Blendtec has introduced a new iPhone app, Will It Blend (App Store Link), that builds on the success of its insanely popular podcast:

What makes this app unique is that it contains original footage of Will It Blend? videos in a higher resolution that has ever been released before. The iPhone’s stunning screen is the perfect platform to see details of the blends that have gone unnoticed till now. The iPhone 3G blend was filmed using a state of the art Red Camera at 1,000 frames per second. Best of all, since the videos are stored natively on the iPhone, there is no waiting for a download or wondering how good the connection is.

Blendtec is leveraging the success of their podcast to open up a new revenue stream –  an iPhone app that basically repackages their video podcasts. 

While some people are still debating the future of podcasting and whether you can make money with it, Blendtec has used its video podcast to generate over 100 million views for a blender infomercial, and increase their sales 500%. 

Blendtec is making very smart use of podcasting – but they aren’t doing anything that a lot of other companies couldn’t do. Why aren’t more companies following Blendtec’s example?

via TUAW

blubrry has announced that it’s offering a free month of podcast hosting to podcasters left homeless by the Podango failure:

We are prepared to assist the Podango podcasters by offering a step by step process and and special tool to automate the transferring of media files from Podango to the Blubrry network. In addition we are offering Podango podcasters 30 days of free hosting with publishing at the Blubrry network. The 30 days of free hosting will give you time to continue your show uninterrupted and time to consider your hosting options. You are under no obligation to continue hosting with Blubrry. During or after the 30 day period you may move your shows to another provider. Of course, we hope you continue hosting with Blubrry.

According to blubrry, they are also finalizing the code to move Podango podcasters’ media files automatically.

Details at the blubrry blog.

Update: Per blubrry’s Todd Cochrane: “Blubrry is ready with automated system to move podcasters from Podango.”

New media pundit Paul Colligan has some interesting comments for podcasters today, in response to Podango’s shutdown announcement:

If you are a Podcaster on Podango (or any other site that has their domain name (not yours)), now is the time to own the very media you’ve worked so hard to create. If you use any other service (Feedburner, Amazon S3, Libsyn, etc.) map YOUR DOMAIN to THEIR SERVICE. Domains are currently $7.47 a year….you have no excuse.

This way if someone goes down (and they always go down), you can fix everything with the quick repoint of your domain name.

Don’t just BE THE MEDIA … OWN THE MEDIA. Handing your content over to someone with a seriously flawed business model (and you know my feelings about Podcast Networks) with no plan of escape is as lame as launching a business with a seriously flawed business model and promising a world that you can’t deliver.

Colligan also argues that Podango’s troubles have no correlation to the future of podcasting and indie Internet media creation.

“Podango’s problems say as little about the future of Podcasting as GM’s problems say about the future of cars.”

Paul’s comments echo my thoughts and are especially timely, too.

I’ve always been skeptical of any service that gets between you and people that want to read/listen/view what you do. If you add intermediaries, you add points of failure that you don’t control. You need to judge the real value of these services carefully and use them in ways that mitigate the risk they can introduce.

Jib Jab’s year-end wrap up for 2008.

Podcasting and social media guru Chris Penn has published a free eBook, the Twitter Power Guide (pdf):

This little eBook is not about how to use Twitter or how to get started with Twitter. It’s not the answer to the question “What is Twitter?”. It’s not about who you should follow or who should follow you. It’s not about being popular, cool, loved, adored, or anything else that was important in the 7th grade.

This little eBook is about how to make the most of Twitter’s power without spending your entire life on it. In other words – how to make Twitter work for you without Twitter becoming work itself.

I presume a lot in this book. I presume you know how to use Google Reader, RSS, Yahoo Pipes, Twitter, and more. If you don’t, get up to speed on the basics of those tools first.

Will this guide answer all your questions? Definitely not. Will it make your Twitter experience a little more productive, a little more helpful? It should.

It’s a must download, if you’re a Twitter user, especially for the sections on using Twitter with other tools.

Podcasting startup Podango announced today that its future is uncertain and warned its users to make sure they’ve got their data backed up before the end of this month.

Here’s the announcement from Podango President Douglas Smith:

We at Podango believe that you, our customers, are our most valuable asset. Given this belief, we have always done our best to be honest and forthright in our dealings with you. The current uncertainties of the financial market has affected many of us in this nation. As of this morning, Podango is no longer immune to it’s effects. Our ability to continue operations past the end of this year (2008) is in question. We do not want any of you, or any of your shows to be negatively affected by this uncertainty and so we are encouraging you to begin taking all necessary steps to secure your data or begin moving to another hosting provider.  On Monday we will have a more definitive direction. As of today, the last day to move or secure your data is December 31st. RSS feeds will need to be redirected by this date as well. It is our hope that the events of the next few days will allow us to continue providing you a service based upon a subscription fee. Again, we will know more on Monday and you will be notified of any changes to the above plan as soon as we are made aware of them.

We will have a link in the My Podango section of the Podcasters login page by Monday which will allow you to redirect your RSS feed off of the Podango feed to a new feed. Instructions will accompany that tool. Also on Monday we will provide you with alternatives for show hosting.

Inactive accounts, those without recent uploads or downloads, may be already been deleted from the system. If you need to contact us, please use info@podango.com.

Again I personally apologize for this notice of caution. We truly appreciate your business.

