7 posts tagged “twit”
When I talk about Twitter people think I'm crazy. Who would want to be bugged by hundreds of messages a day from your friends telling you what they're up to. Well, as it turns out, lots of us would. Twitter is positively addictive and everyone, including Mike Arrington at Techcrunch, seems to think it's going to be the next big thing. I'm really happy for Ev and the gang at Obvious. Ev jumpstarted the blogging revolution and tried to do the same with podcasting until Apple jumped into the ring and squashed all the competition. Twitter is his well deserved second home run.
But I'm leaving it.
The problem is the name. I wish to heck he'd named it Tweeter, or Tooter, or anything but Twitter. Twitter is so close to TWiT that I'm afraid it's really confusing. And it hasn't helped the confusion that I've been such a fan of Twitter. I'm sure half the people there think we have some sort of relationship. But we don't. And the proliferation of programs like Twitbox and sites like Twit This are not helping things much. So let me repeat...
Twitter has nothing to do with TWiT.
And, I'm afraid, I can't have anything to do with Twitter, either. It's just fueling the confusion. Fortunately, there are several similar services including Groovr, Dodgeball, and Jaiku. After a cursory glance at all three Jaiku seems to have the best mix of features for me (I'm too old to be groovy, or hooking up) so I'm moving to Jaiku. (In truth, it offers a much richer set of features than Twitter.) My handle is ChiefTWiT. Hope to see some of you there.
And I hope my Twitter friends will consider creating a Jaiku account and adding your Twitter feeds to it so I can still see what you're up to. If you do, please make sure to let me know!
(Of course the Jaiku server crashed the minute I mentioned that on Twitter. Twitter's powerful stuff. I'm gonna miss the mojo.)
Sorry to be such a laggard in posting. I have a bunch of items to put up - but I've been so busy I haven't had a moment to do it. Just to keep things fresh here's a video version of the TWiT network sounder that the Pixel Corps just worked up. Sorry about the poor quality - Vox is compressing it something awful. You can see it in all its 1080p glory on the new episode of MacBreak coming out later today.
Thanks to Karl Hassenfratz and the Motion Graphics Team at the Pixel Corps for a brilliant job!
Meanwhile, our first episode of net@nite went pretty well Sunday night. We had a surprise visit from YouTube founder, Steve Chen (did you know the Google-YouTube merger talks started at Denny's?), and a number of nice calls. Our host, Talkshoe, suffered some growing pains, but I expect most of the wrinkles will be ironed out by next week's show. I told them that there would be a few people listening!
The high-quality edited version will go out on the Inside the Net feed Tuesday, but you can hear the raw and uncut right now at Talkshoe. Show notes are available on the net@nite blog.
I've also posted a brand new TWiT, recorded aboard the ms Veendam. It's a completely new cast - none of the regulars were on the cruise - but I think it's a very good show. Steve Stecklow, a senior writer for the Wall St. Journal was along to explain what the latest stock option backdating scandals mean, the very funny Andy Ihnatko weighs in on bottled water, and security and Perl guru, Randal Schwartz makes boat sounds. Stay tuned at the end for an interlude from our Captain.
I'm home this week, with lots of podcasts to record and post, then it's back to Toronto for another week of Call for Help. The wonderful Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.tv will co-host once again for nine shows. The remaining six will be hosted by three different candidates to replace Amber MacArthur. Yes, on-the-air auditions. It's a first for me, and I'm sure it will be a little scary for the propspective hosts, but that's how they do things in Canadia. The shows will air some time next month.
Oh, and one more thing. While I'm in Toronto we'll be holding a launch party for the new undo.tv. Save Tuesday, 11/14, on your calendar. We're taking over No Regrets once again for the event. Details to follow.
The bumpy server ride over the weekend seems to have smoothed out.
Here's an update. I've set up hosting (with RAID 5 mirroring and NAS backups, thank you) at Softlayer and am in the process of moving all the servers over. I'll keep the current status updated here and at Leoville.com.
As of now here's what's happening:
- Leoville.com - moved but down due to hardware issues all day Wednesday. Now up and reliable (crossing fingers)
- Leoville.tv - move completed
- Leo.am - up and working fine, all netcast feeds are now good
- Leoville Town Square - back up, a few things are missing like PHP thumbnail resizing, and the old UBB board archive. I’ll get these back online as soon as I can
- TWiT.tv - move completed, there were some issues this morning, but moving .htaccess and fixing a MySQL naming error corrected them. Everything seems to be working fine. If you notice any lingering problems email me. Thanks for your patience during this move.
Since the server moves require IP address changes some sites may not work until your particular DNS server registers the change. This will go more smoothly with the TWiT and Leoville.com moves since the old sites will remain up until all all DNS records have changed over. With any luck you won't notice the move at all.
The .am registrar has updated the address for leo.am but as of this morning it hasn't propagated to the rest of the world. Since the netcast feeds go through
leo.am they’re also down until the change propagates. That shouldn't be too long now. Meanwhile all new netcasts are available at TWiT.tv - I've posted at least eight new shows since the feeds failed including a new TWiT. Once the feed goes back up you'll see a lot of downloading - you might want to check to make sure you get all the back shows, however. iTunes and other netcast clients may only download the most recent show.
You may be wondering why I do all this myself instead of using a managed host, or paying a sysop. Because it's so much fun, of course!
My friend, Dane Golden, has started a behind the scenes blog here at http://twit.vox.com, including audio of me tearing my hair out - nice that he's had something to write about this weekend!
Thanks to the dozens of people who offered moral support, hosting, and technical advice. It's nice to have so many friends.
There's a nice interview with me about TWiT taking advertising in this week's Advertising Age magazine.
Thanks to the author, Abbey Klaassen
for making me sound coherent!
Is there a 12-step program for podcasters? It seems like I can't stop!
We have nine podcasts on the TWiT.tv network. We cover tech news, the Internet, security, gadgets, open source, biotech, media, computer help, and the Mac. What's missing from this list?
A Windows Vista podcast, of course. I've got a really good host in mind. He's agreed in principal, and I expect we'll launch when he gets back from vacation in early September. You're going to love this one.
And my off hand comment on TWiT a few weeks back about how we need a podcast covering the myriad legal issues surrounding copyright, net neutrality, privacy, and security, stimulated an avalanche of mail from interested lawyers. Denise Howell says she's willing to host - she's perfect for the job - and I think we'll be launching this roundtable in the next few weeks.
So that's three more podcasts coming soon to TWiT.tv. I can't promise I'll stop, but I do think we now have a pretty well rounded offering. You know why I'm doing all this, don't you? I want to be on the cover of Business Week just like Kevin!
"Tom Cruise's doughier little brother" will join us this week on TWiT, by the way, so we can rib him about the cover. Cory Doctorow will be on, too, now that's he's back in the States. Should be a good show.
Ted is porting over the last bit of data from the old TWiT.tv site right now - I'm closing off comments now so we don't lose anything. We're tweaking the Flash player. The painters are putting the last touches on the color scheme. If all goes well I'll be flipping the switch tonight and the new TWiT.tv will be born. Expect some wet paint and stuck doors, but I think it should go pretty smoothly. I'll be very interested to hear what you think. If I can keep my eyes open I'll flip the switch at 1a Pacific.
[UPDATE:] Well I threw Ted a curve, and my "little" request turns out to require significant re-plumbing. To the guy who emailed me that the last 10% of the redesign would take 90% of the time, you were right. To the folks who said not to announce anything, you were right, too! To the rest of you, sorry for the premature expostulation. We should have it up for you later today. I hope.
