Wired News and Om Malik sums up the state of RSS:

“RSS is at the edge of a huge acceleration in adoption,” [Om Malik] said. “The early users have been bloggers, which have clearly exploded geometrically…. The next adopters are online content publishers. Corporations are starting to use the technology. This is where it will go mainstream. The novelty factor has clearly worn off. We’re now shifting into a mode where folks are looking for and extracting value from the platform.”

From a publisher’s perspective, all we have to do now is figure out how to get mainstream IT vendors an ad agencies to recognise and support RSS with serious marketing dollars.

This post is coming to you sans-wires. No, it’s not WiFi, but iBurst. Personal Broadband Australia have sent me one of their wireless internet cards to trial. In theory I can travel to most parts of metro Sydney and stay connected at 1.0 Mbps down to 0.25 Mbps. Installation was easy - it just slides into the side of my notebook - and the associated software requires no brain cycles. The only minor issue was a problem with the password they supplied. After 5 mins with tech support I am away.

I’ve done all the obvious stuff like check email and watch a few videos like those at www.jibjab.com (if you’re doing a test you might as well watch something funny).

So far so good. Although I must admit it doesn’t feel very cool to be using this from the comfort of my office desk given that there’s an ethernet cable here wondering what just happened. Next stop is the classic in-car and in-train connection tests.

How’s this for controversial: “Linux doesn’t exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix.”

Kieran O’Shaughnessy, director of SCO Australia and NZ also told Computerworld Australia the company is not the “anti-Christ of cyberspace” and offered this emotional explanation:

“The only reason we are [pursuing a lawsuit against IBM] is to defend our Unix business; we are not a litigation company, we are about Unix on Intel,” he said.

“IBM has transformed Linux from a bicycle to a Rolls-Royce, making it almost an enterprise-class operating system.

“It took us 25 years to build our business and it took [IBM] four years simply by stealing code and then giving it away free.”

Unfortunately, SCO’s recent history has done little to prove it is nothing more than a litigation company. And to attack the credibility of Linux as “almost” an enterprise-class OS at the same time you are attempting to sell Linux licenses (accompanied by the threat of legal action, eg the Novell case) is yet another hammer in the coffin.

Much is being said in the PR realm about Om Malik’s Technorati scoop (eg Steve Rubel and Matthew Podboy). At the risk of sparking a journalist vs blogger debate, there’s something worth clarifying here.

The biggest difference between this scenario and any other scoop by a journalist is that Om broke the (great) news on his own blog, rather than a blog or website hosted by his employer (although it doesn’t look like Biz 2 is chasing hard news on its site these days).

To all the PR people wondering how this particular case changes the PR game, let me say this: it doesn’t change much when it comes to dealing with journalists. If a journalist has a scoop, and can break the news in any medium that now includes blogs, they will do it. And things like embargo negotiations should still apply to blogs - although I’d suggest PR’s start checking.

What we are expecting to see change is the rise of bloggers (who don’t have a day job as a journalist) breaking stories before journalists. That scenario is already well documented and that’s what should be worrying the PR establishment. You thought journalists were hard to control…

Speaking of Steve Gillmor, we caught up this morning via Skype. He lives near San Francisco, and I’m in Sydney. Apart from a few minor feedback issues, voice quality was amazing, and it cost zero dollars. I love the Internet…

Anyway, in the course of our discussion we talked about The Gillmor Gang, a web-based radio show Steve hosts with his “gang” and one guest each week. I offered my two Aussie cents: The Gillmor Gang is a bit like the breakfast TV show model translated for a radio audience. Here you’ve got five people sprouting opinions, recapping news and predicting the future of technology. And you won’t get this kind of discussion in many other places. They are, in a sense, a form of IT news and thought-leadership aggregation. (There’s an RSS angle here too, as Steve observed, but I’ll save that thought for another day.)

One interesting aspect of the show is that it’s an hour long, without a break. In our ten second attention span society, that’s a long time. Even breakfast TV has ad breaks. So when it comes to listening to the stream on your PC (downloading it to an iPod is a different scenario), it’s hard to justify taking out an entire hour from your day. I guess some people might switch off for that reason.