While Smith attributes Podango’s state to the effects of the financial market, Podango and other podcast hosting services have not demonstrated that there’s much of a need for podcast-specific Web hosting services. While the number of podcasts and podcast listeners is growing at an amazing rate, there are open source tools (such as WordPress) for publishing podcasts and a competitive market for Web hosting. More advanced services, like dynamic ad insertion for podcasts, could just be ahead of demand.

Also – it doesn’t help Podango’s cause that the 2 1/2 year-old site still shows itself as being in beta.

Podcango’s situation raises the question: Is there a real need for podcast-specific hosting services?

The internet has surpassed all other media, except television, as a main source for national and international news.

According to Pew Research, 40% say they get most of their news about national and international issues from the internet, up from just 24% in September 2007. Television continues to be cited most frequently as a main source for national and international news, at 70%.

The future looks dim for television and newspapers. 

For young people, though, the internet now rivals television as a main source of national and international news. Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cites television. 

The percentage of people younger than 30 citing television as a main news source has declined from 68% in September 2007 to 59% currently. This mirrors a trend seen earlier this year in campaign news consumption. (See “Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News,” News Interest Index, Oct. 31, 2008.)

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Dec. 3-7 among 1,489 adults, finds there has been little change in the individual TV news outlets that people rely on for national and international news. Nearly a quarter of the public (23%) says they get most of their news from CNN, while 17% cite Fox News; smaller shares mention other cable and broadcast outlets.

via PNME 2007: A discussion by John Havens of BlogTalkRadio and Paolo Tosolini of Microsoft on The Business Value of Podcasting and New Media for Corporate Organizations.

Description:

Although the number of podcasts being produced by organizations like IBM, GE, and BMW continue to proliferate, many businesses have not bought into the value and potential return on investment for podcasting at their firms in both B2B and B2C applications. Using specific case studies from Microsoft’s recently launched Academy Mobile podcasting platform and other existing initiatives, John and Paolo get pragmatic about how corporate podcasting may evolve from just perceived positive business value into real profit. Instructors:

Pleasant Software has released a major update for Ubercaster, its all-in-one podcasting solution for the Mac. The new version sports native Skype support, Amazon S3 (TM) uploads and other requests from its current user base.

Here’s what’s new in Version 1.6:

• German localization: Ubercaster is finally localized in German; including the build-in Help system.
• Native Skype support: - It’s now incredibly easy to record Skype conversations. Due to the fact that Ubercaster uses the official Skype API you can call your buddies directly within Ubercaster. No additional drivers or special configurations are needed.
• “Level Meter” panels: - Always have an eye on each input panel’s level or the overall level of your podcasts.
• Export audio clips directly from the Cut layer: It’s now possible to save any audio clip from the Cut layer to disk with just one click; including all assigned filters and volume envelopes.
• Amazon S3 (TM) upload: Ubercaster v1.6 supports uploads to Amazon S3 (TM) servers.
• ID3 Lyrics tag: In addition to the ID3 comment tag you may now add text to a file’s ID3 lyrics tag.
• Keep ID3 tags in sync: Ubercaster v1.6 provides an additional variable token called “Derive Content”. This token copies another release slot’s content of the same text field. This way, you can release your podcast in multiple versions in an even simpler way.
• Ubercaster’s handling of external file references has been greatly improved: If audio files, used in a project, are renamed and removed in the Finder, Ubercaster is now aware of this changes and corrects the references automatically.

All in all, Ubercaster v1.6 brings more than 45 new features and improvements.

If you’re a Ubercaster user, let us know what you think of the update in the comments!

Newsweek has a great feature today by Creative Commons guru Lawrence Lessig that argues that it’s time to kill off the FCC:

Born in the 1930s, at a time when the utmost importance was put on stability, the agency has become the focal point for almost every important innovation in technology. It is the presumptive protector of the Internet, and the continued regulator of radio, TV and satellite communications. In the next decades, it could well become the default regulator for every new communications technology, including, and especially, fantastic new ways to use wireless technologies, which today carry television, radio, internet, and cellular phone signals through the air, and which may soon provide high-speed internet access on-the-go, something that Google cofounder Larry Page calls “wifi on steroids.”

If history is our guide, these new technologies are at risk, and with them, everything they make possible. With so much in its reach, the FCC has become the target of enormous campaigns for influence. Its commissioners are meant to be “expert” and “independent,” but they’ve never really been expert, and are now openly embracing the political role they play. Commissioners issue press releases touting their own personal policies. And lobbyists spend years getting close to members of this junior varsity Congress. Think about the storm around former FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s decision to relax media ownership rules, giving a green light to the concentration of newspapers and television stations into fewer and fewer hands. This is policy by committee, influenced by money and power, and with no one, not even the President, responsible for its failures.

The solution here is not tinkering. You can’t fix DNA. You have to bury it. President Obama should get Congress to shut down the FCC and similar vestigial regulators, which put stability and special interests above the public good. In their place, Congress should create something we could call the Innovation Environment Protection Agency (iEPA), charged with a simple founding mission: “minimal intervention to maximize innovation.” The iEPA’s core purpose would be to protect innovation from its two historical enemies—excessive government favors, and excessive private monopoly power.

Lessig’s call is radical, but he makes a convincing argument that an entrenched bureaucracy like the FCC is  as much a barrier to innovation as it is a driver. Lessig also points out the government should pay more attention to the monopolies that regulation creates and consider whether they are beneficial and who they are beneficial to. 

I don’t see Obama gutting the FCC – but let’s hope that his government has the will to give it a top-to-bottom review.