB features a Universal Dock for iPod that let you record directly to any iPod Classic, 5th generation (video) and 2nd or 3rd generation iPod nano. The mobile recording mixer has iPod transport controls and a control wheel built into the surface for complete control of the iPod while it is docked in the mixer.

The USB connection lets you transfer tracks into iTunes upon connection to a computer. Files recorded into the iPod are CD quality, 16-bit, 44.1kHz WAV files.

You can also connect the iMultiMix 16 USB to Mac or PC using USB for direct-to-computer recording. In addition to its computer connectivity, iMultiMix 16 USB offers eight analog inputs, 100 digital, 28-bit effects, phantom power and two switchable mic/line/guitar inputs.

iMultiMix 16 USB has an MSRP of $799.99 and a street price of $599.99.

Regular readers of Podcasting News have probably already figured out that we are attending the music industry convention NAMM (formerly National Association of Music Merchants?) in Anaheim, California.

This will be the fifth year we’ve attended the show, and it is one of the highlights of our year. The event gives us an excellent opportunity to look at the newest studio equipment, portable recorders, and software offerings for creating and publishing audio and video.

(Plus, we really like to play with all the instruments, and check out electronic music gear for our sister site, Synthtopia.com).

We look forward to seeing familiar faces there, and finally meeting some of the folks that we only know via their podcasts. If you will be there, as an attendee, an exhibitor, or reporters like us, please let us know. You can find us on Twitter, or leave us a message in the comments here.

Audio equipment manufacturer Alesis has announced that its new ProTrack Mobile Recording Kit is now shipping. The handheld ProTrack recorder turns the user’s iPod into a stereo digital recorder, using the new Alesis AM2 Stereo Microphone Set.

Users can record stereo audio using the ProTrack’s onboard dual condenser microphones, which are fixed in XY-stereo configuration for reliable stereo imaging. While the onboard microphones are capable of capturing quality sound, the ProTrack Mobile Recording Kit also includes the AM2 Stereo Microphone Set (pictured at left, above), a matched-stereo, cardioid condenser microphone kit with two AM2 microphones, windscreens, clips, a padded hard case and an XY-stereo mount.

The ProTrack supplies the necessary 48V phantom power to power the AM2 condenser microphones.

Podcasting News will be checking out the ProTrack recorder this week at the 2009 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California.