Stitcher: My Favorite App
I have a recording of myself as a kid saying, “I love listening to grown people talk.” Even as a grown-up, it’s still true! I still love listing to people talk. I rarely listen to music. Music tends to make me emotional, but I can listen to talk from morning to bedtime. That may give you some insight into why I got involved in podcasting as soon as it became a thing.
iTunes made podcasting accessible to a large audience, but it isn’t the best way to get audio podcasts anymore. The best way is an App called Stitcher. Install the free App on your phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Palm) and start searching for audio shows you like. Favorite a show and it’s added to a list. After you’ve built up your list, hit play and enjoy! It stitches shows together and plays them back to back. It’s a wonderful thing!
Stitcher is a great way to consume audio, especially if your taste is diverse. I hit play on a Monday morning and hear TWiT, No Agenda, The Splendid Table, WTF with Marc Maron, This Week in Start-ups, Studio 360, The Trending Show and a long, long list of NPR shows. Stitcher automatically moves down your list and plays the most recent unplayed episode. I love going from tech to comedy to a foodie show to politics without having to choose what to play next after the last podcast ends. It’s as if, I’ve been given my own talk radio station and the budget to program it with all the shows I love.
One of the best things about Stitcher is it remembers where you pause. For podcast playback that’s to be expected, but since the file streams through the App, I was pleasantly surprised to have that as a feature.
As a new media guy, I’m not a fan of the way conservative talk hosts charge for access to the podcasts of their shows, but Stitcher supports those paid accounts. It would rock my world if Stitcher did a deal with Sirius. I’d gladly pay to get Howard Stern through Stitcher.
Stitcher isn’t perfect, but it’s improving all the time. Show notes are an important part of podcasts. They feature information about guest and links to things talked about on the show. The Stitcher App only displays part of a show’s notes and there’s no way to see more. Not every podcast I love is available, and I’m pretty sure if a podcast isn’t available through Stitcher, it’s because the podcaster hasn’t signed up to make it available.
There is a browser player but it’s nowhere near as slick as the app yet. The browser player doesn’t remember playback position, and if you browse for new shows, it stops playing what you’re listening to.
If you like audio podcast, you have to get the Stitcher App! It’s free and all kinds of awesome!
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“You Wouldn’t Steal” Anti-Piracy Campaign in Trouble
If you’ve watched more than a few DVDs, you’ve most likely seen this little anti-piracy video. It says,
You wouldn’t steal a car,
you wouldn’t steal a handbag,
you wouldn’t steal a television,
you wouldn’t steal a movie.Downloading pirated films is stealing,
stealing is against the law,
PIRACY IT’S A CRIME
An organization called BREIN hired Melchior Rietveldt to score the anti-piracy video you’ve seen on DVD after DVD. According to Rietveldt, BREIN only acquired rights to use the music when playing the video at a local film festival. When he saw it included in a Harry Potter DVD, he wasn’t happy.
The video has been included on thousands of DVDS sold millions of times and Rietveldt wants to be paid. It’s estimated that he’s missed out on $1.3 Million.
The Hollywood-funded campaign has been criticized heavily by film lovers because it’s shown to those of us who pay to see films and buy DVDs. The people who actually infringe copyright aren’t influenced by the preaching to the choir message.
Geeks believe when content is available in fair ways and fair prices, people will happily pay to consume it. When Hollywood makes restrictions too restrictive, people will find a work around the limitations in exactly the same way BREIN seems to have worked around paying Melchior Rietveldt for his creation.
Read more about this story here.
Read MoreGreen Screens and Blue Screens in Film and TV
If you watch special features on DVDs, you’ve probably seen your share of green screens and blue screens being used to create backgrounds for scenes in movies. The screens save time and money and solve logistical problems that otherwise might be impossible. In the film Angels and Demons, Ron Howard’s crew used massive green screens in a football parking lot to reproduce a crowed Saint Peter’s Square.
This is a little montage showing scenes from several films and TV shows where the chroma key is turned on an off to reveal some surprising ways filmmakers use green screens. I was particularly shocked (and delighted) to see city street scenes from Ugly Betty shot entirely on green screen.
Video on The Verge
If you haven’t checked out The Verge before, do it! It goes far beyond a typical gadget blog to present the best information sites I’ve ever read. It’s artfully designed, and is more like a connected magazine experience than a blog. Gadget blogs have given us short updates with the right photos and essential information about new and future products.
The Verge digs deeper. It doesn’t just deliver blog posts. We also get long, informative and entertaining articles. The Verge also produces really good video. Rather than hands-on looks at new gadgets shot with shaky cameras and lousy audio, The Verge delivers well-edited little documentaries shot with great cameras that aren’t moving all the time. This chat with former Apple engineer Tony Fadell is a perfect example. Shots are beautifully framed and the story of how Fadell has created his amazing new thermostat called Nest is edited to show the product and tell us a good story about it.
I’d love to work with these guys because it’s obvious they care about being the best!
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