Newsgator and the future of RSS (TechCrunch)

NBC and YouTube make nice, run promos (Micro Persuasion)

Finally, a public service annoucement regarding the 4th of July, fireworks and your digital cameras from Gizmodo - and have a safe (and fun) holiday weekend!

Wired has an article discussing the one year anniversary of iTunes launch of their podcasting capabilities.  While it seems that many podcasters feel iTunes had a hand poularizing podcasting, there are mixed opinions on what that’s done to podcasting as a whole.  On chief complaint is that the more shows iTunes catalouges, the harder it is to grow an audience when competing with so many other podcasts.  In addition, Leo Laporte of This Week in Tech is quoted saying that 80% of his suscribers now use iTunes, effectly putting podcasting in Apple’s hands when it doesn’t need to be.

In addition, Wired highlights some interesting metrics involving podcasting from the recent eMarketer study (both current and projected stats), as well as some statistics from Feedburner that indicate that an average Mom and Pop podcasts - the podcasts that never make it to the front page of iTunes, for example, have far less listeners than the “big guys.” That being said, my own experience with podcasting, podcasters and podcast listeners indicate that even small numbers of subscribers can be active participants in the two-way conversation that is podcasting - via email, voicemail, monetary contributions, ideas, content and more. If further expanding podcastings listener base involves more iTunes-style launches, I’d certainly like to see the other big players  (Windows Media, are you listening?) - and not so big players - incorporate podcast capabilities as well.

Real Networks adds ads to casual games (CNET)

Google and MySpace (GigaOM)

BoingBoing pointed to a Wall Street Journal article today about a website/social network for book lovers called LibraryThing. Just as music-oriented Social Networks such as Last.FM and MOG are designed to help music lovers find new music, LibraryThing is designed to connect book lovers with each other, and above all, act as a waypoint for those who enjoy books to learn about new books (or books that are new to them).  I’ve tried to play around with LibraryThing, but the combined power of BoingBoing and the WSJ have overloaded their servers for now. However, the most interesting feature highlighted in the article is the fact that LibraryThing makes recommendations on both things someone owns vs. purchases one has made (which is how Amazon.com and others make recommendations). The most similiar recommendation system can be seen on iTunes, where users can designate that they own an item recommended to them - but you can’t add information about what you already own until it comes up as a recommendation. I like the LibraryThing idea, and how it promises an interesting way to market something as low tech books in the future (and the extra opportunity for reading recommendations!)

GoogleSystem was pointed to a new type feature in some AdSense ads - a little picture on top of the ads. Evidently, this is part of a test to draw eyeballs to the text ads. After first the picture (bigger here) didn’t make much sense (ok, it still doesn’t) but according to Google System, webmasters are allowed to put pictures above the text ads. Seems like AdSense is all about experimentation these days.

More on the music front - Tower Records kicks off Digital Download service (Engadget)

A peek at understanding Second Life’s potential (Neville Hobson)

The Washington Post has a great article today about how digital playlists and downloads - such as those at iTunes - are helping revitalize older songs/artists.  Its an interesting read - and one that discusses a trend I noticed when I downloaded about 30 songs on iTunes from CDs lost years ago, and then proceeded to download all the other albums that each of the artists have made since then.

While you have to register to take a look at stories in the “beta” categories now, but its up. Some of the new stories & categories appear to be slightly less “dugg” than tech and gaming stories, but there are a lot of them - looking to see how they shake out with fuller commentary later this week.

Are MMO’s hurting game sales? (Slashdot)

More on Google’s Pay Per Action test (AdJab)

And finally, a bit of Friday fun from the “Dead TV shows coming back to life” category - Futuram heads to Comedy Central starting in 2008    (TV Squad)

TechCrunch has a review of the new Digg 3.0, which launches on Monday. The screenshots, part of TechCrunch’s review, make the new interface and system look very deep and exciting. I’m really excited to see how Digg’s current users will take to the newly added content options, and how many new users (i.e., those not of a tech bent) that it will attract.

Hispanic Audience seeks mobile entertainment (eMarketer)

Social Media = Local Search guides (Clickz)

The Best Games of Summer (Business Week)

All the more reason for me to fire back up my Second Life account, Micro Persuasion had a news item up about a Marketing Conference/panel discussion in Second Life occuring tommorrow at noon (PST).

Jeff Jarvis over at the Buzz Machine highlights a study done by the Telegraph Media Group that looks at blog participation (reader and writership) across a variety of different countries. While most of the numbers match up somewhat with infromation passed on in Technorati’s most recent State of Blogosphere, I do have to wonder about what’s missing - while the data is presented as worldwide data, the information highlighed by Jeff indicates that it was more Eurocentric (with stats on the US, UK, Denmark and Germany) than worldwide (with the inclusion of some of the largest blogging communities in China and Japan. In any case, Jarvis notes that, “Every nation approaches blogging differently but I don’t think we know why,” and his discussion of the issue is something I’d love to see more of.

This American Life podcast policy gets some to do some…really bad math - really interesting in light of the “NPR’s podcasts are doing great.” The NPR sucess has probably hurt the perception of some other public radio type shows, like TAL. (Boing Boing)

MySpace limits teen/adult interaction (Wired)

Netflix & Digital Downloads - will they be first? Or late to the game? (CNET)

Google recently annouced and invited webmasters to test a Cost Per Action AdSense program - basically, allowing them to be paid on a “action oriented” basis vs. an clicks or impression oriented basis. Reactions on some sites were certainly mixed, but it looks like an interesting progression for AdSense (or as one commenter called it, “full-on-assult to the affiliate marketers“)

Of course, I’m intersted in the user side experience - what will the more CPA oriented ads look like (if you read some of the language included in the accompanying posts, it appears Google is pushing a different type of ad for its CPA participants) and how much response they get from consumers.

Boing Boing annouced that MOG - a new social network revolving around music is launching tomorrow - but the beta version is already up. Looking at the beta version, it seems to be somewhat similiar to other music-based Social Networking type sites - like LastFM and Pandora (thought more similiar to the former than the latter). Like LastFM, MOG has a plugin that keeps track of the music you listen to on your computer, and allows for profiles, etc. Current users seem to be an eclectic assortment of music listeners that swing toward the indie end of the spectrum, with some higher profile users thrown in the mix (like Mike Watt and Michelle Shocked).