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New Media News Every Morning

Podcasts To Make You Smarter

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One of the things working and publishing online has as far as benefits goes it the ability to work online and always be learning. I personally have a list of a few podcasts I regularly listen to, ebooks that inspire me, and blogs I read on a daily basis.

podcasting

College Crunch has put together a list called 15 Podcats That Will Make You Smarter.

Personally I found some of these already on my listening list, and found a few new finds. As a media publisher I crave more content aimed at the online publisher, and webmaster crowd.

Do you have any suggestions for a resource aimed at improving the intelligence of the average webmaster of online publisher ?

Originally posted on October 12, 2009 @ 5:24 pm

Gravity Forms: Contact Forms on Steroids

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Gravity Forms is truly the most revolutionary plugin on WordPress IMO. It does multiple things that I wish WordPress Core had built in. Form Management to create a user generated content site, to customer relationship management, to a user generated job board. The possiblities are ENDLESS.

gravity forms

RocketGenius recently released their 1.2 Version of Gravity Forms

We are happy to release Gravity Forms v1.2! This is an exciting release that adds some new, exciting and very powerful features to the mix. Developers will love the data integration capabilities and novice users will love the new features that makes managing forms even more powerful.

I’m a big WordPress nut and this is truly one of the most exciting developments to hit WordPress imo since the creation of the Thesis Theme for WordPress. On the outside and inside this looks like a solid product that you could build some solid sites on.

Originally posted on October 12, 2009 @ 3:21 pm

I Can Haz Blog Empire

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The man who bought out I Can Haz Cheeseburger is slowly building one of the best content empires on the web.

i can haz cheeseburger

“The privately held company was launched in 2007 when Mr. Huh acquired I Can Haz Cheezburger; since then he’s built it through acquisitions (Failblog in 2008) and launches (It Made My Day), into a network of 30 blogs visited by 11.5 million people a month. Failblog’s video site just passed CBS as the 7th most-viewed channel of all time on YouTube. It now has 21 full-time employees and five part-timers and is profitable, though Mr. Huh wouldn’t discuss specifics.”

I love hearing these kinds of success stories although having seen the industry from all sides I don’t envy anyone having to run this type of machine. It’s a hard life that requires a lot of work and lots of tough decisions especially in this digital economy. But Ben Huh has done a marvelous job building an impressive empire of hilarious sites.

Source: Ad Age

Originally posted on October 12, 2009 @ 4:09 pm

Google Voice Being Targeted for FCC Investigation

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The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it is set to investigate whether Google has violated telecommunications laws via its Google Voice App refuses to connect to some rural connection points.

Google Voice

In a letter sent to Google on Friday afternoon, the FCC requested that Google explain how its application, Google Voice, works and why it is blocking some rural connection points.

Critics say if the agency determines that the service is a traditional telephone service than it will be regulated as one. If it’s not deemed to be a traditional telephony service than it’s unlikely the FCC will be able to do anything.

Google’s lead attorney on this issue is Rick Whitt, and argued that the service is not a traditional phone service because it is free and is an Internet application. He said some calls denied service to rural areas because of high costs of making those connections.

Source: Brainz

Originally posted on October 10, 2009 @ 10:29 pm

Angels Want Startups To Pay To Pitch

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Jason Calacanis get’s it right when he says that Angels shouldn’t be asking Startups for cash for the time to pitch to them. First off Angels have the cash, and the time to listen to startups, and if they don’t have the time they shouldn’t ask startups to pay.

jason calacanis

Jason Calacanis says it a lot better than I can, and in a rare moment I really agree with him on this.

I’ve been in the startup scene since 1994 and in those 15 years I’ve met, interviewed — and in some cases, pitched — the most powerful investors in technology. None of them have ever charged me a dime for doing so.
Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH!

It’s low-class, inappropriate and predatory for a rich person to ask an entrepreneur to PAY THEM for 15 minutes of their time. Seriously, what is the cost to the party hearing the pitch? If you answered “nothing” or “the cost of two cups of coffee” you win the prize!

Originally posted on October 10, 2009 @ 10:04 pm