What should be Blawgcast?

Evan,

This provided Professor Althouse with a perfect opportunity to provide us with a blawgcast.

Just a reminder to urge her to get 'casting.

Elizabeth Townsend 2005-02-21

Elizabeth Townsend gave a talk on Assessing the Arrival of the Unpublished Public Domain in the Internet Age. You can listen to Elizabeth's talk here.

Summary: The talk looked at how the Internet is impacting research and writing in an academic setting, with particular attention paid the newly created unpublished public domain. It asks the question of how the digital archiving projects and e-books projects connect to or impact on the development of the unpublished public domain. What should scholars know when working with archival and manuscript sources that are now found on the Internet? What kind of advocacy or awareness is needed to keep open the spaces of knowledge that scholars use?

BlawgCast defined

BlawgCast is (1) the transmission of audio and or video files across the internet and onto your hard drive via select software; (2) the act of aggregating and distributing audio 'casts posted to legal weblogs (blawgs) via a single RSS feed.

rethink(ip) aloud podcast #2

Steve Nipper's interview with Promote the Progress Blog's J. Matthew Buchanan: provides interesting background info on why JMB started and coontinues to enjoy blogging. Also, you can actually here Steve on this one.

You can access the mp3 directly by subscribing to the blawgcast.com mp3 feed here.

Related Posts
The Invent Blog on how we create our podcasts

So what is "rethink(ip)?":

I wish I could define it...I wish I could explain. In a broad context it is a collaboration between three patent attorneys from three competing, small "inland" IP law firms to get individuals, small businesses and corporations to rethink about how IP law is practiced, how it is paid for, how invention disclosures are obtained from employees, how they relate with their IP counsel, how their IP counsel should treat them, software, training, consulting, etc. But it is so much more than that.

How to get podcasts on your cellphone

The simple secret, according to Craig Williams of May it Please the Court, is to own "a Pocket PC cell phone - not your typical cell phone. It's a small (very small) computer."

See Craig's Test Drive: Samsung i700 Pocket PC [podcast] [source] [more]

Related: How-to: Get RSS feeds on your PSP

Kevin Heller: What's your blawgcast setup?

Don't laugh.

It's a 30gb iPod photo with griffin iTalk attachment, my Dell desktop, itunes and audacity.

Are your rss feeds safe with feedburner?

Eric Lunt of Feedburner reassures users that their rss feeds are in safe hands in response to Rogers Cadenhead asking how a weblogger could hand over their most loyal readers to a third party:

I'm sure many publishers are reluctant to offload the feed management to us until they can be assured they will continue to have total control over the URL no matter what happens to FeedBurner. A few more things I just want to say:

1. We never do anything to your feed that the publisher did not elect to do. If you ever see an ad, for example, in a feed managed by FeedBurner, then that's because the publisher wanted it there and is deriving revenue from it.
2. Everything that's free today will be free in the future. We are planning on offering additional premium paid services in the near future.
3. We're not going out of business anytime soon. I can't elaborate on this right now, but you'll have to trust me on that one. (smile)

I totally understand your concerns, and we're doing everything we can to offer features to publishers in as seamless a manner as possible. As soon as we add the ability to redirect off of a FeedBurner feed, I hope we'll have addressed your issues.
Thanks!
Eric Lunt

I've been wondering myself why I'm willing to do it, but that makes me feel a little better.

The Future of Music podcast

Dave Slusher of IT Conversations' Voices in Your Head talked about the Future of Music [blog feed] with Gerd Leonhard and David Kusek.

What I found very interesting was the fact that the authors, who are also musicians, understood the defnition of true piracy.

Summary: The music-industry is threatened by the new technologies of music distribution. How are they reacting, and how are musicians using the Internet on their own to make more money for themselves? In this interview with two music-industry insiders, Dave Slusher discovers the current state of digital music and possible courses for the future.

Bret Fausett: What's your podcast setup?

Bret Fausett of Lextext and Internet Pro Radio kindly responds to to the question: What's your blawgcast setup?

You can see Bret's setup here; wine glass optional.

Denise Howell: 2005-03-28 Podcast 11

Denise Howell: "Today's podcast discusses a lawyer's responsibilities with respect to technology and some related plawdcasts/blawgcasts, my Sound Policy show at IT Conversations, podriahs, personal productivity, and little boys."

