Give This A Listen
Anyway, given the amount of time I spend in the car every day, I've been thinking a lot about custom listening experiences ala the "podcasting" phenenomen. Frequent blogger Dan Bricklin describes his impressions of podcasting here. For the same reason that satellite radio receivers were a huge seller during the holiday season, I think podcasting stands to become big this year. The fact is, most radio has devolved into a mish-mash of the same 20 songs or so. As someone who listens almost exclusively to a cappella singing groups and other weird musical genres, I have little use for that. I'm pretty addicted to the traffic report as I make my way from New Jersey out to Long Island most days. Plus I'm more inclined to hunt on the Internet for "radio" programs that pique my niche interests. I'm even more likely to download that content into a device I can set beside on the coach or on a park bench somewhere. Who wants to sit at their computer all day? Enough already.
On a completely different tangent, I've been reading with interest the reports that the IBM-Lenovo deal is being scrutinized for national security reasons. Here's a piece out of The New York Times that describes the situation, which comes down to concern over the access the Chinese government might have to some of IBM's technology. All I can say is "Wow, I never thought of this." It seems as if IBM has also been caught flat-footed. At the very least, it's going to delay things.
And while we're on the subject of foreign interests, I received this link this week from an offshore consulting firm. If you have any kind of offshore interests, this white paper might give you some reference points for figuring out whether you're really getting a good return on your investment.