Paramagnus
Posts related to my software company, Paramagnus Developments Inc.
The big news today of course is the launch of Halo 3, but it's also important to me for another reason. It's kind of hard to believe, but it was on this day a year ago that we launched Podcast Spot. We had no idea what to expect for our first year, but I think we can call it a success. Not a massive success, but a success nonetheless. Here's what I wrote back in 2006:
That said, it's just the first step, and there's still a long way to go. We're eager and excited to continue improving the podcasting experience, with Podcast Spot and other products too.
I'd say that still holds for today. We're going to spend some time going through what we've learned over the last year, and combined with our ideas and plans, we look forward to making our second year even better.
As I said on the Paramagnus blog, thanks to everyone who has supported us and especially to the podcasters who call Podcast Spot home. It's still pretty cool to me that people are using something I've built.
The September 2007 issue of Edmontonians magazine contains an article about Dickson and I. Quite simply, I think the article is terrible. Not only is it factually inaccurate and unnecessarily negative, I feel it is an extremely unfair introduction to both Dickson and myself as individuals. Every friend or family member who has read the article thus far has said the same thing: "that doesn't sound like you guys!"
The worst part is that there is supposed to be a follow-up article. Will it be better, or just as bad? Does it even matter? I don't know. We'll find out soon enough I guess, and I'll definitely be writing about it here.
In any case, I wanted to write down my concerns with the first article, so that I can look back on the experience and hopefully take something positive away from it. If you've got some spare time on your hands, you can read my very long entry here. If you do read what I've written, I'd love to know whether you think my concerns are legitimate or if instead you think I'm bat-shit crazy.
Also - have you seen Edmontonians anywhere around town? The circulation page makes it seem like the magazine is really easy to find, but I've had a heck of a time finding any copies. Seems the only reliable location is the airport. I guess that's just as well :)
I was invited recently to be a guest on Robert Sanzalone's pacificIT Radio, a "fun, casual tech talk show where listeners from all over the world share their questions and experiences on tech." We recorded the episode live last night using Talkshoe, with me here in Edmonton and Robert all the way around the world in Japan. I started out using my cell phone, and switched over to Skype about fifteen minutes in. Amazing what the technology allows us to do!
We chatted about podcasting, Paramagnus, Canadian entrepreneurship, and micro-media, among other things. It was fun to do, and I hope if you listen to the recording that you get something out of it. You can download the MP3 here, and be sure to check out pacificIT Radio for more information and other episodes. Thanks for having me as a guest Robert!
Twitter announced a round of funding last Thursday, from Union Square Ventures and a few others. Michael Arrington did some digging and is fairly certain the amount was $5 million on a $20 million pre-money valuation. That's not too bad, especially when you consider that Twitter is perhaps most famous for not having a business plan.
No business plan?! It's true. At least no formal business plan. Biz Stone tried to assure everyone last week that the company has in fact thought about a business model, but I am not sure how many people bought it. The investment started a small "you don't need a business plan" meme in the blogosphere, and it really got me thinking...do you need a business plan or not?
Paul Kedrosky says you don't need one, and thinks that "business plans are overrated, and profits perhaps even more so." Don Dodge says that "investors invest in people not business plans." Fred Wilson, one of the investors, admits that they "don't know yet" what the business model will be for Twitter. He claims they have time to figure that out. Charles Hudson says the meme is "crazy talk" and thinks it is worth writing some ideas down. Robert Scoble says that "if you REALLY think you can get funded without having a business plan you're probably smoking something illegal."
After reading dozens of these posts, and looking back at what I learned from the business plan competitions we competed in last year, I've come to the following conclusion: I think business plans are useful for internal use, and mostly a waste of time otherwise.
I think what Charles says in his post makes a lot of sense. There are certain questions that entrepreneurs should answer and write down. Really though, no one needs to see those pieces of paper. When it comes time to market your business or your idea to someone else, you've got to tune your message. And you've got to market yourself more than anything else. That's why it's a waste of time to have a complete, polished business plan (unless you're in a competition I guess). If no one is really going to read it but you, does it matter what it looks like?
I think the trick is to remember that investors are people too. You need to relate to them, and you need to excite them. A heavy, thick document is probably not the best way to do that.
We haven't really updated our business plan since the competitions in 2006. That's partly due to the fact that it's tedious, and partly due to the fact that we haven't had a need to. A smaller executive overview, a quick slide deck, or an actual conversation are far more useful.
There's a difference between a business plan and a business model, however. I still think it's important to have some ideas about how you are going to monetize your product or service. And it's important to know that there really is someone out there willing to pay for whatever it is you've created. Even better if you know who that someone is.
The realization that a traditional business plan is useless simply reinforces the idea that getting face time with investors is important. And for technology, that generally means the United States. Or perhaps BC or Ontario, but definitely not Alberta.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Congrats to Twitter on the funding!
A couple of weeks ago Tod Maffin was in Edmonton to broadcast and record his video show, todbits.tv. I went down to the Hotel MacDonald to check it out, and it turns out I was the only one in Edmonton who went! What's the deal with that local tech people?!
Anyway, we couldn't get the live stream going, so we went outside to record it. Tod talked about his LG Cherry Chocolate phone, then we did a quick interview about Paramagnus and Podcast Spot.
You can watch the 12 minute video here. Thanks Tod!
Earlier today, Dickson and I attended the luncheon and awards ceremony for the 2007 VenturePrize business plan competition. As you probably know, we competed last year and narrowly missed out to ProExams (now ProTraining). The ProTraining guys invited us to join them at their table this year, and we happily accepted!
First of all, congratulations to the grand prize winner, Picomole Instruments, and to their competition - Business Infusions Inc. and Nirix Technology (I was pulling for Nirix as I had met and talked with CEO Steven Hsu in the past and was following their progress though the semi-finals). All of the elevator pitches and videos were very well done. In fact, I'd say the videos this year were far better than any of the videos created last year. Much flashier! The other big observation was that this year's event seemed much smaller and a little more low-key than last year. I suspect this is because last year was extra special with the grand opening of Hall D.
The guest speaker today was Leonard Brody, who talked about Canada and entrepreneurship. Leonard is currently a director of NowPublic, a partner at Growthworks Capital, and has advised many of our country's politicians. When he started his presentation, I wasn't sure if it was going to be that good. That's just the initial impression I got, perhaps because he was so distracted by the lapel microphone.
When he finally got things rolling though, I was impressed. He's a great speaker and he's obviously done his homework. Instead of sharing experiences however, Leonard chose to focus on statistics from recent research. Of course, statistics can be manipulated, so I took everything he said with a grain of salt. That said, he was pretty much preaching to the converted (at least with me). Some of the ideas he talked about:
- In recent years, Canada is an economic wonder.
- We need to do a better job of telling our story as Canadians.
- Mobile phones are going to be huge.
- My generation spends more time on media than work. And we have to multitask.
- "Smart" is irrelevant.
- Continuous partial attention (related to the multitasking).
Basically, the Gen-Yers and Millenials are taking over and they don't do things the same way as previous generations. The workplace isn't ready for them. And you should join Facebook (okay he didn't say that exactly).
I'd say his presentation was the highlight of the afternoon for me. Like Dickson remarked, they needed "victory music" or something in the background when they announced the winner of the competition! The loud applause followed by silence was somewhat off-putting.
One final remark on the afternoon - lunch was delicious! And I actually ate it this year (too anxious last year to eat). The main course was Achiote Marinated Chicken Breast, Black Bean Orange Salsa, Basmati Rice, and Seasonal Vegetables. Dessert was good too: Mini Citrus Cheesecake on Rosemary Crust, topped with Brambleberry Compote and Orange Sour Cream Drizzle.
Congrats to Picomole, and thanks again to ProTraining for the invite.
Late last night Amazon sent an email to S3 customers announcing an upcoming pricing change. Storage costs will remain the same, but the price for bandwidth is going to change:
Current bandwidth price (through May 31, 2007)
$0.20 / GB - uploaded
$0.20 / GB - downloaded
New bandwidth price (effective June 1, 2007)
$0.10 per GB - all data uploaded
$0.18 per GB - first 10 TB / month data downloaded
$0.16 per GB - next 40 TB / month data downloaded
$0.13 per GB - data downloaded / month over 50 TB
$0.01 per 1,000 PUT or LIST requests
$0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests
They claim that if the pricing had been applied to usage for March 2007, about 75% of customers would have seen their bill decrease. In some cases however, the price change makes things significantly more expensive, as this thread points out:
Uploading 1GB of 4K files will cost $2.72 instead of $0.20
We haven't yet figured out how Podcast Spot will be affected, but I suspect we'll see a slight decrease. I'm also interested to hear from Don MacAskill on SmugMug.
UPDATE: Don talks about the new pricing model here and says they'll save money.
Tom Webster of Edison Media Research was on hand at the recent Corporate Podcasting Summit in London, where he talked about a new research report that shows podcasting isn't growing much. There's been a lot of discussion about the findings, but I don't think they are cause for concern. I think Tim Bourquin has nailed it:
I think the survey is flawed from the get-go Frank because if they used the word "podcast" I guarantee most of the general public assumed they were asking "if they had ever listened to one of those homemade talk shows on an iPod."
So I think it truly is a failure to communicate what we're talking about. We all still have a lot of work to do.
Ever since day one, we've had an "Other Names and Similar Activities" blurb on Podcast Spot. I had an entire slide devoted to the name issues in my Podcasting & Marketing presentation back in January. I blogged about the issue again in February.
Podcasting is just a name. A word we use to refer to an idea or technology or process. That doesn't mean it's the only word to refer to those things, or even the best word. And it's certainly not the first word that will come to mind for the vast majority of the population.
Have you ever listened to or watched a podcast? Wrong question to ask most people. You need to ask them in such a way that you don't have to use the word podcast. I don't think the word "podcast" will ever become as widely adopted as the word "blog" has.
If you take a look at the presentation slides (PDF link), stop and think about slide #5. I think I understand what they are going for with the second point, "Podcasting does NOT refer to the downloading of individual MP3s or songs," but it doesn't work. It just makes the whole thing confusing. Are they saying a podcast can't be an MP3? I don't get it...that's what the individual being surveyed will probably be thinking.
Podcasting is all about communication. It doesn't matter what we call it though.
Let the podcasting begin! We just uploaded a very quick (under 3 minutes) welcome message to the Northern Voice podcast to introduce ourselves and our plan for recording the conference. Here are the most important links:
I should also point out that you can find specific episodes by browsing our categories and our tags. And you can find feeds for all the formats we convert to here.
Enjoy!
I'm pretty tired - we had a packed day! Sharon, Dickson and I arrived here in Vancouver fairly early, landing just after 10:30 AM. After getting sorted out at Triumf House (which is where we are staying on the UBC campus) we went downtown and only just got back. We went for lunch, then Dickson and I had a few business meetings, and then we walked around a bit before we met Kim and her friends for dinner. We went to a greek restaurant on Robson and Burrard (I can't remember the name) and while not very greek, it was pretty good!
We took a taxi from the airport this morning, but other than that, we have relied on public transit (and we walked a lot). It's actually fairly easy to use, and similar to Edmonton's transit system in a lot of ways.
The weather was very nice today, and it only drizzled for a few minutes this evening. Hopefully it stays like this! You can see a few photos I took today here, including one of the Olympic countdown clock!
I am leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for Vancouver - Megan, Dickson, Sharon and I are heading to Northern Voice 2007. It's a conference I look forward to every year. I'm especially excited about this year because we have volunteered to record all of the sessions! Here's what I sent to Darren:
We're hosting at http://northernvoice.podcastspot.com, which is all decked out in the new Northern Voice theme. Currently we're planning to record all of Saturday's sessions in audio, and as much as of Moosecamp as we can. We've also got a couple video cameras to record some sessions and "roaming" footage. There's four of us, so we should be able to get it all.
We're probably not the only ones who will be recording stuff however - the people who attend Northern Voice are a creative bunch, so there will likely be lots of microphones and video cameras floating around. Bottom line: whether you can attend or not, you'll be able to listen in.
We're also offering a special Northern Voice promotion at Podcast Spot. If you enter the discount code NV2007 when you sign up, we'll give you an extra 100 MB of upload quota for free! It's just another way we're celebrating our favorite Canadian tech conference.
If you have any feedback on our Northern Voice podcast, I'd love to hear from you. As Megan knows, I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, so I'll be doing my best to make sure everything sounds and looks good. We should have our first "introduction" episode up sometime tomorrow.
Last night I gave a presentation on podcasting & marketing to students taking MARK 450 (Electronic Marketing) at the University of Alberta. I covered "what is podcasting", Podcast Spot, some podcasting statistics, podcasting and its effects on marketing, and finished with some final thoughts. The presentation went very well and the initial feedback was very positive, so I hope the students got something out of it. I enjoyed talking to them!