You can access the mp3 directly by subscribing to the blawgcast.com mp3 feed here.

update: In Belly Up IV, I wrote: Kevin at Lexblog asks whether Lawyer's have a moral obigation to blog and concludes that the ethical rules guidelines require public interest legal service, so why not? I'll assume he saw my pro bono post.

Denise has some interesting thoughts on the subject in her podcast. You'll need to listen to learn about them.

Also, I just read an interesting post on InhouseBlog regarding Your Legal Duty to Blog, in which Geoffrey G. Gussis agrees with Kevin and provides a few additional reasons to blog:

1. Blogging will Inform You.
2. Blogging will Help You with Your Job.
3. Blogging is Easy.
4. People Want to Hear You.
5. Why Not?

You'll need to read the entire post to learn more.

What Makes For A Good Law Podcast?

Marty Schwimmer asks the question at his newly launched Between Lawyers blog at Corante.

His response: good writing.

Which coincidentally makes for a good blawg.

update: Apparently a major thread at Between Lawyers will be legal podcasting..... here's Ernie the Attorney's two cents.

Employment Blawgcast

I've added George Lenard of George's Employment Blawg to the list of legal blawgcasters. George has recorded and posted his first 'cast (with shownotes): HR/Employment Blogosphere update for March 28, 2005.

You can access the mp3 directly by subscribing to the blawgcast.com mp3 feed here.

The great thing about George's blawg and his blawgcast is that its not focused on employment law for the HR professional. I find the information useful for employees, job hunters and bloggers in general.

Blawgcast Coverage

Many thanks to all those who took the time to mention the launch of BlawgCast.com this week:

* Bag & Baggage
* Robert Ambrogi's LawSites
* Patent Baristas
* The Legal Reader
* InhouseBlog
* blawg
* Phosita
* The Invent Blog
* EEJD
* cat's weblog
* Stark County Law Library Blawg
* Depraved Librarian
* Andrew Raff
* Conglomerate
* Blawg Wisdom
* JURISPUNDIT

J. Craig Williams: What's your podcast setup?

Podcaster and videocaster J. Craig Williams of May It Please The Court offers his seriously detailed blawgcast setup....

Kevin,

My podcasting setup is very simple and designed more than anything else to accommodate recording from different locations. In the simplicity, however, lies the beauty. I use a set of Altec-Lansing AHS-302 computer, behind-the-neck headphones/microphone that can be purchased for under $25.

I use this headphone/microphone set because it's foldable and easily transportable, plus Altec-Lansing produces a high-quality product. I use Audacity shareware with a Lame MP3 plug-in to record the podcasts. I record the podcast typically on my Motion Computing Tablet computer because it's the most portable and versatile. As long as I have an internet connection, I can upload the podcast to May It Please The Court in a manner of minutes.

That's it, plain and simple. Podcasting for under 25 bucks (excluding, of course, the computer necessary for the recording). While I'd love to have Evan's set-up, and I understand the value of it, I don't have the luxury of a studio to broadcast from every time I podcast. I frequently post from work, home, on vacation, while traveling and even remote locations.

Now, for the hard part. While in high school, I started broadcasting training. I obtained my 3rd Class FCC license in order to broadcast on radio, which I did throughout high school and college. Admittedly, what I was doing was at first nothing more than small, 3-watt 88.1 FM broadcasting, but I held down a steady daily show during the week while a teenager. I also broadcast on our high school closed-circuit television station at the start of each school day. No great shakes, but it was a start.

Then, in college I locally-hosted a public radio show called "All Things Considered" and did some NPR pieces along with more news anchor work for a local public TV station. Ultimately I landed a commercial radio job while still in school. I worked at a small AM / FM radio station in Virginia, and broadcast news, weather and sports on the FM side, and did nightly and weekend music (radio disc jockey) shows on the AM side. All during that time, I had voice coaching from my teachers and professors, and then when working commercially, required professional voice training. My undergraduate major was in Radio, TV, Film and Journalism, and I got plenty of practice.

I've since kept my finger in radio and TV, and podcasting gave me the opportunity to get back into it more fully, and do something I really enjoy. I still practice - reading each page of the front section (top right to lower left) of the newspaper out loud, with a voice coach listening and critiquing my speech.

That said, I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination, I haven't jazzed up my podcasts with bumper music, and I don't alter my voice with an equalizer, brightener or any other available electronic means. It's not that I don't want to - I do - and I recognize that my podcasts would sound much better for it. But from what my listeners have said, keeping it simple keeps it interesting.