Speaking for myself, I tend to listen while doing other stuff. I browse the web, blog, answer email, click “pause” when someone comes into my office, and so on. It’s part of my working day. The downside is that I will sometimes miss subtle comments, or even chunks of discussions. My attention fades in and out, just the way it does when I’m making coffee and toast at home with the brekky TV show on in the background. But I still get the big picture, and I can rewind if needed.

Taking this line of thought a step further, the important thing about breakfast TV shows, we both agreed, is that they make truckloads of cash for TV networks. That model is true in both the US and Australia. And in free-to-air radio land, breakfast shows (which coincidentally also have two or more presenters) are cash cows. The radio ratings war is won and lost largely on the basis of your breakfast show’s ability to entertain and inform.

Now, while plenty of strategic thought has gone into the creation of The Gillmor Gang, it’s also a labour of love. But as we say in publishing land, good content always comes first and sponsorship second. Build an audience then invite the dollars. I don’t know if/when the dollars will flow into The Gillmor Gang, but I see no reason why not. If you want great content, someone’s gotta pay. In business, love doesn’t equal charity.

Of course, I should make clear that I’m not attempting to solicit a few bucks for The Gang. What I am observing here is that this is a working model for making the giant leap from print publishing to other mediums like radio and TV. CNet TV is obviously another example.

I’m intrigued by how something as simple in concept as a radio show is slowly changing the way we view the Internet. As broadband proliferates, our radio and TV viewing habits are shifting to include more web-based content. And that opens up a whole new can of worms in terms of integrating written, video and audio content. Steve, you’ve got my attention (.xml).

I’m not holding my breath, but the AFR reports today on Apple Australia’s plan to introduce iTunes, possibly by September. I guess that’s progess of sorts!

btw, I’m not sure why the Fin thought this was a story today. Both The Aus, and El Reg had the story on Sept 19.

It’s completely random, but I noticed on the Sun Bloggers RSS feed that Australians are the subject of discussion at the moment.

Jorgen Skogstad made me laugh with this Aussie-answered FAQ taken from a tourism website that includes this commendable effort:

1. Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Then Rich Burridge offers links and tips on how to speak “Strine” (trans: Australian). Not sure that they’ve really nailed it with the phonetic spelling, btw. To the Yank’s ears, I reckon “Australian” probably sounds more like “Auh-stray-an.”

Brings back memories from my first months living in the US. I’ll never forget when someone asked me politely over lunch, “do you have pizza in Australia?” And then there was my mate Steve Gillmor, who used to derive great pleasure from asking me every month or so whether we had telephones in Australia.

Ah yes, returning to live in Sydney has never been so good. I’m eating healthy food again because pizza is banned, and I don’t have to talk to phone-happy Americans because the only way we communicate is one-to-one while leaning on the neighbours fence and cooking a barbie (meat, that is, not plastic dolls).

I read a lot of Gadget news, but don’t make a habit of posting too much. But the iBoom story at Gizmodo has caught my eye. Sure, the idea of plugging your iPod into a portable boom box deserves some credit. But what continually amazes me is the extent to which Apple and third party companies can develop creative branding around the letter “i”. The “iBrand,” as it were, has become one of the biggest consumer marketing success stories in recent years. And no, Apple didn’t pay me to say that.

Google’s IPO has hit a snag, and the Boston Herald has dished up this amazing news flash!

Market observers said the last-minute hitch could be due to a minor technicality, or something more serious.

Gee, thanks. That really clarifies things.

The SMH’s Radar section is not only turning ordinary blokes like Pauly Fenech into journos, but it’s a blog in disguise. I just noticed today in the URLs for the site’s comments section that it’s Movable Type-powered.

So yes, Radar is a blog. Does the SMH market it as a blog? No. Do the people writing comments on the blog care about the fact that the SMH isn’t labeling it a blog? No. At the risk of publicly giving the competition a thumbs up, this is a good example of a site that’s using blog tools to generate conversations without all the blog hype. No fuss, it just works.