We recently purchased some digital voice recorders and they arrived just yesterday afternoon. They are Olympus WS-100's, and last night we tested them for the first time by recording my presentation. In general I'm pretty happy with them. We had one at the back of the room and one on the table in front of me. The far away recording isn't so great, but the close range recording is quite good.
So if you're interested, you can listen to my presentation here. The only editing I did was to remove the questions (as I didn't have permission to post them). Otherwise it's a straightforward recording. You can look in the show notes to see the time codes for the major topics I covered. I don't know why, but it sounds like I was sniffling quite a bit - apologies for that!
If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. I'm not going to post the slides here, but if you're interested in them, feel free to email me.
Looking back I'd say I learned a lot in the last year. I guess that's not surprising, as the saying "you learn something new every day" is usually pretty accurate. With business plan competitions, conferences, and of course school, I had lots of opportunities to learn new things this year. Instead of making a big list of the things I learned however, I'm going to share with you just one lesson:
I learned that running a business requires balance.
Of course you have to balance the business with friends, family, etc. That's not what I am talking about though. When you are starting a business, you wear a lot of different hats. Sometimes you wear the programmer hat, sometimes the accountant hat, and other times the salesman hat. What I learned this year is that you need to find a balance between all the different hats! It sounds like common sense, but when you're in the middle of things, it doesn't come naturally.
I don't know why, but for the longest time I figured that if we got the code for Podcast Spot done, everything else would fall into place. I focused only on the programmer hat, and ignored the rest. VenturePrize was the turning point for me. Before the competition, I pretty much focused on the programmer hat. During the competition, I ignored the programmer hat altogether. And now, I am doing my best to find balance.
It was an important lesson for me to learn, that's for sure. To see what other people learned this year, check out Ben Yoskovitz's excellent group writing project.
Podcasting consultant Jason Van Orden has been writing an interesting series of blog posts on podcasting metrics. In part 4 of the series, Jason tackles the issue of measuring complete downloads, and says that he doesn't think measuring complete downloads is "absolutely necessary" and that something "more sophisticated and qualitative" is needed in addition to download numbers.
From part 4b of the series:
Scott Bourne and Tim Bourquin provided interesting and relevant responses. They both emphasize that podcasters have a responsibility not to let advertisers hold podcasting to a higher standard than other media (i.e. magazines and newspaper) that can't measure complete content/ad consumption.
I have to respectfully disagree.
The way that magazines, television, radio, and other media sell advertising is flawed. Everything is based on assumptions (circulation numbers in the case of magazines, random sampling in the case of TV and radio). Don't think for a second that advertisers are happy about this system - I'm sure they'd love to know exactly how many people watched or heard or read their advertisement. Why do you think everyone loves AdSense? Cold, hard numbers. The problem with magazines, TV, and radio is that the technology to accomplish this is prohibitively complex and expensive.
Podcasting doesn't suffer from this problem. Measuring exactly how many people have downloaded an episode is relatively straightforward and inexpensive, and while not 100% accurate, it is fairly close. I think the strategy that Scott and Tim suggest would be bad for podcasting. As the saying goes - you're only as strong as your weakest link. Podcasting needs to be stronger than other media.
A Better Strategy
I think podcasters who wish to generate advertising revenue should provide as much data as possible, even beyond complete downloads if such data is available (more on this in a second). There are a number of reasons for doing so:
- There would be less waste, as advertisers could spend money only on podcasts that generate views or listens of their ad.
- More data could also allow advertisers to more appropriately target their ad, making it more effective, enjoyable, and useful.
- In the long run, advertisers would move more dollars away from media that uses flawed assumptions to media that provides useful data. That is, podcasting's piece of the advertising pie will grow.
- The valuation of a particular podcast will be much more realistic.
I am sure some podcasters are bristling at my suggestion. They think that if they have to provide actual numbers, they can't make as much as if they sold ads based on assumptions like the other media do. This idea is wrong too. Providing more data will allow advertisers to spend targeted dollars. Unlike general advertisements, an advertiser will pay much more for the ability to target an ad. The podcaster may actually end up making more money!
Podcasting's enemy (if we need to have one) is not the advertisers as Scott and Tim suggest, it's the other media. Give the advertisers what they want, and podcasting will prevail.
Beyond Complete Downloads
I think complete downloads are quite important. We are putting the finishing touches on a big update to Podcast Spot, and one of the new features we have added is complete downloads. We parse the request logs for you automatically, so you'll see the number of complete downloads for each episode, usually within two hours of the download. Right now these numbers are best effort, meaning that we aren't yet at 100% accuracy. We'll continue to work on it though.
As I mentioned above, podcasters should strive to provide as much data as possible to advertisers. There are the obvious things like complete downloads, page views, geolocation stats, demographics, etc. There are also the less obvious things. What if you could determine if someone actually listened to or watched your entire episode, or if they skipped parts of the episode? That kind of information would be extremely valuable.
These are the types of metrics that podcasters should strive to measure. Podcasters don't have a responsibility to hold podcasting to the low standards of other media, they have a responsibility to set the bar higher and higher.
When it comes to technology startups, it seems as though Edmonton can't hold a candle to Toronto, Vancouver, or even Ottawa. Very rarely in my travels, physical or virtual, do I hear about really interesting tech things happening in Alberta's capital city. Yet I know there must be. I mean, surely we aren't the only ones, right? Nah, there's others...we just need to help each other become more visible.
So the first step is to identify all the interesting tech startups (or established but relatively small companies) based in Edmonton. I've started tagging some, such as Zigtag, Nexopia, and ProExams, at del.icio.us using the tag edmontontech. I encourage you to do the same! Or, if you're not into the social bookmarking/tagging thing, leave me a comment or email me with your Edmonton-based tech companies.
I suppose step two would be getting together with some of the companies to see what kind of interest there is in making our neck of the woods more visible to the rest of the world. I'd like to start changing Edmonton's image with respect to tech startups. We have a great economy, relatively low living expenses, and lots of smart people. We're just not regarded as all that great a place to start a tech company.
But first, step one. What Edmonton-based tech startups do you know about?
Recently I recorded an interview with Ben Freedman and Tiffany Young about Podcast Spot, and it was published today on their podcast. They produce the Neo-Fight.tv show, which they say is the tech show for the not so geeky. The neat thing about this interview is that it was recorded using Skype!
You can watch the video at Neo-Fight.tv, or at Podcast Spot.
Overall I am pretty happy with the interview, aside from one little blooper. The quality is surprisingly good considering it was done over Skype too. We don't get into the details too much, but I think the interview provides a good introduction to our service. Thanks to Ben and Tiffany for having me on the show.
Ben posted this episode to Digg, so if you want to help us out, digg it :)
As you probably guessed, we're now back in Edmonton. Yesterday went pretty good in terms of our presentation and the networking aspect. We met lots of really interesting people. It'll take some time to see how well it went in terms of funding though. The presentation was really short (only 10 minutes) so the questions that were asked were fairly general. In retrospect, I think it may have been better to present in the morning rather than the afternoon, as the investors would have been more awake and there would have been more time to chat afterward.
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown which is in the midst of major renovations. The lobby and common areas look excellent, as do the recently upgraded guest rooms. Especially sweet was the flat screen TV! And I love the lighting design too. It's hard to get the same effect from pictures, but you can try! Here's the photos I took. The dated hallways clearly do not match the rooms, but a little sign by the elevator says that they will be renovated too.
Here are some interesting facts (or maybe not) about the trip:
# of liquids confiscated at security: 1 for me, many for Dickson
Minutes until we missed our departure: less than 10 (we were the second last people to get on...we had to run after the final boarding call)
Total time in Vancouver: ~25 hours, 40 minutes
Number of blocks walked: ~24
Number of "random" security checks: 1 (Dickson was pulled aside again ...it's because he's Chinese...the airport screeners have a very loose definition of "random")
Number of Starbucks coffees I consumed: 2
Number of investors I didn't like: 1 (the only reason I didn't like him is that he sat in my presentation laughing to himself...very disrespectful and rude...you don't have to agree with me, but show some respect!)
Hours of studying accomplished: 0 (but I studied today, I think the midterm went fairly well)
As I mentioned yesterday, Dickson and I are in Vancouver all day tomorrow for the Angel Forum. Our flight leaves tonight at around 7 PM and we're back tomorrow evening close to midnight. Very quick trip indeed.
Now that Northern Voice 2007 has been announced, it looks like this trip will be the first of many to Vancouver over the next few months! Not to be outdone on the other side of Canada, Mesh 2007 has been announced for May in Toronto. Lots of excellent Canadian conferences to attend!
This afternoon was TEC Edmonton's annual TEC Connector networking event, and for the second year in a row, Dickson and I decided to go. We were actually invited to setup a booth for Paramagnus, but we opted to just mingle instead. The TEC Connector is kind of an important event for me, because I consider it the start of our adventure with VenturePrize.
There seemed to be more people this year, and also unlike last year, we actually knew a few of them this time! It was nice to reconnect with some of the very smart and very interesting people we have met over the last year. These kinds of networking events are funny in a way, because you can meet some great people, but they also show just how small Edmonton can be. There are more familiar faces than unfamiliar ones.
There was some talk today about VenturePrize and the new student category that has been launched. I think it's great that the program is expanding! Dickson and I will be one of the featured presenters in this year's VenturePrize seminar series, an opportunity I am really looking forward to. We'll be sharing our story with this year's participants on November 1st.
Now that I am back in Edmonton and feeling a little better, time for a bit of a recap. Dickson has posted his closing thoughts on the expo as well. It's hard to compare last year's event with this year's. In some ways, there seemed to be more people this year, such as on Friday, but Saturday told a different story. One thing is for sure - there were far less "I've never heard of podcasting" people in attendance this year.
- I have to agree with Dickson, the weather in Ontario was really hot. It mattered less on Saturday when I had a bad case of the chills, but still.
- I am amazed that I met people who were happy to "do it on their own" when it came to podcast hosting. Perhaps this is because podcasting is so new? Heck, I don't even host my own photo gallery anymore. Why not? Because Flickr does it better than I ever could. I offload all the work to them. That's what we are trying to do with Podcast Spot too. You as the podcaster can focus on creating great content, because we take care of the rest.
- Speaking of pictures, you can see the ones I took here.
- I think we're going to have to do something more interesting with the booth next year. Our "low-key, low-information-on-the-wall" style worked to an extent, but I think we can do better.
- We need to do a better job explaining how we charge. We charge based on upload, which is the amount of stuff you send to our servers in any given month. This is in contrast to charging by storage, which is the amount of stuff you have put on the servers since you became a customer. If we charged by storage, you'd eventually hit a limit, after which you wouldn't be able to add anything new without first removing something old. Fortunately for you, we charge by upload so you never run out of space!
- I just re-read that, and perhaps it still isn't clear. I'll record something soon that should explain it a little better. Visuals always help!
- Generally speaking, I have the feeling that the Expo is missing something that would take it to the next level. What that something is, I don't know. I do have a small wish-list though: wireless Internet throughout the convention center, expanded awards (say a "best podcast hosting service"), and more free food/drinks!
Thanks to Tim and the rest of the team at TNC New Media for another great Expo! I'm looking forward to next year already :)
Hey we're back. Actually we got back around 2 PM today, and I've been resting pretty much ever since. Trying to shake this damn sickness.
I would like to do an Expo wrap-up post, but I am going back to sleep so in the meantime, here's an interview I did with the Seattle Podcasting Network for you to enjoy!
Today was the first official day of the Expo, and it was definitely intense. And by that I mean, much busier than last year in terms of foot traffic. The trade show floor was open from 10 AM until 5 PM, but by the end of it, Dickson and I were pretty drained.
- Today was excellent for spreading the word about Podcast Spot. Dickson even managed to snag an interview! The portion with Dickson starts at 19:35 and runs for almost exactly 8 minutes.
- I really like that the Denny's here is more diner-like than the ones back home. I don't like that their iced tea is actually tea on ice. I prefer the fake sweetened stuff :)
- If you came by the booth and we told you that the upload limits on the cards was wrong, I apologize again, it was actually correct. We must have been tired this morning when we looked at it, but when we finally got Internet to check the website, we realized there were in fact no printing errors!
- We managed to get some more notepads today, so we'll be bringing some home for those of you that have requested one!
- I have some photos and video and stuff to upload, but the Internet connection is just too painfully slow, so I am gonna wait until we're back on Sunday.
- The guys organizing the Expo have been great, except for "the power incident" today. We didn't need to power anything at our booth, but all booths have a lamp at the top for the banner, and we were going to turn it on. Thing is, they wanted to charge us $90 to power the damn lamp. So I said screw that. Highway robbery.
We'll be at the Expo all day again tomorrow, so stop by and say hello if you're in the Ontario, CA area!