You may know that I also videocast blog entries. I call it vlawgging or recording a vlawg, since it's a bit more than a vlog. My setup for the video is similarly simple, with just a couple of expensive parts. I use Serious Magic's Visual Communicator 2 to record my vlawgs. It's great software because it has a teleprompter feature, you can see a video of what you're recording while you're recording it, and it has green screen effects. That combination of features makes it look more professional than it really is.

For lighting, I the standard set up - hair light (overhead, pointing down), back lights, side lights, front box lights and up lights. It gets hot when it's all turned on. My lighting system is not at all of the quality you'd find in a television or photography studio. The lights are inexpensive construction lights on stands from Home Depot (http://www.homedepot.com), together with some daylight bulbs to soften the light a bit. I've also got some standard video lights for the minor side and up lights.

My teleprompter set up is ingeniously simple: it's my Tablet computer in its dock, a mirror with a flexible arm that clamps in position in front of the Tablet to "flip" the text into the teleprompter glass, which then reads "right side up" when I look "through it" at the camera. That way, I can read the text that's reflected on the teleprompter glass by the mirror as it's scrolling on the software, all the while recording the video on the Tablet computer for easy upload. The teleprompter glass is from Edmund Optics and was the most expensive piece. It's held in place at a 45-degree angle by clamps and flexible arms that can be purchased from any professional camera store. That way, I look directly into the camera instead of off to the side. I built a small teleprompter box out of dowels to keep the shadows down.

The camera is an Logitech Quickcam for Notebooks Pro. I also use a Panasonic D-Snap SVAV100 for clips while on the road. If you're thinking about videocasting, stick with the webcam if you're going to use Visual Communicator. The software communicates much better with a webcam than a video camera, although with some extra effort, you can import video clips.

I'm doing this podcasting and videocasting by myself on a moderate budget, and I don't have what I'm used to at my fingertips anymore. It would be great to have a recording studio with the high-quality equipment to podcast, and I'd love to get back into a television studio again to record video. I have to remember that MIPTC is on the internet, not the airwaves.

But I practice law full-time, and podcasting and videocasting take a back seat to my practice. I'll have to rely on listeners and viewers to tell me if they think I need to make wholesale improvements in my equipment before that investment will be made. Likewise, viewers and listeners can suggest improvements in both my audio and video recording - I'm always open for suggestions, and willing to make changes.

By the way, MIPTC has enabled audio comments - anyone can call 206-338-3088, so anyone can talk on MIPTC. Call in an let me know - I'll post your audio comments on May It Please The Court.

The tough part, however, is space on the server. Podcasts and videocasts take up a huge amount of space (see this post) - we're now out of room. Once MIPTC relocates to a bigger server with much more space available, podcasting and videocasting will begin again. I expect to be back up and running within the next two weeks.

Thanks,
Craig

Music for your Podcasts

Law Professor Lawrence Lessig recently took time out from his busy schedule to promote the new "Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons at search.yahoo.com/cc which complements their existing search.

You may remember him from such podcasts as "Why Your Broadband Sucks". Check it out here.

Related: Not sure if Evan Brown knew of the CC search when he produced his latest podcast, but he included Music courtesy of Blandy under a Creative Commons license.

Related Posts

- Podcasting and state tape recording laws

- ASCAP Offers Licenses to Podcasters

- How to Podcast RIAA Music Under License

- More CC music for your 'casts

David Giacalone, podriah

Excerpted from podriahs -- blissfully outside the pod-caste system:

Cluttering weblogs with podcasting links, posts, and references -- and taking away from the content and quality of weblogs by spending time instead producing podcasts -- is unlikely to make weblogs appear useful and attractive to those outside the podcaste.

The beauty in BlawgCast.com, for myself and Evan, is that our blogs will not become distracted with news and utterances from the "new technology"; rather we have created a seperate outlet where those interested in legal podcasting can aggregate. And we're not giving up our day-blawgs either.

As Evan so eloquently puts it:

Perhaps my cheerleading makes you ill. If so, you'll be happy to learn that this is the last time I'll promote podcasting on this weblog. Why's that? Because as of this week, I've become a co-host at Kevin Heller's BlawgCast.com, a weblog designed to bring you news about all the developments in law-related podcasting.

Also, I strongly believe that there's an audience for podcasting because I myself enjoy it. If you are lucky to have a 15 minute commute, then maybe it's not right for you. But I spend 4 to 5 hours on the bus getting back and forth to Wall Street and I can only listen to Stern or the music on my iPod for so long.

