Sci-Fi Hi-Fi

Buzz visits Odeo
Originally uploaded by dom.net.

Last week, I had another opportunity to visit my friends at Odeo, at the invitation of their crack QA guru Dominic Sagolla. As many of you may recall, I have always had a bit of a soft spot for the good people of Odeo because of my interest in audio-oriented social software. I’ve always had a feeling that the Odeo people will be the ones to eventually hit on the formula that makes audio social software compelling in a way that, say, Last.fm just isn’t, and the previews that Dom showed me of Odeo’s future continue to make me optimistic.

One feature that is of particular interest to me is the newly unveiled “Link to Audio” functionality. As many of you may recall, until recently I ran an “ad-hoc” podcast created simply by linking to MP3s on my server using del.icio.us and taking advantage of the del.icio.us media support. Now Odeo users can do essentially the same thing, with a big difference: instead of publishing the file to the world, they can choose to merely send it to the inbox of one or more contacts in their social network. Since the contacts can then send the same file to the inbox of their own contacts, this feature is a bit reminiscent of the recombinant podcasting idea I’ve mentioned in the past. And, let’s face it, since the sharing stays within the social network, there’s no need for “the man” to ruin the fun.

Based on this and a few other things I saw, I think Odeo is doing an admirable job of reinventing itself in the face of iTunes’ entrance into the podcasting world. I look forward to seeing how some of the other things they’re working on are received by the public.

(Update: P.S.: If you were a fan of my old podcast, feel free to add me as a contact on Odeo.

As many of you probably know, I’ve become notoriously bad about things like updating my weblog and answering my email. Well, I’ve decided to make a clean break and start trying to manage my email the Merlin Mann way.

As part of my great email reset, however, I essentially took my daunting pile of existing inbox messages (stretching back to 2004) and dumped them all to a folder called “Archived Messages.” The only problem with this is that I feel guilty about all the email in that pile with questions for me, favors to ask, crashes to fix, and the like that I won’t be getting to. Therefore I’m now issuing a blanket invitation/request: if you’ve emailed me in the past few months and not gotten a response, please feel free to email me again and get into my newly (and probably temporarily) manageable queue.

Thanks, and now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

(Update: I always forget my email is nowhere on this page. You can email me at buzz at this domain.)

It’s 2 AM, and I should be going to bed after a hard day’s night, but I just discovered something in NetNewsWire that I have to share (even though it’s probably old news by now): my friend Peter Ammon finally got to release his long-awaited hex editor for OS X, Hex Fiend.

Peter started working on Hex Fiend back when he and I worked together in OS X QA, and he approached the project of filling the OS X hex editor gap (a gap I definitely can vouch for, having worked extensively with frustrating hex editors to develop PodWorks) with the kind of megalomania readers of his weblog have come to expect. Not content to simply develop a nice tool for the job, Peter set about creating an editor that allows users to edit arbitrarily large files and do so using an NSTextView. An impressive feat by any standard.

Here’s hoping some of Peter’s work here eventually finds its way into the Cocoa text system!

SXSW 2006 (Saturday)
Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

Just thought I’d break weblog silence to mention I’m currently sojourning in my favorite home away from home, Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest. I’ll be here for a good long time (for both the Interactive and Music parts), and I’m all about meeting new friends (or old friends I only talk to online), so drop me a line (my first name at this domain) if you’re around and would like to say hello!