Just a few notes from our first full day here in Ontario:
- The season premiere of Smallville was tonight, and it was damn good. We made sure to be back to the hotel in time to watch.
- It was hot today, but it sure cooled down this evening (not that I am complaining).
- Was nice to see some familiar faces tonight at the exhibitor/speaker/press event at the convention center.
- Turns out the "Starbucks" in the lobby of the hotel isn't a full-blown Starbucks, but rather, proudly brews Starbucks coffee. Still, not bad.
- I absolutely hate paying $10 per day for ultra slow Internet. It aggravates me to no end. At least we were prepared enough to bring our own wireless router.
Tomorrow is the first day of the Expo - should be good!
Dickson and I are just killing time here in the nicely air conditioned hotel until 5:30 when there is an event for exhibitors and the press. I mention the air conditioning because it's a scorching 94 degrees here today, or for everyone back home in Canada, 34 degrees celsius. Edmonton had just started to get some nice weather again before we left, but it was still only about 15 degrees!
We finished setting up our booth in about ten minutes. Like last year, we opted not to do anything fancy, though unlike last year we have a banner this time. You can see what I mean in the pictures. We also decided to sponsor the conference notepads this year, and I am really happy with the way they turned out.
More later!
I think this is going to be a great trip! For the first time in recent memory, Dickson and I were not scrambling to finish anything the night before leaving town. That was kind of nice for a change, we'll have to do it more often! Today didn't start out so great though. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, cleared customs without any problems (minus Dickson getting manhandled in the security check by an over-eager young man) and then sat down to wait for the flight. Thing is, our flight was over 20 minutes late. And with a 45 minute window to catch our connecting flight in Salt Lake City, that was somewhat distressing.
Turns out we made it just in time to make the flight, but the lady at the counter informed us they had overbooked as they didn't think we'd make it. So we volunteered to wait for the later flight (only 2 hours later) and in return we got meal vouchers and a $200 credit with the airline (Delta). It was a pretty sweet deal! And such a difference from last year, when we missed our flight and had to pay a lot more to get to Ontario. Another nice side benefit was that our bags arrived ahead of us, so we didn't have to wait for them to get off the plane - they were waiting for us.
We're now in the hotel in Ontario - the DoubleTree, which is very nice by the way. They gave us a fresh chocolate chip cookie each upon checking in, and we passed a Starbucks on our way to the room. See what I mean about being a good start?
We just noticed that Podcasting News has an item on Podcast Spot too. I'm really excited for the Expo to start now!
I don't even know what to say - I've been wanting to make this post for so long! Okay, Podcast Spot is now live and ready for you to use. And you'll note we're not in beta either; we are not hiding behind a label. You shouldn't run into any problems on the site, but if you do, let us know. And please send us your feedback too!
For those of you that don't know, Podcast Spot is a hosting service for podcasters. We've been working on it for about two years now. Actually, exactly two years ago last Thursday was when I launched BlogosphereRadio, my first foray into podcasting. You can say that Podcast Spot grew out of that project - I realized that podcasting could be somewhat difficult, and took far too much time and effort. Dickson and I realized we could make things easier, and thus, we set about creating what eventually became Podcast Spot. And while the code might have changed quite a bit in the last two years, our goals have always been the same:
- To make becoming a podcaster and enjoying podcasts easier and more enjoyable
- To eliminate the need for technical knowledge, and reduce the amount of time required
- To empower podcasters and their audience with features designed specifically for podcasting
I'm proud to say that Podcast Spot is a big first step towards accomplishing these goals. That said, it's just the first step, and there's still a long way to go. We're eager and excited to continue improving the podcasting experience, with Podcast Spot and other products too.
Dickson and I recorded a quick little introduction message earlier this evening, which you can listen to at Podcast Spot. Even if you don't want to be a podcaster, I encourage to check the site out! If you have comments or feedback, we'd love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on one of our blogs, post to our forums, or email us. And if you're going to be at the Portable Media Expo later this week, come see us in booth #408!
Podcast Spot is ready to test! All except for one single thing that I haven't been able to figure out for a couple hours now. I am going to go sleep for a while, maybe I'll have better luck solving it after a little shut-eye. Anyway, if you were expecting to wake up to a test account in the mail, sorry. Hopefully this evening!
Maybe it's time everyone stopped calling Odeo a podcasting company. I've been critical of Google's apparent lack of focus and direction many times in the past, but they've got nothing on Odeo. I mean here's a company with some very smart people working for them, some substantial venture capital behind them, and yet very little to show for it. Perhaps the last notable thing Odeo did with regards to the core offering was redesign the website - and that was in December 2005. I have to agree with what Alex Williams said - "These dudes must have some pretty mellow investors."
That's not to say they are standing still. Odeo recently launched two new products, Hellodeo and Twttr. The former is somewhat related to podcasting, while the latter appears to have absolutely no connection whatsoever. Hellodeo lets you record a video message from your webcam to embed on other websites, and Twttr allows you to stay up to date with your friends using text messaging. Notice a trend? Yep, moving further and further away from podcasting.
I think it's fair to say that LibSyn has done far more in terms of getting people into podcasting than Odeo has, and somehow I doubt that Evan Williams and crew have any tricks up their sleeve. Odeo, quite simply, seems lost. It's a shame too, because they had the opportunity to do something great with podcasting. Maybe they should just purchase LibSyn?
You might recall that in May of last year, Fortune magazine named Odeo one of their 25 Breakout Companies for 2005. I wonder what they would say about the company today? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make the list again.
Maybe Odeo will come out with something amazing and I'll be forced to eat my words, but I don't think it's going to happen. I do however, think Odeo would be wise to read Dead 2.0 Skeptic's 11 Suggestions for Not Being a Dot-Bomb 2.0.
If you pick up a copy of the July/August issue of AlbertaVenture magazine, you'll find an article titled Entrepreneurial Idol, which is all about VenturePrize. While I think that title is better suited to the upcoming Dragon's Den on CBC, the article is still really good. Indeed one of my favorite memories from the entire VenturePrize experience was talking with Marina. She has a knack for asking the right questions.
Here are a few notable quotes related to Paramagnus from the article:
"Sitting in the front row of Steier's class are Mack Male and Dickson Wong, 22-year-olds who look like they've walked into the wrong classroom. But looks are deceiving; these whiz-kid computer undergrads at the U of A have already raised a hundred grand to fund their baby, Paramagnus Developments."
"Last to go is Paramagnus which, because of Male and Wong's youth, is the judges' sentimental favourite."
Marina ends the article with a quote from yours truly:
"I can't believe how far we, and our business model, have evolved since day one of this competition. We're going to go all the way."
That sentiment is still true, even today. The story isn't over yet though, not by a long shot. We're inching closer and closer with each passing day to releasing Podcast Spot. And when that happens, we'll really have something to be proud of!
Lots of the podcasting-related discussion taking place in the blogosphere over the last week or so has been about whether or not you can build a sustainable business around it (or even just whether podcasting is here to stay or not). No doubt Scoble's move to PodTech has fueled some of the discussion, as have comments like Larry Borsato's:
People talk about podcasting as if it is some amazing new technology, forgetting that we've had radio and books on tape for decades. The only difference is that we store the thing in a digital file now.
To say that podcasting is an "amazing new technology" is far too broad a statement to make, I agree. I would argue, however, that podcasting is a great new communications technology (or more accurately, the repackaging of existing technologies (MP3, RSS, the web) to create a great new communications technology). I touched on this idea in my National Post article in May, but I actually developed the theory much more completely back in March of this year. During that month, Paramagnus was heavily into our two business plan competitions, and one of the things I wrote was a introduction to podcasting, which explained how the technology fits into the overall communications picture:
Podcasting is, at its heart, a communications technology. The essence of podcasting is creating audio-visual content for an audience to listen to or watch when they want, where they want, and how they want.
Around the same time, I wrote an essay for a class at the University of Alberta, which explored the impact of the diagram above:
Communication can be broken down into four main methods: real-time text, real-time audio/video, time-shifted text, and time-shifted audio/video. Until very recently, only the first three of these methods had been made available to the masses in digital form by modern technology.
Podcasting fills a great void in communications technologies by enabling everyone to communicate digitally using time-shifted audio and video.
In the diagram above I chose videoconferencing (because of the ability to include both audio and video, and the ability to communicate with more than one person at a time), but you could just as easily stick the telephone in there as well. You might find the diagram simplifies communication, but that was kind of the point. When the average person is going to communicate with someone else, they're either going to see them in person, call them, email them, maybe instant message them, perhaps post something to their blog, or something similar. Until podcasting came along, it was really hard to use audio and video to do any of this.
As for sustainable business models around podcasting, I think they exist, even if they are hard to see at the moment. Unfortunately, everyone seems to be focused on podcast directories and podcast advertising, the two models I don't see as being very sustainable (at least not for the incredible number of companies each segment currently has). Advertising is for content companies, which might choose to use podcasting as a delivery medium. I don't think to be a podcasting company you need to have a strategy to sell advertising. Like most communications technologies, I feel the bulk of the money in podcasting will be on the creation side.
Basically what I am saying here is that podcasting is all about communication, and that's why it is relevant/important/going-to-stick-around. I don't think we'll ever have too many solutions to the problem of communication. And what I said in my last podcasting post still applies - you've got to choose the right tool for the job. Sometimes, you're going to use email or blogging or instant messaging. Other times, you're going to use podcasting.
Dickson and I are off for Mesh in Toronto in a few hours. The conference is Canada's first ever dedicated to Web 2.0, so I am really looking forward to it. As per usual, conference related posts will have the picture shown to the right, allowing you to skip right over them if you want! We should arrive in Toronto just before the start of the Oiler game tonight, so hopefully we won't miss too much of it.
The conference runs Monday and Tuesday. We're going to see The Lord of The Rings Broadway show on Wednesday, but aside from that, we've kept our schedules open. If you want to get together in TO, give me call (780.619.3864). If you need to get a hold of me for non-urgent things, email will work best.
Next post will likely be from Toronto!
I just got back from the VenturePrize Mentor Breakfast presented by MacEwan, which I mentioned we were attending in my previous post. Fortunately, we called one of our mentors this morning to find out where it was, so we made it on time, and everything worked out okay. Dickson and I were invited to speak at this event by the MacEwan organizers, to share our experience with and thoughts on the mentorship program that comes as part of VenturePrize. To sum up our presentation:
A mentor's only obligation is to provide honest, altruistic advice regarding the business plan to the business team they work with during the competition. In our experience, the business team ends up receiving much more than just advice in the mentorship program - they essentially gain another team member - making it a truly invaluable resource. As far as we're concerned, VenturePrize simply wouldn't be the same without the mentorship process that comes from the business plan screening, judging, and presenting, the seminar series, and of course, the mentors themselves. We're truly grateful we were able to take part!
The breakfast this morning was quite good, both the food and the people! We sat with and spoke after Grant MacEwan College CEO and President Dr. Paul Byrne, as well as TEC Edmonton CEO Dr. David Cox. Talk about some tough acts to follow! Both of them are excellent speakers, extremely well-versed in what they do. It probably sounds kind of corny, but events like the breakfast today are all part of that mentorship process we talked about, and we keep learning more and more with each event.
We're still here in the Paramagnus office, at around 4:30 AM, which has been normal for us lately. And you know what? Not only are the late night hours our most productive, they can also be the funniest. And on that note, I present to you, overheard in the office:
The last few days we've had problems with the circuit breakers in our office. A little while ago Dickson wanted to boil some water, but we didn't want to risk plugging our crazy kettle into an outlet here, so he took it out into the hallway. A little while later he went to get the boiled water, and when he returned:
"I feel like an African, having to go elsewhere to get my water!"
Not the most politically correct statement, but that's the way it goes at 4 AM. And according to any documentary I've ever seen, he's right, they always carry their water from elsewhere.
Tomorrow morning we've got a breakfast presentation to give on mentorship and our mentoring experiences in VenturePrize. I wrote a small speech the other day, and was going over it tonight:
Mack: Alright this looks good. Where is the event tomorrow?
Dickson: Hang on, I'll check.
A few minutes pass as Dickson scours his email...
Dickson: I can't seem to find it.
Mack: Hmm, that's odd. I wonder if it's on the TEC Edmonton site or anything.
More time passes as we both look at various websites for event info.
Mack: I can't believe we don't know where the event is!
So if you're reading this, and you happen to know where the event is tomorrow, give me a call ok? Thanks.
I was asked a few weeks ago if I'd be interested in writing something for the May issue of the Financial Post Business Magazine. I guess the editor is a happy subscriber of this blog ;) Of course, how could I refuse such an opportunity?! So I happily put together an article, which was included in the special report on telecom in this month's edition, on podcasting and how it affects business and communications:
Business could be using podcasting for everything from audio press releases to customer relations. What's it waiting for?
