Monday, July 30, 2007
The Internet is creating its own stars
The Internet as it matures as a media is spawning its own stars much like television in its early days. I have frequently mentioned the phenomenon of podcasting where audio and/or video shows are available for people to stream or download to their computers via the Internet.
You can subscribe to these podcasts from the creator’s Websites or through distribution sites like iTunes, and load them on a media player like an iPod. I subscribe to a number of technical podcasts and download a number of new shows each week.
These podcasts are my main source of information on what is new in the industry.
This new approach to information distribution has created careers for a number of people known primarily to people under 30. Many are of this young geek generation that first became widely known through to success of entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Occasionally you will see one of these people when they appear as a talking head on some tech-oriented discussion on a cable channel. They will become more familiar to the general public as more people turn to the Internet as their information and entertainment source.
Some of these stars are refugees from the early days of the tech industry before the DotCom bubble burst in the 90’s. The now defunct Tech TV show saw several of its on-air personalities land on their feet in the tech industry with podcasts of their own. Kevin Rose of Digg, Leo Laporte of This Week In Tech (TWIT), Patrick Norton of DL.TV and Amber MacArthur of net@nite have become widely popular. They are joined by others like Cali Lewis, Veronica Belmont and Natali Del Conte who are rising young women stars in the field.
I’ve left out other important names in this growing media like John C. Dvorak and Jay Adelson, Robert Heron, Roger Chang, Tom Merritt and Molly Wood.
I’ve thrown out a number of names here. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you will. They are pioneers of this new media.
Another name that has risen via the Internet is Terra Naomi. Who is Terra Naomi? She is a struggling young musician who has zoomed into the spotlight after seven years of singing in coffee shops and bars. She wrote a song “Say It’s Possible” about global warming after seeing Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” She has her own MySpace page and uploaded a video of her performing the song on YouTube.
Her video has been viewed almost five and a half million times since it was posted a year ago. It came to Al Gore’s attention and one year after producing her video in what appears to be a little home studio, she appeared before thousands of people at Wembley Stadium in London during the Live Earth concert.
Check out her first performance at http://youtube.com/watch?v=ARHyRI9_NB4 then view her performance at Wembley at http://youtube.com/watch?v=rz09nw__FLs. It is quite a change in one year. It helps illustrate the growing power of the Internet.
The vast majority of you feel that drivers are less courteous than 10 years ago. The percentage has ranged from 88 to 90 percent in recent days. This week I’ve put up a new poll question. What is the first thing you look for when you come to the stardem.com Website? News? Sports? Obituaries? Classifieds? Opinion columns? Feature stories?
I’d be interested in your response. As always you can reach me at rpolk@chespub.com.
You can subscribe to these podcasts from the creator’s Websites or through distribution sites like iTunes, and load them on a media player like an iPod. I subscribe to a number of technical podcasts and download a number of new shows each week.
These podcasts are my main source of information on what is new in the industry.
This new approach to information distribution has created careers for a number of people known primarily to people under 30. Many are of this young geek generation that first became widely known through to success of entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Occasionally you will see one of these people when they appear as a talking head on some tech-oriented discussion on a cable channel. They will become more familiar to the general public as more people turn to the Internet as their information and entertainment source.
Some of these stars are refugees from the early days of the tech industry before the DotCom bubble burst in the 90’s. The now defunct Tech TV show saw several of its on-air personalities land on their feet in the tech industry with podcasts of their own. Kevin Rose of Digg, Leo Laporte of This Week In Tech (TWIT), Patrick Norton of DL.TV and Amber MacArthur of net@nite have become widely popular. They are joined by others like Cali Lewis, Veronica Belmont and Natali Del Conte who are rising young women stars in the field.
I’ve left out other important names in this growing media like John C. Dvorak and Jay Adelson, Robert Heron, Roger Chang, Tom Merritt and Molly Wood.
I’ve thrown out a number of names here. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you will. They are pioneers of this new media.
Another name that has risen via the Internet is Terra Naomi. Who is Terra Naomi? She is a struggling young musician who has zoomed into the spotlight after seven years of singing in coffee shops and bars. She wrote a song “Say It’s Possible” about global warming after seeing Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” She has her own MySpace page and uploaded a video of her performing the song on YouTube.
Her video has been viewed almost five and a half million times since it was posted a year ago. It came to Al Gore’s attention and one year after producing her video in what appears to be a little home studio, she appeared before thousands of people at Wembley Stadium in London during the Live Earth concert.
Check out her first performance at http://youtube.com/watch?v=ARHyRI9_NB4 then view her performance at Wembley at http://youtube.com/watch?v=rz09nw__FLs. It is quite a change in one year. It helps illustrate the growing power of the Internet.
The vast majority of you feel that drivers are less courteous than 10 years ago. The percentage has ranged from 88 to 90 percent in recent days. This week I’ve put up a new poll question. What is the first thing you look for when you come to the stardem.com Website? News? Sports? Obituaries? Classifieds? Opinion columns? Feature stories?
I’d be interested in your response. As always you can reach me at rpolk@chespub.com.
# posted by Richard Polk @ 10:31 AM 