But David, I certainly enjoyed reading your thoughts on the subject and I encourage everyone else to do the same.

update: David's inital post has created a landslide of commentary and discussion amongst the lawyers cited in his post. Anyway, JurisPundit rounds em up: Technology is bad mmmkay...

A Podcasting Primer

The Depraved Librarian has put together a podcasting primer over at The Handheld Librarian.

Announcing BlawgCast.com: One-Stop Browsing for Law-Related Podcasts

by Evan Schaeffer, Notes from the (Legal) Underground

Are you a podcasting naysayer like, say, Jurispundit? In a post titled "What's the Big Deal with Podcasts?" Jurispundit wrote:

[T]he "Information Era" brought the internet and to a lesser extent cable news such that we could avoid the dreaded "local news anchor." It seems we have gone full circle. Only this time to new lows. Rather than amateur broadcasters, we're listening to amateurs pretending to be amateur broadcasters. Here's to hoping this fad passes quickly.

I'm one who happens to disagree. You can argue about the quality of podcasting content all day long. As with weblogs, there's plenty of junk. But the revolutionary thing about podcasting in these early stages isn't the content, but the way the content is delivered. Using software like iPodder, the content is delivered to your mp3 device automatically.

Podcasting is TIVO for your iPod.

You can choose what you want to listen to and you can listen to it without having to sit at a computer. Not only does podcasting give you more options than with radio, but the content isn't governed by the restrictive FCC-enforced rules that have made ordinary radio so plain vanilla. And that content continues to improve every day.

Perhaps my cheerleading makes you ill. If so, you'll be happy to learn that this is the last time I'll promote podcasting on this weblog. Why's that? Because as of this week, I've become a co-host at Kevin Heller's BlawgCast.com, a weblog designed to bring you news about all the developments in law-related podcasting.

Although I'll continue to post my own podcasts on this weblog, I won't be commenting very much on the phenomenon of podcasting. I'll save all that for BlawgCast. It's at BlawgCast, for example, that I'll be urging Professor Althouse to record one those con-law lectures she frequently writes about. I mean, why not? Why can't the occasional law-school lecture be a podcast? Or oral arguments from appellate courts? Or recordings of lawyers giving practice tips like the Texas Bar's Ten Minute Mentor? To turn such audio content into a podcast is as simple as putting it into a RSS feed. It really takes no time at all.

It's at BlawgCast where Kevin and I will be discussing ideas like these while we cover all the latest news about judges, law professors, lawyers and law students who podcast. Already, Kevin has developed a can't-be-missed feature at BlawgCast: a single feed that will allow you to keep up on a variety of legal podcasts at once. You'll find the details here.

See you at BlawgCast!

Editor's Note by Kevin Heller: I would like to thank Evan for joining me at BlawgCast.com as we attempt to take on this small, but growing, portion of the podcasting universe.

[originally posted at Notes from the (Legal) Underground]

Jeremy Richey: What's your podcast setup?

Jeremy Richey of Jeremy Richey's Blawg responds to the question: What's your blawgcast setup?

The Hardware: My Dell laptop.

The Software: I record and edit my regular podcasts with Audacity. I use Slapcast to record interviews, but then I edit them with Audacity.

The Audio Components: I use a microphone I bought at Wal-Mart. If memory serves me correctly, it cost around $10. I plug it into my laptop's microphone jack, open up Audacity, and then record until my heart is content.

The Technique: I start by writing a script. I then record the
script. Next, I re-record the parts of the podcast that turn out poorly. I then splice together the best of what I have. Finally, I add the background sounds and sound effects.

Thanks Jeremy!

How to Podcast for Busy Lawyers

Kevin at lexBlog points us to feedmelegal who recommends Audioblog for busy lawyers as well as points to Eric Rice/Audioblog's screencast on how to podcast using Audioblog.

Be sure to tune in to the "what's your podcast setup" series to learn how less blawgers and law students setup their podcast studio.

Related Posts: Evan Schaeffer: What's your podcasting setup?

One Feed Under Blawgcast

The power of del.icio.us, tags and feedburner's SmartCast technology allows us to create a a community podcasting network.

All you need to do is post the url to your podcast's sound file to del.icio.us and include the tag "blawgcast".

For example, if the sound file for your podcast is 'http://m2.slapcast.com/mp3/example/example.mp3', you'd post it in the 'url' field at del.icio.us, then add a description in the 'description' field and type blawgcast in the tab field.