It's easy to see why podcasting could revolutionize day-to-day communications. The tools and services that make it easy to create a podcast are coming, from companies like Paramagnus and our competitors. Online directories and software applications like Apple's iTunes already make it simple to find and subscribe to podcasts. And the simpler it gets, the more people will take advantage of this powerful tool.
Beyond that, podcasting has business applications ranging from audio and video press releases, to offering tips and tricks on using the company's products, to internally podcasting company news for employees. Podcasting is more than just the new millennium's version of ham radio; it is a complete communications solution. When you think of it as something other than a new and geeky technology, the many different ways podcasting can affect your daily life become not only extremely obvious, but awfully exciting.
The entire piece is about 800 words, so the two paragraphs I posted above are just a snippet (but are the main idea behind the article). I had fun writing it, so I hope you enjoy reading it too!
I was interviewed about a week ago by John Bristowe who publishes the Developer Night in Canada podcast (gotta love that name!) and the episode is now up. We talked about podcasting in general, about Paramagnus and our products, how we use .NET development, a little about the .NET community in Edmonton, and a little about me.
Mack Male chats about podcasting in this episode of Developer Night in Canada (DNIC). He also discusses how he uses .NET to build out a solution he's working on for podcasters.
The episode is about 8 MB, and 17 minutes long - check it out!
Dickson did an interview recently with a reporter from the University of Alberta's ExpressNews, and the article featuring Paramagnus and our business plan competition success is now up:
A couple of University of Alberta students are starting to hear the sweet sounds of success.
The business world has been tuning in to Mack Male and Dickson Wong ever since the duo's innovative podcast technology earned a place in the VenturePrize finals.
The article borrows heavily from the recent Journal and Sun articles, but is still very well written. And to be honest, it's nice to be recognized by your school!
[This post originally appeared at the Canadian Developers blog on MSDN, so check it out, it's a great blog. For those of you who might consider parts of this post somewhat dated, that's because it was written a couple weeks ago!]
If you're a .NET developer in Canada, you've probably already heard of Plumbers at Work and if you haven't, you should! It's a great podcast featuring "four geeks from Canada" talking about all things .NET and Microsoft. I'm not exactly sure how they create and publish their episodes, but I am guessing it's not as easy as they would like. In fact, most podcasters are pretty technical folks - at least for the time being.
Along with Dickson Wong, I run the Edmonton .NET Wizards user group in Edmonton, Alberta, but we have another connection to .NET development too - we create tools and services for podcasting. Our software company is Paramagnus Developments Inc., and we are trying to make podcasting as easy and as fun as possible.
We have created two applications and two services - Podcast Spot is our hosting service, Podcast Wizard is our Windows-based creation tool, Podcast Tags is our directory/tagging service, and Podcast Basket is our "podcatcher", an application that helps you find, subscribe to, and manage podcast downloads. Our entire solution has been built using .NET and related technologies, and it has really allowed us to accomplish our development goals very quickly. We're are currently on track to launch in May 2006.
Just recently we had some great success in a couple of business plan competitions. We were one of three finalists in the Alberta-wide VenturePrize business plan competition, and the following day we won the national Wes Nicol competition. Both competitions were a boost for our business, and the idea of a podcasting company in general, as the judges were some of the most respected investors and business people in the country.
We'll be at Canada's Web 2.0 conference called Mesh in May, so stop by and check out the products we have created! We'll also do our best to get Plumbers at Work to start using a Canadian-made, .NET-based solution for podcasting ;)
I read some of the comments and other blog posts that referenced the Forrester report I linked to yesterday, and it seems that most people think the numbers are far too low. John Furrier has an excellent roundup of estimates, and Todd Cochrane said he thinks the unique listener number of 700,000 is actually "about 10 times that many."
After I thought about things a little more, I realized that the problem is not whether they are too high or too low, but rather that we have no idea how many people are creating podcasts. Seems to me you need to have creators actually producing something before you can have listeners! I know there's more to it than that, but a good idea of the number of people who are creating podcasts might help in trying to establish a credible number for how many listeners there are.
So far I haven't really been able to find any such data. Our own estimates here at Paramagnus peg the number of creators at somewhere around 30,000 worldwide, but that is an extremely "back of the envelope" guess, and I would not be surprised to find it is wrong. Does anyone have reliable data on this sort of thing? Also, we haven't yet bought the Forrester report - does it contain information on podcast creation, or just the listener side of things?
No disrespect to Peter Chen or the Diffusion Group or anyone else that has done podcasting research thus far, but I was pleased to see a research report from Forrester. Finally something from a widely respected and referenced research group. Also refreshing is the fact that the report doesn't make podcasting out to be an amazingly fast growing technology (though it is growing pretty quickly and will probably grow faster over the next couple years). In the new report, titled "Podcasting Hits The Charts", Forrester shows that only 1% of North American households regularly download and listen to podcasts:
Podcasting will get easier and the content will get better, but it will all take time.
So should companies be putting podcasting on the backburner? Hardly. Content that already exists – such as earning calls, training updates, and executive presentations are all excellent fodder for podcasts. Think of us poor analysts who must listen to streamed quarterly calls while chained to our laptops! My caution is that companies shouldn’t be dashing out to create expensive original content for a small audience – unless they gain value from being seen as innovative.
That first sentence is incredibly important, I think. Podcasting still isn't easy enough for most people! And yes, these things take time, but hopefully we can help solve that problem in a couple months. The goal of our podcasting solution is to first of all make it easy.
The second bit of stuff I quoted there is important too. We're doing a lot of our own research on the business sector of podcasting right now, and we really agree - there's a huge market. Podcasting is an excellent way to solve some communication problems that have always existed.
An incredible number of tech startups have been created in the last year or so, as evidenced by the existence of blogs like TechCrunch and The List to track them all. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, some people are starting to get turned off. Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, recently suggested that it's a bad time to start a company. She outlined six reasons:
- Everybody else is starting a company.
- Your competition just got funded too.
- Talent is scarce again.
- You can't operate in obscurity anymore.
- Web 2.0 isn't all that.
- There's too much going on.
With the exception of number five, I have to respectfully disagree. And judging by the comments she received on that post, many others do as well. More and more companies are being launched every day, and while not all of them will succeed, some will.
The vast majority of these companies are located in Silicon Valley, or at the very least, in the United States. For a while it seemed that Canada was missing out on this time of growth in the tech sector, but thanks to conferences like Mesh and the odd VC deal, that perception is starting to change. We still have a long way to go though, before Mark Evans will be satisfied:
What I want to know is when is Canada's Web 2.0 party going to start? When can I start writing about super-cool start-ups strutting around with a multi-million dollar VC deals? When do I get to attend parties with an open bar, a great band and a nice "loot bag" when you finally decide to leave?
I have been wondering the same thing, especially given the fact that I have been creating a "cool startup" here in Canada. Through VenturePrize, Wes Nicol, and all of the people and organizations we have met along the way, I have learned a lot about investment and raising money, both here in Alberta and elsewhere.
If you can raise money for a tech venture in Alberta, you can raise it anywhere.
The main thing I have learned about where to raise money is that in Alberta, raising money for a technology based venture is next to impossible. Alberta sees something like 3% of all tech funding done in Canada, which doesn't jive with our incredible economy. The problem is that the Alberta economy is really a one-trick pony - we're almost entirely dependent on oil and gas (and real estate which becomes valuable because of the oil and gas). And with generous tax and royalty programs like the Innovative Energy Technologies Program and the Generic Oil Sands Royalty Regime (more on these here), why would an investor put money into anything but oil? They can get a significant portion of their investment back through these and other royalty programs. I have been told that in some cases an investor can get almost half of what they invest back in credit!
One advisor I spoke with suggested that the way our provincial economy is setup is really "punitive" for technology based firms. It's bad news for the future of our province too, as oil and gas are simply not sustainable over the long haul.
This web page appears to have been written in 1996, and yet the three issues identified at the very top still affect technology commercialization in Alberta (not to say that nothing has been accomplished in the last decade):
- The shortage of financing for SMEs, primarily for seed or early stage companies with a capital requirement of less than $500,000.
- The lack of financing options related to commercialization and early growth situations, where public offerings or other forms of institutional financing may not be appropriate.
- The lack in Alberta, relative to other jurisdictions, of tax related incentives, to stimulate investment in the technology sector.
They match up with everything I have learned thus far anyway. More recent publications seem to confirm things as well, such as Ernst & Young's Alberta Technology Report from 2004:
"Limited funding is an issue that needs addressing," says Ian Robinson, who as team leader of Ernst & Young's Technology, Communications and Entertainment group heads up the report. "Locally based angel investors are improving the picture-in 2003 we saw a quarter of companies supported by angels, an increase from 17% the previous year. But few Alberta companies are receiving support from venture capitalists, and small companies-the majority of Alberta's technology sector-are not able to access funding from these sources. Not surprisingly, perhaps, 38% of companies suggest a willingness to leave Alberta, in part to gain better access to capital," he says.
So what can you do to raise money for a tech venture in Alberta? Turns out there are still a few options, one of which is of course to simply look elsewhere! In addition to personal or family and friends capital, debt funding, and the other traditional methods of raising money, here are some of the programs available in Alberta:
- Alberta Deal Generator
"Alberta Deal Generator (ADG) has established the largest network of accredited investors in Canada who are actively pursuing opportunities in Alberta's early and growth-stage companies. We work to facilitate investment in high-growth Alberta technology companies."
- VenturePrize
Having gone through the competition, I can confirm that it is a reasonable way to attract investment. At the very least you will likely be introduced to some of the individuals and groups in Alberta that might be interested in investing.
- Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program
"The federal government provides income tax incentives to Canadian taxpayers that conduct scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED;) in Canada. The program encourages industry, including small business and start-up firms, to develop technologically advanced products and processes in Canada."
- Industrial Research Assistance Program
We have consulted with IRAP here in Edmonton, and it turned out that we just weren't at the right stage for funding (though they have helped us in other ways). If you're getting started with a technology based company, make sure you talk to IRAP early so you can plan to use their services and funding.
- Tech Focused VC Firms
Organizations like Venture Alberta and SpringBank TechVentures are focused on technology based firms, though I have no idea how successful they have been.
- Venture Forums
There are lots of forums that are open to any company in Canada, no matter where you are located, such as the Canadian Venture Forum. There are some local ones too, like the Keiretsu Forum for Calgary and Edmonton.
Hopefully that gives you a good overview of the funding situation for technology companies here in Alberta. There is lots of room for improvement, and until things do improve, I would not be surprised if we end up losing some good technology firms to other locations.
That said, I guess I should point out that starting a company in Alberta is not all bad. There are many advantages to being here, such as excellent access to labor, reasonably good tax rates, and very little threat of natural disasters (such as flooding destroying your data center or something).
In terms of funding though, if your venture is oil and gas related, Alberta is the place to be. If instead your venture is technology based, you might be better off elsewhere unfortunately.
Dickson and I recently registered for Mesh, Canada's first ever Web 2.0 conference taking place in Toronto on May 15th and 16th. The organizers already have an impressive list of guests and speakers, so I am really looking forward to it.
Canada needs a conference like mesh. Web 2.0 is happening all around us, as the Internet becomes the place to communicate, collaborate and entertain. mesh is brought to you by people who want to inspire enthusiasm, creativity and opportunity; by people who believe that for Canada to remain vibrant and competitive, we have to connect with each other and share our ideas about what the Web should be.
In particular, I am looking forward to meeting Amber MacArthur, because let's face it, she's clearly the best looking of all the speakers up on the site thus far! There are eleven people on the site along with some text that says "and 30 other leading minds..." - sounds like a great place for a geek like me.
If you're going to the conference and want to hook up in Toronto, let me know. We'll probably be there for a few days before and after the main event as well.
Thanks to everyone who came out to dinner last night, it was lots of fun! If you couldn't make it, don't worry about it. Special thanks to Megan (and whoever helped her) for getting that awesome cake made and stuff, that was really cool :) Here are some pictures I took from last night, and here are some pictures that Megan took (I like this one).
Now that we've celebrated a little, it's time for us to get back to work!
We've received a lot of great press for our business plan competitions lately. Of course, we were in the Ottawa Citizen the day after the Wes Nicol competition, and today we were featured in the Edmonton Journal:
Mack Male and Dickson Wong's disappointment at not winning this year's TEC Edmonton VenturePrize melted away 24 hours later when the University of Alberta students won a national business plan competition in Ottawa.
Unfortunately you need an account to read the entire article online, so go pick up a physical copy. There's a great picture of us in there too, page G3.
We're also featured on the Innovation Alberta website. There is text, audio, and an image:
One of the two runners up in TEC Edmonton's VenturePrize Competition was Paramagnus Developments Inc. Paramagnus deals in podcasting software Tools, and is the brainchild of Edmonton computing science students Mack Male and Dickson Wong. Here's what Mack has to say about being a finalist in VenturePrize.
