I’ve been hearing a lot about blogs and wikis lately. I first heard about blogs back in 2001 when a high school girl was profiled in the local newspaper and was getting upwards of 10,000 hits per day on her blog. This got my attention, and so I decided to check it out. I started my own blog at the time, primarily to figure out what it was all about but didn’t bother to make it public. I was just writing notes to myself. I’ve since resurrected that blog here and try to post to it about once a week. In 2002, my high school class was planning a reunion and so I started a group blog for that activity. It was quite active for several months before and after the reunion and was a lot of fun. It still gets a few postings a month, mostly from me, and I can see from the web server logs that it gets checked out about 10 times daily on the average, which is a lot since we only had about 170 members in our graduation class.

Wikis are a newer phenomenon. They are pages that allow anyone to edit them. In reality, there are some checks and balances to mitigate vandalism such as moderators that can remove defaced entries by reverting to a previous version of the page. The most famous Wiki is Wikipedia, which is a free on-line encyclopedia and it really seems to work well. Wikis do seem like they have the potential to become FAQ/Knowledgebase replacements.

Today I was reading the Social Customer Manifesto weblog and came across a link to another blog that talked about using blogs and wikis for product support purposes. As some of you reading this may know, I do ‘volunteer’ product support for several products, such as the Yaesu FT100 radio, the HP de100c Digital Entertainment Center, and the HP DVD Movie Writer products. This is done using Yahoo groups and associated FAQs. From time to time, I’ve thought about other approaches, such as using a user community/content management system like PHP-Nuke, vBulletin, or Infopop but decided I didn’t want to immerse myself in the headaches associated with learning and supporting that kind of infrastructure for 3 separate communities. Yahoo Groups is easy to use and although it’s far from perfect, it’s free and people often times already are members of other Yahoo groups so they know how to use the system.

A few months ago, I was having an on-going email discussion with some of my Entcon buddies regarding corporate blogs and how they were the up-and-coming way to help connect the corporate world with its customers without the extraneous layer of the PR department and information filtering that exists between people creating products and those purchasing the products. I’m not sure that today’s corporation is ready for that kind of unedited, unscripted PR quite yet. Sure I do a little of it on the user groups I mentioned, but it’s very limited in scope. If I were to become a product support conduit for every question about all of HP’s products, I’d probably never have a minute’s rest. There are a few HP execs blogging now. I even noticed there are podcasts from Nora Denzel.

GM is doing some corporate blogging now, but it’s mostly to promote new products, not to get feedback or provide product support. It’s interesting to note that they are getting some feedback on a few of their blogs from their own employees!

So it remains to be seen if corporate blogs and wikis will emerge as a sort of kinder, gentler and more intimate way of connecting companies with their customers, and I’ll be keeping lookout for any evidence that it’s actually occurring.

The world of Podcasting was rocked this week with the announcement that Adam Curry, the Podfather himself, would be joining Sirius satellite radio to produce a daily 4-hour show made up of podcasts. It appears that he has signed up some of the most high-profile podcasters, initiating a veritable talent grab, some might complain. I have blogged before about Podcasting twice and once about Satellite Radio. The podcasters he signed are Chris Rockwell, of the Daily Download, Dawn and Drew from the Dawn and Drew Show, Madge Weinstein of Yeast Radio, Michael Butler of the Rock and Roll Geek Show, the Skinn brothers from the Skinny on Sports Podcast and Steve Gillmor from The Gillmor Gang. I’ll warn you in advance that some of those shows have very raw language in them, particularly the Daily Download, Dawn and Drew, and Yeast Radio.

The podcasting community seems a little worried about this new direction since podcasting has historically been a completely bootstrapped industry with little influence by main stream media or advertising revenue. Most podcasters seem to do it out of a sense of community and passion for the material they speak about in their podcast. But when people engage in an activity for any length of time without any compensation for it, they are likely to become jaded, especially if what started as a hobby turns into something that feels more demanding, like a second job with no pay. I guess time will tell whether this is a step in the right direction for podcasting or a hijacking of what was a new and promising creative outlet.

Adam Curry likes to do promos for other podcasters and about a week ago he ran a promo for a Podcast called Cubicle Escape Pod, by Jonathan Brown and Matt Thompson that discusses bootstrapping your own startup while working at a regular day job. Sometimes contemplating an exit strategy is the only way to endure the hours toiling away in obscurity in a cubicle. This is especially true if you work for an employer that may at times seem fickle about the need for your services when they carry out periodic drive-by career terminations. Most ‘escape plans’ usually involve a certain degree of independence, not more of the same with another employer where the grass may look greener. The show is well-produced with a great website and has lots of insights and advice for those contemplating a startup. Even if you don’t intend to break away from your current employer, the show will get you to think more like an entrepreneur, which will certainly benefit your current situation. I’ve downloaded all of the shows from the Cubicle Escape Pod and have enjoyed them and look forward to see where this all goes since Jon and Matt talk about their previous unsuccessful attempt to create a startup and are planning to chronicle their new attempt through the podcast, although they’ve been somewhat slow in providing the details of their new company. I guess finding out what they are up to will give everyone yet another reason to keep tuning in to the show.

I recently read John Stossel’s book, ‘Give me a Break‘, and found it to be quite ‘refreshing’. While most of the news you read seems determined to frighten you, his book shows you that there’s little need to be worried about things that the mainstream media seems to obsess over such as airline crashes, cancer threats, or exploding Bic lighters. John exposes lots of myths and also the government programs that often seem to do more harm than good for the people they are supposed to help. I guess I’m a bit of a free market liberatarian, because I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the conclusions he draws in the book. One of the most unusual aspects of the book is where he exposes himself for taking advantage of a government handout called National Flood Insurance that uses taxpayer’s money to insure wealthy people for building ocean-front homes in areas where it is not safe to build. He also mentions that when he was slapped around by a 280 lb. WWF wrestler (which I saw on TV when it occurred) his hearing ‘injury’ stayed with him until his lawsuit was settled. Then it mysteriously disappeared. That seems to be a common trait of being a victim. Until we rise above it, our victimhood will follow us around. I think that is probably one of the most profound messages in the book.

Well, I’ve decided to ftp this log to my website and might just link it to my webpage. I’ve had it linked before, but I feel a little strange just kind of talking to myself and then letting others see what I’ve been thinking. Almost like having someone read your personal journal. Most blog sites seem like rants or notes to friends, but I like the idea of storing chronological information there for my own future reference.

I have always wanted to experiment with the Basic Stamp products. I recently became aware of a new type of Basic Stamp-like product called a BasicX24 by NetMedia and so I got one yesterday along with the Development station and am quite pleased with how quickly one can develop smalled embedded projects. It’s the same cost as the Basic Stamp II, but much more capable. The language and development environment remind me a lot of Visual Basic and so the syntax and tools are very modern-looking. It takes nearly no time to make changes and get it up and running. It’s not something that you’d want to use for developing final products with because of the overhead cost of each BX24 ($49) but it’s great for prototyping ideas. It might also be appropriate for small numbers of products because it would be easy to support it. Someone with very little knowledge could easily come up to speed quickly and with a little documentation be ready to support a custom embedded design.