Yup, I’m on the 360 bandwagon. Here’s my Yahoo blog in its infancy. I don’t plan to displace Filtered as my main blog. But I do plan on giving 360 a good look.

Want an invite? Email me at markhjonesATgmailDOTcom or leave a comment below to join the Yahoo! viral marketing machine…

I was talking with an old friend today about traditional media’s use of blogs and I offered this observation: too often media use blogs as new wrapping for traditional story types: opinion columns, news briefs, and even news stories. 

News flash: wrapping traditional story types in RSS enclosures does not equal blogging. I’d call that RSS slip-streaming, rather than the objective most bloggers share – contributing meaningfully to conversations that travel via RSS.

It’s easy to see how some media got to this false end point. The multi-comment model is (in part) a greatly enhanced version of the communication model typically found in newspapers and magazines over the decades: journalist writes a story, reader sends letter to newspaper, editor selects letter (maybe), letter is published. End of story.

The better way forward is to post an opinion or observation, expect a response via comments or trackback, and contribute to the discussion that follows. The conversations started in that context often carry on not just between the original participants but anyone else who overheard the conversation while hanging out in the global bar that is the Internet.

Sorry call your bluff media folk, but if you’re not blogging with that intent, you’re not really blogging.

Dan Gillmor: If the newspaper business does turn out to be dying, we need to make sure that journalism does not. I apologize to my blogging friends for saying this, but the free for all in the blogging world, however valuable (and I love it), is not sufficient to replace what we’ll be missing.

We need ways to combine the best of the old and the new. That’s what I’m working on.

One of the most refreshing comments I’ve read on the subject for quite some time.

Computerworld Live hit a speed bump yesterday after recording two interviews. They went back to listen to the telephone tracks all they found was silence. Dang it. After some super-sleuthing by our IT manager, it turns out that we’ve been saving our files the wrong way. Overwriting last week’s show using the same file name in the same directory is a very bad idea. It’s so simple, yet no one tells you these things until it’s broken.

And so it’s take two for the interviews today, and thanks to RSS you’ll be notified of the next CW Live edition hopefully this afternoon. Ahh, the joys of new media.

UPDATE: All done.

SMH reports on Austereo’s podcasting trials:

Mr Neely said Austereo’s plan was to "seed" the market in Australia with the idea that radio podcasts were another listening option for their portable media players.

"We’re being proactive rather than reactive in one to two year’s time," he said.

They get it, which is encouraging. One assertion I’d question in this article is that podcasting is for the youth market. The majority of shows I’m listening to are for the 25+ business & IT audience.

Don’t forget to check out this week’s Computerworld Live. Julian has a great chat with the APAC CIO of FedEx, Linda Brigance, and excuse me cos I’m a little proud, but it *sounds* great!

Even better, the CW edit team is totally self-sufficient on the recording and production front. That’s means less editing work for me and more time available to chase other sponsors.

The Deal reports on social networking, blogs et al:

Sounds like the return of the Internet bubble, and in some ways it is. Most startups operating in this open-source social media software and services arena — which includes blogging software and services, social networking and so-called affinity group software and services, as well as open-source editing and aggregation tools and other forms of social software — will get acquired by immediate rivals or bigger, more established corporations, first for big premiums and then for less and less as other social media startups fail to gain traction. Only a savvy few might manage to survive and emerge as category killers in the way Internet giants Yahoo! Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. did a decade ago.

Yet venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and corporate executives haven’t forgotten all the mistakes of the past. This time they are trying not to overfund or overpay for companies. They are bringing in experienced management teams to build realistic business models. They are investing in startups which, this time around, have perhaps credible sales, subscription and advertising revenue targets.

I like the sound of all that. Once bitten & all that…

(via Steve Rubel)

Update: However, there is still a long road ahead.

Podcasting is by far one of the most exciting ‘new media’ technologies to take hold on the Internet. Take a look at the tech category on Podcast Alley to get a quick idea of how many IT-related podcasts have sprung up over the last year. And of course the non-IT universe is larger again.