And there's more on the way too! If you run across something I haven't, let me know.
We drove down to Toronto today after leaving Ottawa around 10 AM. We didn't realize there was an extra drop charge on the car rental, but it still worked out to about the same or slightly cheaper than a flight. It didn't take too long to get to the city, and the drive was actually pretty nice, but it took longer to find the place we were going! Thank goodness for MapPoint. We had a meeting with a colocation facility (Frontline) which went very well (they were nice enough to meet with us on Saturday). After the meeting, we called our good friend Ashish Patel!
Ashish was nice enough to take us on a tour of the IBM Toronto Software Lab where he works. I took a few pictures, but told him I wouldn't post them (no need to find out if they have a blogging policy the hard way!). The place is pretty neat and is a world class IBM facility where WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, Lotus and other software products are created (including the compiler for the upcoming PS3). It was very cool to see where Ashish works, and he has our Podbot picture proudly displayed at his desk!
After the tour we took Ashish for dinner (he chose Boston Pizza which was fine by me) and then we just hung out at his place for a while. Was kind of nice to relax for a couple of days here. We drove to the airport tonight and got a room at the Sheraton so that we don't have to get up so early to leave tomorrow.
We considered extending our trip and going to New York, but decided maybe next time! We'll be back in Edmonton tomorrow at 2:30 PM.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention, it rained almost all day, both in Ottawa when we left and in Toronto! Sure beats the snow though ;)
There's an article on us in the Ottawa Citizen today if you want to check it out! It has a picture too, but don't worry, we have many more of those...such as this one from the club we went to last night to celebrate!
We just got back from the dinner and awards ceremony, and we're extremely happy to report that Paramagnus has won the national Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award for 2006! We had a good feeling after the presentation earlier today, and it proved to be right.
We're off to the Presidential Suite here at the Fairmont to celebrate, so we'll post more later.
Dickson and I arrived here in Ottawa this morning at 9:30 AM and quickly had to get to the hotel to get started for the Wes Nicol competition. It's been a packed day, which I wrote about at our VenturePrize Experience blog. We think our presentation went very, very well!
We're just waiting for the dinner to start now, which is where the winner will be announced. Following the dinner is a party, and then probably bedtime, considering we only slept around 4 hours yesterday and those 4 hours were on a plane. The good news is that we got our travel plans changed, so we are departing from Toronto on Sunday rather than from here tomorrow morning. Gives us time to make a few business calls in TO.
Anyway, will update more later. Wish us luck!
Seems we end up in Calgary for almost every trip we take (except for Northern Voice). Fortunately there is free wireless Internet here, so I am not complaining. Well, at least it makes the travelling a little better. This is our insane flight schedule:
- 9:00 PM - Depart Edmonton
- 9:45 PM - Arrive Calgary
- 12:32 AM - Depart Calgary
- 6:17 AM - Arrive Toronto
- 8:30 AM - Depart Toronto
- 9:30 AM - Arrive Ottawa
Currently we're scheduled to come back on the 24th, but we're going to try to change that to the 26th. Preferrably, the 26th departing from Toronto, as we're planning to drive from Ottawa to Toronto on the 25th for business and to meet up with some people. I'm hoping we can get the flights worked out anyway!
We're in Tim Horton's at the moment, as it was the only food establishment open (unsurprisingly). Seems those 24 hour McDonalds express locations would be perfect for an airport!
More on the trip later...
We just got back from the final event, and unfortunately, we didn't win. We're really proud that we made it to the finals of VenturePrize however, and we have our sights set on the Wes Nicol competition tomorrow in Ottawa. Congratulations to Chris and Don at Leading Edge Technologies for winning this year's competition.
We've got lots of pictures and stuff to post, and we'll do that slowly over the next few days. Our flight to Ottawa leaves in about five hours, so we're getting ready for that. We're a little disappointed about VenturePrize obviously, but we're going to take what we've learned and do our best tomorrow evening.
You can read my post on today's event at our VenturePrize blog.
It's time to get this show on the road! We practiced our presentation and elevator pitch a lot last night, and we went to Denny's for a late meal. Now we're totally pumped and we're going to give it everything we've got!
Wish us luck! And if I've got your cell, watch for a text message in about five hours or so :)
Dickson and I went to the new Hall D at the Shaw Conference Centre this afternoon to meet with the VenturePrize people and do a sound check, so we got our first glimpse at the new addition. We were escorted in by the construction foreman who eyed my camera nervously. He didn't ask me to leave it or anything though, so once inside, I snapped a few photos.
The place is gigantic! My first impression upon walking in was, wow, this is big. The windows are floor to ceiling, and they have massive drapes that can be mechanically raised or lowered. The ceiling itself is entirely black, with beams running the full length of the hall. There appears to be a "control room" at the back of the hall, and just outside the main room are a bunch of smaller rooms. We didn't get to see these though as most of the construction was happening back there. Actually, that was the second thing I noticed - there is much to be done.
I have no idea what the entrance is going to look like, because we were led through a small hallway that appeared to exist only for construction purposes. There were small teams of construction workers all over the place, doing various things. Apparently the giant media screens are not part of the Hall D, but were instead "flown in" especially for VenturePrize (this is what they told me). In addition to the construction workers there were lots of people just milling about, so I'm not sure what they were doing. I wouldn't be surprised if some people are putting in a lot of hours to get things ready for Wednesday though.
Speaking of, we're less than two days away now. Don't forget to follow along at our VenturePrize Experience blog!
Dickson and I have been working on a blog specifically for VenturePrize (and Wes Nicol too) and it's finally ready for public consumption! Basically you can read all about our experiences in the two competitions, starting way back in October 2005 when we first decided to take part in VenturePrize. The address is:
http://ventureprize.paramagnus.com
With the exception of the March posts, all entries have been posted after the fact. So a post from November was actually written in the last two weeks, even though the post itself seems like it was written in November. We did our best to go back in time and remember what we were thinking and feeling so that the blog is authentic. I don't think we'll be adding any more "back posts", unless we remember something worth sharing, so the blog is "live" moving forward.
There are two main reasons for this blog. First and foremost, it is for us, so that we can look back and remember the experience. It should also come in handy when asked about timelines in the future, as it is often difficult to remember when things happened. The second reason is that we hope our experience will be useful to future participants of the VenturePrize and Wes Nicol competitions. Learn from our mistakes, and improve upon the things we did!
The blog is entirely comprised of text posts right now, but we're planning to add some media content at some point too, podcasts, pictures, etc. Enjoy!
As Dickson mentioned yesterday, the HDTV projector we ordered about a week ago arrived. The projector is an Optoma MovieTime, and supports HDTV inputs and has a built-in DVD player. Even though it goes against my rules for buying electronics, I think we made a good purchase (and it was a steal of a deal from Costco). We watched Into The Blue yesterday, and I brought in my Xbox 360 from home today - gotta love that widescreen!
The reason we got the projector was work...no really! We are always scrambling to find a projector for our Edmonton .NET Wizards meetings, and we can definitely use it for Paramagnus-related stuff too. Okay, okay, we'll also use it for the odd movie or gaming session ;)
I've got some pictures up at Flickr if you want to take a look.
Everything is public now, so it's time for an update on our business plan competitions! As you may recall, Dickson and I entered Paramagnus into two business plan competitions - VenturePrize and Wes Nicol. We had back to back presentations in February, and have been waiting patiently to find out how we did. We've known for a couple days now, but it was announced today that we're a finalist in the VenturePrize competition, and we won first place in the local portion of the Wes Nicol! Congratulations especially to our fellow finalists in VenturePrize, and indeed to all of the competitors we've met thus far. We've learned so much already!
We're now preparing for the final VenturePrize showdown which takes place at the annual EEDC luncheon on March 22nd. We'll be among the first people to see the brand new extension to the Shaw Conference Centre. The following day we need to be in Ottawa for the national component of the Wes Nicol competition, so it'll be a very busy two days! We're looking forward to it.
Actually the next few weeks will be busy. We did a brief interview tonight that will air on CBC Radio tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon we're filming our three minute video that will be shown at the luncheon on the 22nd. We're presenting to a class at the University next Friday. Over the next two weeks we'll be putting together an "insider's blog" for our experience in VenturePrize. And of course we've got to update our business plan, prepare our second presentations, and keep our business running (not to mention school, volunteering, etc). And it won't stop there - we've already got interviews and the like lined up into April. Definitely good for the business!
We've met a lot of people lately, and while it was nice to meet all of you, sometimes it's hard to get down contact information or remember everyone. If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach me via email or at 780.619.3864. Or of course you can simply subscribe :)
We just finished our first ever problem-free infrastructure upgrades! Our server room looks so much nicer and cleaner now. The changes took longer than expected, but that's why we work at night :) We're well on our way to launching our podcasting services now, so stay tuned!
It's been a great week for Paramagnus! On Wednesday it was announced that we were semi-finalists in the VenturePrize competition and last night we found out that we were selected as finalists for local part of the Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award, also a businss plan competition!
The Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award is a national non-profit competition designed to promote entrepreneurship with Canadian University students. Now in its 9th year, the program is launching its second national Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award ceremony, to be held March 23rd, 2006 in Ottawa.
We present to the judges on Saturday, and if we win the local competition we get to travel to Ottawa to compete against the rest of Canada. Needless to say, we're pretty excited!
If you're going to participate in a business plan competition, you might as well compete in another. There ends up being quite a bit of overlap in terms of the work you need to do, but you meet different people and learn different things from each.
Hopefully a week from now we'll be making travel arrangements for our nation's capital!
UPDATE [10:02 PM]: I fixed this post to say "semi-finalists in the VenturePrize competition" as I had erroneously put "finalists". I'm getting ahead of myself :)
I am really pleased to announce that Paramagnus Developments Inc. has been selected as one of six semi-finalists in this year's VenturePrize Fast-Growth Enterprise Award category. As some of you may know, Dickson and I have been working on a business plan for Paramagnus for the last four or five months, and we submitted it to the VenturePrize business plan competition at the end of January. From the press release:
These six semifinalists will present their concepts to a judging panel who will announce the final three contenders at a March 6 special reception. These three finalists will then make a final pitch to judges and a sold-out audience at the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) Annual Luncheon on March 22, 2006, where the grand prize winner will be crowned.
“This is an exciting group of contestants representing a range of innovative business opportunities,” said Jay Krysler, VenturePrize Program Manager for TEC Edmonton. “The business plan screening panel, who are business and finance industry professionals, certainly had a difficult time selecting only six from so many great business concepts. Alberta will be well-served when all these plans move forward.”
It feels very good to have your business receive validation and recognition from some very smart people. We've learned a lot throughout the process so far, and I know there's far more learning ahead.
We're really excited about making it this far in the competition, and we're going to do our best to blow the judges away with our presentation. If all goes well, I'll be posting again on March 6th that we made it to the final three! No matter what happens, I'm proud of what we've accomplished already, and I am eager to see the feedback on our business plan.
I also can't wait to get our products and services launched!
Wired has a new article up today which talks about one of the down sides to podcasting, known as podfading. Ryan and Jen Ozawa, former producers of the popular Lost-themed podcast The Transmission are the latest example of podfading:
Podcasting has drawn thousands on the premise that anyone can create an audio program, build an audience online and even vault to stardom. Less celebrated is the fact that untold numbers of shows just wink out just as suddenly as they started.
The phenomenon has earned its own label, "podfading," coined by podcaster Scott Fletcher in February 2005 when he gave up on two podcasts of his own.
Podfaders' motives vary wildly, from those discouraged by their lack of listenership to, in the Ozawas' case, a success that overwhelmed them.
This story both saddens and motivates me. Podfading will always exist, but there's no reason it should be any different than blogging, where millions of blogs are abandoned. The difference is that the effort it took to create those blogs in the first place was negligable - not so with a podcast, at least not yet. Brian Reid sums it up:
"There was no money in it and it did nothing to push my career forward. I've got a lot of other things in my life, paying work being one and my family is another. It's not like blogging, where you can do it for 15 minutes at a time and get away with it."
I know it varies quite a bit, but one survey found that the average time spent producing an episode was just over four and half hours! That's a long way from fifteen minutes.
At Paramagnus we don't expect to cut the amount of production time to fifteen minutes, but we do hope to significantly reduce it. The reason we started working on tools and services for podcasters was precisely this problem - the pain involved in creation right now is too great. Too much time, too much effort, too many requirements.
I really wish I had some numbers to share, but we're not quite there yet. We've obviously been doing our own testing, and we've found that it's a lot less work to produce an episode than it used to be (when I was doing BlogosphereRadio "by hand", for example). Podcast Spot really goes a long way to reducing the pain of publishing audio to the web, adding appropriate metadata, generating an RSS feed, promoting the episode, and gathering feedback and statistics. We're working hard on Podcast Wizard too, which we hope will reduce the pain of actually planning, recording, and mixing an episode.