The next step was to create a smartcast enabled rss 2.0 feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/blawgcast, which is a podcast enabled version of the del.icio.us feed, which is compatible with podcast software. And there you have it -- blawgcasting.

By joining fellow blawcasters and providing listeners with the http://feeds.feedburner.com/blawgcast feed you will be increasing your own and fellow blawgcasters exposure to a larger audience.

Please feel free to grab the image and feed and include it with your next blawgcast:



If you're not a blawgcaster, you can subscribe to the feed in your favorite podcast software and your mp3 player will be updated automatically when anyone posts a new 'cast to http://del.icio.us/tag/blawgcast.

Thanks!

Evan Schaeffer: What's your podcasting setup?

Part I in a series.

Evan Schaeffer of Notes from the (Legal) Underground has eagerly responded to my inquiry: What's your podcasting setup?

Kevin: Sure, I'm interested, although my set-up is strange. Here it is---

The Hardware: Long before podcasting, I had a basic sound studio I used for recording music. I've been using that same equipment for making podcasts, while recognizing that it's complete overkill and seems to be getting in the way of getting the sound exactly right

As described below in "technique," I begin by recording my voice with a Tascam 788 digital recorder; I then burn the resulting wav file to a CD; finally, I move the CD with its rough voice recording to an HP Pavilion 7965 into which I installed a Yamaha SW100XG sound card.

The Software: I use a number of programs for podcasts that I originally purchased to record music. These include CoolEdit Pro, Acid Pro 3.0, Sonar 4 Producer and Studio Edition, and T-Racks 24 mastering software.

The Audio Components: I record my voice with an Rode NT1000 microphone running into an Applied Research and Technology MPStudio pre-amp, then into the previously-mentioned Tascam 788 digital recorder. I monitor the sound by running the Tascam "monitor out" to a Yamaha RX396 receiver using Samson RH600 headphones.

The Technique: After recording my voice onto the Tascam 788, the wav recording is then burned onto a CD with a Tascam CD-RW788 CD burner. I then move over to the computer and rip the voice track from the CD using a freeware program. Then I import the resulting wav file into CoolEdit and use it to cut out the dead space. I also used CoolEdit for noise reduction, compression and to add reverb. From there, I add music and other sounds to the basic voice track by importing the edited rough voice track into either Acid Pro 3.0 or Sonar 4 Producer-and-Studio Edition. Both are multi-tracking platforms that make it easy to manipulate many various tracks of sound.

The music I add to my podcasts is in the form of Acid Loops, purchased loops, or music that I write and perform myself. If I'm performing myself, I play the music on a Casio digital piano, which is hooked into the computer through a USB connection; the sounds can be manipulated in a number of ways in Sonar using MIDI, soundfonts, "soft synths," or other software solutions.

When the production sounds right within Acid or Sonar, I render it to another wav file, then run the wav file through T-Racks 24 mastering software. This results in still another wav file that I convert to MP3 using MusicMatch.

Evan

Odeo Enters Podcasting Market

* The Odeo Blog
* MAKE blog on Odeo
* Weblogs, Inc filed this report.

First rethink(ip) aloud podcast launched

The rethink(ip) team released its first podcast -- rethink(ip) aloud -- this week. In the initial installment, the team discusses patent reform and the effects of the Knorr-Bremse decision. And there's a Sorocco rant, too!

Download or stream the the podcast here (.mp3 format).

Stay tuned for more podcasts - and keep an eye out for even more from the rethink(ip) team (Buchanan, Nipper, Sorocco).

IPtelligentsia Podcast

Andrew Raff's initial IPtelligentsia Podcast podcast looks at MGM v. Grokster, in particular, how the arguments made at oral arguments were reflected in the 9th Circuit ruling.

podshow.com

Adam Curry's podshow.com has officially launched:

If you're a serious podcast producer, PodShow wants you!

We will help you produce, post, distribute and market your PodShow.

Let us help you turn your passion into profit.

Kevin's BlawgCasts

2005-03-18: Newsmashing [m4a]

2005-03-15: Legal Jobs Blog podcast [wav] / Legal Jobs Blog website

2005-01-28: Legal Underground Word of the Day: Champerty [mp3]

TechLawAdvisor Podcast Feed: xml

Evan's BlawgCasts

Law-Related Things That Suck: Podcasts

If you want to get the Legal Underground Podcast to show up on your MP3 player automatically, subscribe to this RSS feed using iPodder or a similar product.