But with every new market you get the critics. The latest, directed at Computerworld Live, questions whether people could be bothered spending twenty minutes a week listening to our show. I’ll get to that answer in a moment. First, here’s what long-time industry friend of mine, Phil Sim, the MD of an Australian IT Journalism site IT Journo has to say (sub req./journalists only) about Computerworld Live:

CW Live is almost certainly Australia’s first podcast from a B2B publisher and is the brainchild of IDG’s resident blog-o-maniac (is that a bad thing? – MJ) Mark Jones, who is the show’s executive producer. It’s hosted by CW’s editor Sandra Rossi and senior journalist Julian Bajkowski, while CW journalist Michael Crawford is Live’s engineer.

The show’s format features Rossi and Bajkowski analysing some of the week’s top enterprise IT issues as well as conducting interviews with IT users and executives.

The initial "broadcast" ran for some 20 minutes, during which Rossi and Bajkowski discussed topics like temporary work visas for IT professionals, the Oracle and Peoplesoft merger and security problems for CA users. It also featured an interview with the secretary of JD Edward’s user group and Brown Bros, CIO John Brown.

IDG has done well to secure a sponsor for the program from the word go, with Alcatel forking up dollars for the project. It will certainly be interesting to see if the podcast can gain an audience large enough to justify future sponsorships.

Perhaps the biggest issue with B2B podcasts is whether time-strapped IT executives will consider them time-effective enough to warrant investing that 20 minutes each week. Certainly, the same information could have been digested far more quickly by reading. As one reader on Mark Jones blog commented: "Many of us often prefer to devour your content at ‘reading’ speed, rather than listening speed". And if IT executives do happen to have 20 minutes up their sleeve, will they choose to use that time to listen to a show about IT?

The most obvious problem with the article is Phil has not made reference to the global success of podcasting. (Why do we persist in believing that the international experience won’t translate to Australia?)

That aside, let’s look some Australian examples. First, you’ve got my buddies over at The Podcast Network. Take a look at the shows they are rolling out. I won’t divulge figures, but I can tell you that they already have very saleable traffic and download levels. (btw, Mick & Cam: what’s up with the lack of CW Live linkage, eh?

Then we have Triple J’s podcasts which include Dr Karl and Hack.

Or Austereo’s 2Day FM podcasts.

Meanwhile, back to the listening vs reading argument. Could you read these stories quicker? Probably, but that’s far from the point. Computerworld Live is not attempting to replicate print or online. Radio and print are fundamentally different animals. We’re not trying to replace, but complement existing media.

And we created Computerworld Live precisely because there are plenty of time-strapped IT executives. We’re not about reading the news to people. We’re not even about indulging in the self-absorbed rambling that typifies much of the podcasting experience today.

Time-strapped IT executives want to know why certain news stories are important. They want to listen to great interviews with decision makers because the interview format is fantastic for helping people understand the bigger context.

Most importantly, podcasting is a time-shifted medium. You listen to shows when it suits you, not the broadcaster. And you do so while you’re on the move: in cars, planes, buses etc. Wherever you take your portable media device, or increasingly, your MP3-savvy mobile phone.

Online content, and to some degree newspapers or magazines, are difficult to consume in those environments (particularly if you’re driving). So saving time, creating a new market, and reaching a larger audience is the whole point. And I think Phil missed that point.

Other thoughts:

* We want to hear more constructive feedback from listeners and readers. It’s always been about conversation. It helps make us better.

* And why is 20 minutes considered long? The time flies! It’s entirely possible with this medium to keep people entertained for extended periods well beyond 20 minutes. It’s all about the quality of the content.

* Finally, audience size is not the only way to measure success. I’m actually more interested in who listens to Computerworld Live.

Now that I’ve got all that off my chest, what do you think about ITJourno’s article? The comment lines are open…

How good is this?! InfoWorld’s Jon Udell has mastered the screencast, and uses it to demonstrate what he believes is the early beginnings of the semantic web (one definition here).

It’s the best demo of del.icio.us I’ve seen, although like Matt, I’m still trying to understand how I can make it work for me (particularly in an online business context). I’ve been diligently using RSS to avoid bookmarks for some time now and the idea of being dragged back into managing (static or dynamic) taxonomies still doesn’t fill me with joy. Maybe I’ll watch the screencast again…

Jonathan Schwartz: …and I’m planning on making the session available on my inaugural podcast, stay tuned…

UPDATE: It’s live, and entertaining. All we’re looking for now is something that more closely resembles a ‘traditional’ podcast.