I feel sorry for the Ozawa's - it sounds like they had a great show going (I'm not much of a Lost fan, so I never came across it). Maybe after we've launched they'll find it easier to podcast and who knows, maybe they'll even decide give it another go!
With the new year fast approaching, I thought it would be a good time for predictions. Not resolutions, but predictions. If you'd like to see some predictions from around the web, Alex Barnett has compiled a very interesting collection. Here are some of my predictions for the coming year, some specific and some more vague, in no particular order:
- Canada will win both the World Juniors Hockey Championship, and the gold medal in hockey at the Olympics.
- RIM will prevail in their legal troubles and will find success beyond the corporate market in 2006.
- The Indianapolis Colts will win the Superbowl.
- 2006 will finally be the year of Internet connected devices that make sense, are inexpensive, and are adopted widely. I am thinking of devices like digital cameras, little tablets for living room access, etc.
- Toyota will overtake General Motors as the world's largest automaker, and GM shares will continue to plummet.
- Sony will launch the Playstation 3, but due to incredibly high prices, it will not match the success of it's predecessor, nor the Xbox 360, except in Japan.
- The Ottawa Senators will win the Stanley Cup (at least I hope so, if Edmonton can't).
- Windows Vista will RTM in September. Apple fans will claim too much is copied from OS X, and Linux fans will come out with roadmaps to copy all the functionality found in Vista.
- We'll see a new Halo game (Halo 3 maybe) for the Xbox 360 sometime around November.
- iTunes and iPod will begin to lose their grip on the digital music market.
- Apple will successfully launch their Intel based machines and their market share will reach 6%.
- Michael Schumacher will win his 8th world drivers championship and then retire.
- A major security/antivirus/antispyware company will launch a lawsuit against Microsoft over Windows Vista, Windows OneCare, or other competing products.
- Movies, television shows, and other forms of video content will be sold in big numbers online in 2006, with almost every major content company taking part.
- Someone is going to buy TiVo before the year is over.
- The Liberals will once again win the upcoming Canadian election.
- It's not really my prediction, but I agree with John Battelle who thinks Google will stumble in 2006.
- The Da Vinci Code will be in the top three movies at the boxoffice.
- The United States will invade Iran.
And in my final prediction, I am going to disagree with Jason Calacanis, who made the following prediction on December 27th:
12. No podcasting company will have any significant success in 2006, but a number of podcasters will be offered great jobs at Sirius and XM Radio.
I am going to predict that at least one company will be successful in 2006, and I fully intend to have Paramagnus be that company!
Our trip this past weekend to California was definitely what I would call a "business trip" as we didn't have much time to do anything vacation-like. After the expo was finished on Saturday, Dickson and I drove into Hollywood and Beverly Hills for some sightseeing. The drive also meant more time on the busy and very fast freeways! Actually, I think the reason they seem so fast is the cement walls on either side, the large number of lanes, and the incredible number of vehicles.
The houses in Beverly Hills were quite amazing! We also drove down Rodeo Drive, and saw some of the fancy stores like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Lots of fancy cars too. Sunset Blvd was very busy, making it almost impossible to change lanes without cutting someone off! For a late dinner we went to IHOP and had, what else, breakfast! The pancakes were very good, I must admit, though very filling. We didn't have too much time though, as we had to return the rental car, which meant some fast driving on I-10 to get back to Ontario.
As for the conference/expo, it was great! We definitely had one of the most simplistic booths, but that's okay. We were there to talk with people, both to learn and share, so a flashy booth wasn't required. We met a lot of great people, and learned about lots of new projects. Exciting! We definitely want to something more for next year, but we've got almost a year to plan it.
Traveling home was long! Fortunately we met Dave Slusher and rode with him to Denver. We chatted about quite a few things, it was great! We also departed Denver at the same time, although in different locations, so we hung out til boarding. Thanks Dave!
In Calgary we stopped at Earls for lunch and then at Krispy Kreme to pickup some donuts. No trip to Calgary is complete without getting one of the hot, fresh original glazed donuts while waiting in line to buy four dozen! Finally we were on our way home. I realize now that I actually did a lot of driving over the weekend, and it just tired me out. Fortunately I slept longer than a few hours last night :)
For my pictures of our trip and the Expo, click here. Dickson will have more posted soon too, so check out his blog.
Traveling has a way of making the old schedule go a little nutty, so I didn't get a chance to post much over the weekend. Well, that and the fact that Internet access was not as abundant as it should have been! Overall, the Expo was great - both for Paramagnus and for podcasting in general. My only complaint about the entire event would be that there was no wireless Internet. I don't believe that any technology-related conference in the year 2005 should be without Internet access! That's one thing Chris Pirillo has absolutely correct with Gnomedex.
In any case, the second day of the Expo went very well. I'd say it was the busier of the two days. We were the first to present in the morning, and despite the fact that the stage Internet did not work, it went very well. I hope the people who were in the audience gained some value out of my presentation. I know some of them did, because they came by the booth later. We also got the chance on Saturday to take a look at some of the interesting things the other exhibitors were doing. It's a very exciting time for podcasting!
Thanks to everyone who came by and spoke to us during the two-day Expo! It was great to meet you, and we look forward to helping you with podcasting. Thanks also to Tim and everyone at TNC New Media for putting on a great show! We're looking forward to next year already.
Overall I'd say that today was a very productive one for Paramagnus! We didn't arrive at LAX until around 9:30 AM, which meant it was near 11:30 AM by the time we made it to Ontario - an hour and a half after the Expo opened. We rented a car in Los Angeles to drive into Ontario, and I must say, it was an experience! Once I did the first merge onto the freeway it wasn't so bad, but that initial merge was a little scary - so many lanes, so many cars, such fast speeds! The freeways really are a good idea though, as it doesn't take long to get where you need to go.
This is the first year for the Portable Media Expo, so we didn't know exactly what to expect. As it turns out, the event has been a huge success! There were lots of people roaming the floors of the exhibit hall today, so we got the chance to introduce ourselves and our podcasting stuff to a pretty sizable audience. The feedback we have received thus far was all very encouraging - so much so that all we really want to do is go back to Edmonton to continue coding!
We'll be in the exhibit hall all day tomorrow, and we've also got the stage for thirty minutes tomorrow morning starting at 10:15 AM. We're planning to give an overview of the company and our products, and do a couple of quick demos. Unfortunately we won't have the Podbot on hand - the robot is in need of repairs that we just can't do in the hotel room.
I posted up a quick sample episode tonight to my podcast, so you can take a look at some of the features we've got working. Obviously there is much to be done, but you can see the audio conversion and the dynamic segmenting, for example. More to come soon!
I just posted an introduction to our podcasting solution over at the Paramagnus Blog, so go check it out to find out what we've been up to for the last few months! I am glad that we've finally released some bits, but there's still so much more to come. I can't wait until we get everything finished - it'll be great for podcasting!
So far we've released Podcast Tags and Podcast Spot. Both of them are in beta, though Podcast Spot is really more of an alpha and Podcast Tags is closer to completion. We wanted to release something though, to demonstrate what we're working on and where we're going with it, and to hopefully get some feedback. So take a look and let us know what you think!
If all goes according to plan we'll be posting some demos and other information tomorrow to better explain the two products, so stay tuned!
Well as some of you are aware, and as Dickson posted, we're still in Calgary. I knew that leaving from Calgary instead of Edmonton would be a problem, and it turns out that we missed our flight, for a variety of reasons. After evaluating all of our options (because the later flight was booked solid, so we couldn't get bumped), and after some great help from our travel agent (thanks Wendy!) we found a flight leaving Calgary early tomorrow morning to LA. Once there we're going to rent a car and drive to Ontario, which means we should hopefully arrive just after the Expo floor opens at 10 AM.
We're quite excited about the Expo, despite the travel problems we encountered today! I am really looking forward to meeting podcasters, listeners and others. And I'm also looking forward to sharing our products and services.
So we're slightly delayed, but that won't stop us!
It used to be that an all-nighter was a rare event, something that only happened once in a while and only when absolutely necessary. Lately though it seems like every night is an all-nighter! Dickson and I have been working like crazy lately, but I think it will all be worth it. I guess we'll find out this weekend in any case!
We're off to Calgary now, which is where our flight for Ontario, California departs. We'll be at the Podcast & Portable Media Expo this weekend, so stay tuned to my blog and the Paramagnus blog for news and updates. Thanks to everyone who has wished us luck!
Have a great weekend!
Via Derek I came across Peter Chen's preliminary statistics from his podcasting and videoblogging survey. He makes it clear that the results are preliminary, and that follow-up data is being requested with more analysis to come. Having said that, the results are quite interesting! Here are some highlights I picked out:
- Looks like the majority of podcasters publish content weekly. (48.77 %)
- Average episode length is just over 29 minutes.
- The average number of minutes spent producing an episode is almost 260! That's an incredibly high number that we hope to reduce with our solutions. I know how much time it takes - that's one reason I stopped BlogosphereRadio to focus on building the tools!
- About 61% of respondents say they have no business model - they do it as a private endeavor. Sounds like my Average Joe Podcasting post was spot on!
- English is overwhelmingly the most commonly spoken language. (85.75 %)
- One stat that surprised me - around 83% of respondents were male. For some reason, I expected that to be a little lower. I think it's because of the recent push in blogging to find female voices; I probably figured that podcasting would benefit.
Very intriguing results. I look forward to seeing what Peter comes up with next. I also wonder just how representative these numbers are - there's no margin of error or anything posted (probably because they are preliminary results).
You might remember that way back on August 18th, 2005 I wrote a post entitled Average Joe Podcasting. Let me highlight the main point of that post for you:
Not everyone who starts a podcast is going to want to make money from it, just like not everyone who blogs does so with the intention of making a living. I read a lot about podcasting - news articles, blog posts, etc., and I can't help but feel that far too many individuals and organizations focus on the "making money from podcasting" idea.
As soon as starting and maintaining a podcast is as simple as starting and maintaining a blog, I think we'll see the same breakdown in podcasting [as in blogging].
You should read the entire post to get the full argument in context, but that's the main idea - that individuals will likely start to podcast for themselves, and that they'll become a major segment of the podcasting world.
Almost exactly two months after I wrote that comes a post from Odeo's Evan Williams, entitled Podcasting for Regular People. Here's the main idea in his post:
While blogging can be about playing on a world stage to influence, gain audience, and, potentially, monetize (the same goals as most other media), there are millions of people who are happily pubishing daily without those motivations. For them, it's more about expression, self-reflection, and communication.
I call these people "casual content creators." It's not just that they're amateur or part of the great, unwashed, Long Tail. It's that they're playing a different game.
The idea of casual content creation in the realm of audio is a powerful one. And I think it's a yet-to-be-duly-recognized segment of the (potential) podcasting world.
Sound familiar? I thought so.
I attended TEC Edmonton's TEC Connector event this afternoon with Dickson. TEC Edmonton is a joint venture of the University of Alberta and the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation. Here's what the event was all about:
This TEC Connector event will showcase companies created from the results of University of Alberta inventions and technologies. In addition, the event is an active connector which will provide networking tools and tips, plus generate opportunities to connect with useful representatives in our community, including: university researchers, start-up company leaders, professional service firms, financial support organizations, government agency representatives, media representatives, inventors and entrepreneurs.
Obviously Paramagnus is not a spin-off company, nor we do use any University research or innovations, but we though the event might be a great opportunity to do some networking anyway. We met some interesting people and found out more about many of the local companies we had only just heard of in the past. I also learned some interesting statistics about University of Alberta spin-off companies:
- As of March 31st, 2005 there were 69 active UofA spin-off companies
- There have been 84 such companies formed since 1963, including those that have merged, been acquired, or discontinued
- These companies employ more than 1000 high-skilled workers
- More than 80% of the spin-offs are based in Alberta
- Seven are publicly traded
One of the speakers at the event also mentioned the pending offer to purchase to the Hudson's Bay building downtown, which if approved is where TEC Edmonton's new headquarters would be. University administration presents the proposal to the Board of Governors on Friday, so we should know either this week or next whether or not the deal will go through.
Networking events are always lots of fun! This one was especially good because there was free food and drinks :)
Today the Edmonton Journal featured the Alberta Centennial Edition, a collection of stories about 100 Albertans living and working in the province today. Along with each one is a related story about Alberta's history. If you follow the above link and navigate to page 46, you'll find an article entitled "Breaking out of his pod", all about Dickson Wong.
It's a really well-written article, although it says that Dickson sings in three choirs when in fact he plays piano in three choirs. In fact, Dickson is quite the piano man! He played last night at Yi-Li's BBQ, and he often entertains guests at the Paramagnus offices, as seen here. The article talks about a number of things including Paramagnus, the podcasting robot, and Dickson's Chinese heritage and language. It mentions our leather couch and frequent late night trips to Denny's! I even got quoted a few times.
The subtitle of the article is "Versatile computer engineer aims to market podcasting software in China" - perhaps more a prediction for the future than an accurate representation of present day, but intriguing nonetheless. Dickson scanned in the article, which you can find here.
Congratulations Dickson!
When Dickson and I saw Google Talk the other day, an old discussion about when software should be released was renewed. The application was so basic and underwhelming that we couldn't help but think they should have waited longer to release it. Usually Dickson thinks that software should be released when it's more complete, whereas I think it's okay to release sooner. So how do you determine when software is ready to release? Should you release very early, or just wait until the software is almost ready? What does the word "beta" really mean, anyway? Lots of good questions, and I don't have answers for all of them. I do have some opinions though, and hopefully you'll share yours too. Keep in mind that when I talk about "software" in this post, I don't mean only things like Microsoft Outlook. Websites are software too.
It seems to me that the word "beta" has taken on new meaning in the world of software. In the past, releasing software as beta meant that you wanted it to have some real world use, to iron out the bugs that all software has. Lately though, I think that has changed, thanks in large part to Google. Take Google Talk, for example. The software "just works". So why release it as beta? Well, for one thing, it has almost no features. And look at the discussion the release has generated in the blogosphere. It's almost as if Google deliberately released software into the wild as "beta" to get some feedback on where to take it, feature-wise.
The meaning has changed in another way too. In the past, releasing something as "beta" meant essentially, "this is free because in exchange for you using the software, we're going to get valuable feedback to improve it for eventual sale." Now however, again thanks in large part to Google, that has changed to "we have no idea how to make money from this, so we're calling it a beta." Hence, why Google News has never gotten past it's beta state. Lots of focus on Google, I know, but they are the new villain after all.
So what does "beta" really mean then? And more importantly, when has your software reached "beta"? Well, I think it depends in large part on what kind of software you have. Consider Microsoft Windows, for example. As we all found out the hard way with Longhorn, releasing an operating system too soon can be extremely detrimental. An operating system is too important a piece of software to release before most of the features are set in place. The Windows Vista beta that was released a couple weeks ago is a much better release - pretty stable, and very much focused on ironing out the bugs. Software like Google Talk however, is probably okay to release very early on, whether or not you call it "beta", because at the end of the day it doesn't affect nearly as many people.
Maybe what we have is not a question of what makes a release "beta" but instead, what kind of beta release is it? Consider tip #12 from Joel Spolsky's Top Twelve Tips for Running a Beta Test:
Don't confuse a technical beta with a marketing beta. I've been talking about technical betas, here, in which the goal is to find bugs and get last-minute feedback. Marketing betas are prerelease versions of the software given to the press, to big customers, and to the guy who is going to write the Dummies book that has to appear on the same day as the product.
Armed with that knowledge, maybe Google Talk and other applications like it are just different types of beta releases. Perhaps we should called Google Talk a "feature beta", where the goal is to gather information on what sort of features the software should eventually have. I think that's an interesting way of looking at software, as a series of different types of beta releases. Indeed a software application is never really finished, so maybe a "final release" is more like a "money beta", where you start charging for the software. Of course, I could go on forever, creating endless types of betas. And there will always be anomolies, like Google News or even Flickr, which is in "beta" but costs money.
So let me try to answer the question, when should you release software? I think part of the answer is a question; what do you want to accomplish by releasing the software? If you want to gather information on what sort of features the application should have, release it early! The danger though is that you may create a negative image for yourself by releasing software that doesn't really do anything, or which doesn't meet expectations. If you want to iron out bugs, release the software later in what I would consider a "traditional beta". And if you have software that you don't know how to make money from, just release it as "free". No need to confuse things by calling it a "beta".
I also think releasing software is a very situational decision, in that no two pieces of software have the same set of circumstances surrounding them. While it may be okay to release one early, it might not be a good idea to release another so early. Deciding when to release software then, requires careful consideration of a number of variables, including what the goal of the release is, does the software work, who is it being released to, what other applications like this exist, etc. Once you've come up with a clear idea of all the variables, you can then decide to whether or not the time is right to release your software.
Now that things are completely back online, there's probably two questions you want answered. Dickson talked a little about the problems earlier today. I'll do my best to address the questions in a little more detail here.
First, what happened? Quite simply, we had a hard drive failure, which while it isn't that uncommon, certainly is a pain in the ass. Hard drives fail for many different reasons, and we don't know the exact reason ours failed. What we do know is that we were left with a big problem. We had really old backups that worked properly, and we had newer backups that we assumed would work too, but they hadn't been tested. Call it bad luck, or Murphy's Law, or whatever you want, but our backups did not work. And the most recent and tested backups we had were on the hard drive that died. Lots of important data, and no way to get at it.
As you now know, we got the data back. How? Data recovery services. I think I learned more about hard drives and data recovery in the last two weeks than I ever thought possible, and certainly more than I ever wanted to learn. Data recovery services range from small and basic methods, to very large, sophisticated services with clean rooms, and a bunch of other high precision technology. Our drive required the latter unfortunately.
So now that the painful experience of losing a bunch of important data is behind us, with the data safely recovered (save for a corrupt Active Directory database that had to be rebuilt), what now? As you might guess, we never want to go through the experience again. So we've taken a number of steps to ensure we don't have to:
- We added a "hot" or "live" backup server. This means if the main server fails, everything automatically switches to the backup server so that we can fix things without having to take the systems offline.
- We've added regular hard drive imaging to our set of backup tools.
- We also added a new tape backup system, with regularly scheduled backups and restoration tests.
- We've created hard copies of important system configurations and settings so that if something does need to be rebuilt or validated, we've got it on paper.
- We've got spare components (including hard drives) ready at all times, so we don't have to wait for the store to open to replace something if it fails. Our servers all share the same hardware, so this was a logical step.
- And we've become a little paranoid about losing data, so we create images and burn stuff to DVDs at every possible opportunity.
Taken together, the things we've done should ensure that we don't have such catastophic downtime or data loss ever again. You know what they say, never say never, but I think we're in good shape.
I'm really sorry to all the bloggers and websites we host, and we thank you for your patience and understanding. Now, on with the show!
Ummm yeah, that was a little longer than a couple hours. Like two weeks longer! Anyway, as you can see, we're back online. I'll explain what happened later - for now, I must go to sleep.
The websites we host (including this message) will be down for a couple of hours tonight, starting at 1:30 AM MST as we are doing a physical relocation of a couple of our servers. I'll post a message when we're back online.
Apologies for any inconvenience!
The folks over at Podcasting News were at Gnomedex last week, and they were kind enough to post a little something about our robot:
Podbot is built around a tablet pc with WiFi connectivity, allowing it to be remote-controlled wirelessly. Podbot runs a piece of software called Podcast Wizard. The software, combined with the custom hardware, makes it possible to remotely control and record podcasts, save them to Podbot's hard drive, and upload them to a web server.
They've got a really nice write-up, so check it out. If you're interesting in checking out the Podbot, it may be making an appearance at the Podcast Hotel in September - with a few upgrades of course.
Tonight the Edmonton .NET Wizards (don't bother clicking, the site is horribly out of date) which Dickson and I manage hosted an event talking about Whidbey, or Visual Studio 2005. We had John Bristowe come up from Calgary to tell us all about the new changes in C#, VB.NET, the IDE, and the framework itself. The talk went very well, and it was really nice to finally meet John in person and have a chat.
The stuff I am most looking forward to is SQL Server 2005 and ClickOnce, two technologies we only had time to touch on tonight. They will probably affect my day to day development most. Hopefully we can host another talk on those topics in more detail some time in the future.
If you came to the event tonight, be sure to watch John's Blog for more information, and check out the Visual Studio 2005 site at MSDN. And if you're interested in the user group, rest assured we're going to fix the website. It might be as simple as a Wiki, but it will be much easier to use and update than it is now!
Yesterday was, as you probably already know, our last day in Seattle. With that in mind, we tried to make the most of it! We started early, and went on a three hour tour. We were easily the youngest people on the little tour bus, and only one other person was Canadian.
The tour itself was quite interesting. We went to the Pike Place Market (where we had been yesterday already), to some of the original areas of the city, near the harbor, to some of the fancy residential districts, to the fish ladder, and a bunch of other places. We learned about the historic fire that almost wiped out all of Seattle, how the city prospered during the Gold Rush, how the city used to be eight feet lower than it is now, and lots of other really interesting history. All the pictures I took are up in Flickr, so you can take a look at where we went and read the descriptions too.
After the tour we checked out of the hotel, went for lunch at McDonalds (we're on a budget), and headed toward the Space Needle. After the short 90 second ride on the Monorail, we were at the Space Needle, on our way to the 520' viewing deck. You get a pretty good view of the city, even though they have these thick wires going all the way around the observation deck. You kind of have to sneak the camera in between to get an unobstructed shot. Inside the viewing deck there is lots of history, facts and figures on the Space Needle. It's am impressive building.
Our flight home was quite late, so to kill some time we walked around downtown a bit, and then went to Barnes and Noble. Starbucks, some reading, and some wireless Internet - what more do you need? We left for the airport relatively early, and ended up sitting around there too because our flight was delayed. We finally arrived back in Edmonton after midnight, and got through customs around 1 AM.
Now that we're back home, it's time to get back to work. Fortunately, after seeing all of the cool things at Gnomedex, and after reflecting a little on how successful the Podbot turned out to be, I am excited to get back to programming.
We were really fortunate to meet Phillip Torrone at Gnomedex, and to have the opportunity to chat with him about the Podbot. He's got a new entry up in the MAKE: Blog on our beloved podcasting robot, so check it out. And watch future issues of Make Magazine because you never know, we might publish instructions on how to build your own!
The entry includes a number of pretty cool photos of the Podbot too. I especially like the one of me holding up my tablet with the control software open, looks pretty intense. If this is the first you've heard of the Podbot, be sure to check out our official site.
Today was just one of those days. We slept in a little. We didn't do a whole heck of a lot. And we got some much needed rest and relaxation time. After we did finally get up and check messages, we went to the Pike Place Bagels shop for lunch. Next we decided to just wander around downtown. We went all through the famer's market, to the original Starbucks, and to a few different local stores.
We ended up walking for quite a while, which killed a good part of the afternoon. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Barnes and Noble to pick up a coule magazines. Once back at the hotel, we did a little reading, and eventually watched Secret Window on HBO. You can totally tell that the movie was written by Stephen King - it was pretty intense! Probably would have been a good one to see on the big screen now that I think of it.
We stopped at Subway for dinner tonight because it was close, and it had gotten quite cold and actually rained a little. Since coming back to the hotel, I've just been sitting here reading and listening to music, basically. I don't remember the last time I sat and watched TV or the last time I just sat and read stuff for a few hours, so it has been nice and comfortable.
Tomorrow we're heading on a three-hour city tour, so that should be fun. Then in the evening, it's off to the airport to head home. Check out some photos I took of our Seattle adventures, and from Gnomedex.
Today was the end of Gnomedex 5. It was probably one of the best conferences I have ever been to, if not the best. There was quite the lineup of speakers today too, including Julie Leung, Steve Rubel, and of course, Adam Curry. I really enjoyed Adam's session - not so much because I learned something, but because I got to be a part of something pretty historical in the world of podcasting. Our robot did very well at the conference, and I am really pleased with the way it turned out. Definitely a great idea, kudos Dickson, Andrew, and Ashish.
After the conference finished tonight, Dickson and I dropped the Podbot off back at the hotel and headed to the designated meetup point for people looking to do some post-conference stuff. We ended up going to dinner at a pretty nice Asian restaurant downtown with the guys from Bryght, Nick Bradbury of FeedDemon, the LiteFeeds guys, and a few others. It was really nice, and a great way to end the conference.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel and met up with my friend Mike and his girlfriend Elisa for drinks. That was really nice, kind of relaxing and fun just to chat and to get caught up on the latest news. Good luck to you both at your new jobs next week :)
Not entirely sure what we're up to tomorrow, but I think I'd kind of like to relax a little, and see some more of the city. I can't believe the conference is over! Soon we'll be back to working hardcore, but for now, I think we'll enjoy the time away.
If you haven't really checked out the Podbot website, you definitely should! One of the things you'll find is a collection of video that we recorded throughout the creation process. Some of them show us talking about what we're learning, and others are more fun, like the Podbot driving over Micropets.
One really excellent video is Andrew's Closing Monologue, in which he offers some comments on the project after we finished. And if you'd rather stick to static photos instead of video, you can check out my Podbot Photostream over at Flickr.
Doesn't seem like the third day already, but I guess it was, and it went quite well! The conference started today, bright and early at 8:30 AM. We got there a little early (which is abnormal for Dickson and I at conferences) so we were able to get the Podbot up and running. It is definitely the kind of thing where people can't help but look.
We spent most of our day in the main auditorium, as that's where all of the sessions were being held. I have never seen so many laptops in a single room before. As a result, the Internet access was virtually non-existent, having been easily overloaded with people uploading and downloading. We drove the Podbot around a little, but couldn't do too much as the wireless kept cutting out. We only managed to get one thing uploaded at lunch.
In the afternoon I ran into David Geller showing off his Segway, and being the nice guy that he is, letting people give it a try. So, Dickson and I got to try the Segway, and I must say, it was really very cool! It took a few seconds to get used to it, because it seems awkward when you first get on, but once that was overcome, it actually felt quite natural. I was really impressed!
After a quick trip back to the hotel and a bite to eat at McDonalds, it was off to the networking event being held at the Seattle Public Library. The building itself is really beautiful, it was definitely an excellent choice of venue. Tonight was where the Podbot really got to shine! The wireless worked good, and we we ended up recording quite a few episodes. It was neat because we'd record with someone, then we could immediately show them that it was up on the website, and tagged at Podcast Tags. Everything worked smoothly, and it was really quite cool.
In case you're wondering, the picture for this post is of the Podbot sitting on Robert Scoble's red couch. You can see some new Podbot pictures from today here, and you can check out some general pictures Dickson and I took at Gnomedex, including some of us riding the Segway, here.
Things are going quite well with the Podbot! The wireless network here has been kind of spotty, so at times we have lost control. We only had one problem though, someone accidentally hit the side of the Podbot when it started moving after receiving a delayed command. The Podbot survived, but one of the side panel screws popped out, so we'll have to fix that later.
We were able to record something at the start of lunch and get it uploaded, but it's been quite difficult to be connected long enough and well enoungh. We'll keep trying though!
The Podbot has been featured on Engadget today, and the Channel9 team from Microsoft was here at Gnomedex recording some video, so you should be able to see it there later too.
I've been waiting to post this for quite some time now. I am very happy to introduce to you, the Podcast Wizard Robot, or Podbot for short. You may have heard rumblings about a podcasting robot already, and if so, you heard correctly!
The Podbot is exactly that, a podcasting robot. It moves around like a mini car, and is controlled wirelessly. It's equipped with a webcam and of course, a microphone. The Podbot has a Tablet PC on board, to act as both the interface and brains of the robot. We control movement, recording, and other functionality remotely using another Tablet PC connected over Wi-Fi.
All of the software is written in .NET. The control software which handles communication with the Podbot and functionality like movement was written specifically for the Podbot. The podcasting software is actually Podcast Wizard, our upcoming podcasting tool. Our podcast is hosted at Podcast Spot, and all of our episodes are tagged with Podcast Tags.
As you'll see from the website, the Podbot was created by myself, Dickson, Andrew and Ashish. Above all, it was a fun project, and we all learned a lot. Thanks to Andrew and Ashish for all of the hard work you did - the Podbot just wouldn't exist without you!
You can check out the website for more information on the Podbot, or if you're at Gnomedex, come see it in person! You can listen to our first podcast with the robot here.
Even though we were awake and working til past 4 AM last night, we decided to get going relatively early this morning. We made it out of the hotel on our way to eat around 11 AM. We found a bagel shop near the harbor, and had a sandwhich there. Then we decided to walk through the very busy harbor area for a bit, past the original Starbucks which we took a quick look at. It was much, much busier than the last time I went.
Then it was back to work. Eventually we went in search of a food court for lunch, and found one in the second mall. Unlike Edmonton, there seem to be quite a few very upscale shopping centers in downtown Seattle. And of course, the downtown area is always full of people.
Tonight we went to the Gnomedex registration, and then for dinner at the restaurant here in the hotel. I think we ordered too much food, but it was quite good. The conference starts tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that.
Tonight was the registration for Gnomedex, but really, it was an opportunity to mingle. The actual registration took about 30 seconds. In addition to the fairly standard lanyard, we were given a Google basebcall cap.
It was nice to connect with some people that I hadn't seen since Northern Voice. The Canadian delegation at this conference is actually quite large, so we felt right at home. I also met some new people, some completely new, and some who I knew only digitally. That's the best part of these conferences - putting a face to the name/blog/podcast.
Tomorrow should definitely be an interesting day, with some very interesting people scheduled to speak. I'm especially looking forward to Dean Hachamovitch's keynote address in the morning.
As I posted earlier, Dickson and I arrived in Seattle this morning. I don't know why we decided we'd go for such an early flight - leaving at 6:45 AM is not something I want to do ever again. Especially considering we didn't sleep last night. Anyway, we made it across the border fairly easily.
We took the Airporter to our hotel, and were surprised to find that they already had a room ready for us. Being only about 8:30 AM, we figured we'd have quite a bit of time to kill before we got the room. We brought all the luggage up, and then decided to venture out. After some breakfast at McDonalds and a Starbucks for me, we set about solving the Internet problem we had discovered upon entering the room.
The hotel has wireless, but it is not free. And at $10 USD per machine, we'd be spending about $150 during the trip. However, the hotel does have two machines in the lobby that are free to use, and these are not wireless. Seeing an opportunity, we went to Office Depot and bought a router. We also went to Northgate Mall (yes they have one too) to Best Buy to purchase a firewire PCMCIA card so that we can transfer video to our tablets. Once we got back, we were going to hook up the router, but someone was using the computers, so we went to kill some time. Both of us were tired, so we decided a nap would be a good idea.
Around seven hours later, Dickson woke up, and then woke me up. I guess we needed some sleep. Before going back to setup the router, we decided to eat first. We tried to find a Denny's, but couldn't, so we gave up and went to McDonalds again (though a different one than this morning). Instead of walking all the way back to the hotel, we took the Seattle Monorail - very cool! It actually goes quite fast, so it doesn't take very long to get from one end to the other at all. The other neat thing we discovered today is the Metro. They have an entire underground bus terminal, and the big transit stops all have electronic signs with the status of your bus. Very neat.
Since getting the Internet working, we've been busy programming and updating and testing. I am in the lobby right now, sitting by the fireplace. I am sure the hotel staff thinks we're nuts, awake at this time. Little do they know, it's just par for the course!
We arrived safely in Seattle very early this morning! I am happy to report that it was relatively easy to make it through customs and security, even though Dickson got harrassed a little by the customs agent. I think she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Unfortunately it's raining pretty good outside today, so I don't think we'll be going anywhere. We have some work to do anyway, so maybe an indoors day is good. I did get a Starbucks already, so I feel like I really have arrived in Seattle. We're still trying to figure out our options for Internet - the wireless in the hotel is not free, but the two computers we're using in the lobby right now are.
Andrew and Ashish: the package made it here safely, but it had to be scanned at security. We have not yet tested to make sure everything is still operational.
I'll post an update again later, hopefully when we have a plan for Internet access.
In less than 6 hours Dickson and I will be on a plane headed for Seattle to attend Gnomedex. I'm definitely looking forward to meeting some new and interesting people, and checking out all of the cool things people are doing with blogging and podcasting. We've also got some time to check out Seattle and have a bit of a vacation.
We should be online much of the time, so I don't expect we'll be hard to get in touch with. Hey, you know me, I'm almost as addicted to being connected as I am to Coke! We're back late on the 27th, if you're wondering.
As I am sure you noticed, some of our websites were down this afternoon, and a couple more (including my blog) until late this evening. We had some problems with our DNS configuration, but we're back in business now. And adding more redundancy early next week :)
Sorry for any inconvenience!
My workstation is finally moved into the office! That means the real work can begin - don't ever let anyone tell you that moving is easy, or cheap. More soon :)
This has been the longest interval between posts for me in a long time! I guess that's what final exams and moving into an office all at the same time will do to you. Anyway, the latest update is that we now have Internet access at the office, and the wiring should be completed tomorrow. That means that by Monday, I should be back into a more regular schedule, and hopefully I'll move my desktop sometime this weekend.
Oddly enough, I cannot wait to get back to work. All this moving and building and stuff has totally screwed up my work schedule, to say nothing of destroying my already poor sleeping and eating patterns.
Been a long time since I last posted, well for me at least! I've been quite busy getting everything moved into the new office with Dickson, and we're not done yet. The furniture and everything should be in later today, leaving only the wiring and computers to setup. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be that simple.
We noticed on Friday that there are a ton of wireless networks within range. While that in itself isn't terribly surprising, the fact that so many are unsecured is. I expected almost every network to require a WEP key, but apparently it's not a concern! You can bet our network will be secured - don't need any freeloaders like we have been the last couple days!
Just wanted to say thanks to Kim and Felicia for helping us out so far! We've been taking lots of pictures, and we'll get those posted soon.
Earlier this week Dickson and I registered for Gnomedex 5.0, taking place in Seattle from June 23rd to 25th. We're really excited about the conference, and we're looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people! If the conference is anything like Northern Voice, it should be a great time. We're still working out the travel arrangements, but there's lots of time left for that.
Julie Leung is listed as one of the many speakers, and I am really looking forward to her session. I missed her talk at Northern Voice, but it seemed to be one of the favorites. This year's Gnomedex definitely has the podcasting vibe, with Adam Curry and Dave Winer keynoting, and a bunch of podcasters attending. I can't wait to see what people are doing with podcasting in two months, it should be amazing.
If you're going to be at Gnomedex (or in Seattle at the same time) and want to get together, let me know!
[Tags: gnomedex podcasting northernvoice paramagnus] [Categories: gnomedex]
I am very pleased to introduce a new service from Paramagnus called Podcast Tags! Now you can tag your podcast episodes with relevant keywords so that others can find them more easily!
We've got a blog setup, and we're looking for feedback, suggestions, and comments. Let us know!
[Tags: podcasting podcasttags paramagnus] [Categories: podcasting]
I am pleased to announce that we finally have something up and running at http://www.paramagnus.com. Took us long enough hey? Anyway, we'll be adding more content to it as we go. The Products and Services sections are quite bare at the moment, but we'll get there. Be sure to check out the new Podcasting site.
[Via Paramagnus Blog] [Tags: paramagnus]
The new Formula 1 season is about to start, and I am pleased to announce, just in time for the first race, RacingBlogged.com - a new racing-focused blog written by Martin and myself. We'll be adding features and tweaking our site over the next few weeks, so check it out and send us your feedback!
Oh, and go Schumi go!
We finally got around to creating a Podcast Wizard blog! We'll of course be posting news and updates related to our software, but we'll also be posting more general items on podcasting. We read a lot about the subject, so it only makes sense to share what we learn. Hopefully you'll find the new blog a valuable resource.
Check out the new Podcast Wizard Blog and subscribe today!
(If you have troubles accessing the site, try again tomorrow - the DNS information is pretty new!)
I have finally had a few moments to post up some pictures. If you're interested, take a look at some photos from the server upgrades we all did last week.
Not sure how much of a difference it will make to visitors until we get the upgraded Internet connection, but the new servers are now up and running smoothly. And man, are they ever fast (at least for the backend stuff)! It's almost ridiculous how much faster they are!
Thanks for your patience with the upgrades :)
Okay, this is just insane. We have been trying for three days now to upgrade our servers and Internet connection, and we have come up against problem after problem. It just never ends!
Our first problem, was that moving a hard drive to a different chipset renders it unable to boot. So we finally got the data off the drive, and copied it to another drive that had been freshly installed. Right after we did that, the drive failed. We don't know why exactly, we have been being very careful with static and the like. So we got that drive replaced, and set it up again. Then we proceeded to setup the second server, and you'll never believe it, that drive failed too. It was a slow death, as it would sort of work, then it would stop working, until eventually, it stopped outright. At that point, we decided we'd get new hard drives and set them up properly.
We currently have both servers running on a single machine right now, but things are not working correctly still (except my blog basically). Tomorrow morning we are going to pick up a the new hard drives, reinstall everything, copy the data, and pending another disaster, everything will be working.
We're really sorry for the delay. Hopefully we won't ever have this problem again (our old servers were on old, hard-to-upgrade hardware). After tomorrow, the only downtime I anticipate is a couple hours for DNS settings to propogate when we move to the new fibre optic connection.
Thanks for your understanding.
Of course the day of the conference is the day we have a problem with our database server. Thanks to Dickson for getting everything working! The BlogosphereRadio site is back up now, and I'll hopefully start posting the shows around 5:30 PST.
Also, if you picked up a Podcast Wizard beta CD at the conference today, definitely give us your feedback! You can email us at info@paramagnus.com or leave a comment, or flag me down! We'll do our best to get back to you immediately. And please remember, it's a beta...so don't be mad if it doesn't work properly! Instead, help us fix it :)