Dave Cayem

I spent the first ten years of my professional life as a journalist and the last ten as an online media professional. So when I read about how The Associated Press plans to seek compensation from Web sites they feel are unfairly using their content for free, I felt the tug of split loyalties.

In my role as the manager of online community sites, I have to deal with the problem of people copying entire news articles into message boards. On Delphi Forums, we discourage it. But we encourage people to post a line or two from the story, link to the full story, and discuss that story in our forums. The way I read the coverage of the A.P. announcement, that kind of activity wouldn’t be threatened.

But consider Google News.

As I write this, the Google News home page has excerpts from 27 news stories from across the Web. Some of those excerpts go on for 40 words or more. You could argue (as I would) that any one of those excerpts falls under the category of “fair use.” But taken together, they provide Google with free content for an online news digest. I’m sure lots of people scan that news periodically to find out what’s going on and never click through to the original sources.

Granted, the Google News home page doesn’t carry advertising, so Google probably isn’t making any money from it. But what if it did?

The A.P. and other news organizations spend millions of dollars sending reporters around the globe to cover the news. They have a right to be compensated for doing so. That’s why I cringe when I see comments like the TechCrunch piece comparing the A.P. to the RIAA and Jeff Jarvis’s desire to “Kill the AP.”

The A.P. announcement was short on details, so perhaps my thoughts on this issue are premature. But for now, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Added on April 9:

On the other hand, maybe I was too eager to jump to the A.P.’s defense.

I love my iPod Touch.

When I bought it, I had to make a decision about how much capacity to spring for. I ended up going with the 16GB model. Not ideal, but it carries enough music to keep me happy and I couldn’t justify spending another $100 for the 32GB model.

But with news that Lala is working on an iPhone app, the whole notion of capacity may become irrelevant.

Lala is a music site where you can listen to, buy, and store your music. It’s the storage part that’s important here: You can store practically limitless amounts of music on Lala and stream it to your iPhone or iPod touch (with a WiFi connection). That means you can have access to huge amounts of music even with an 8GB player.

On Lala, you can listen to any of the six million or so songs in their library one time for free, and you can “buy” a song to listen to online as many times as you like for $.10. It’s not clear to me if the one free listen, $.10 online purchases, and music that you own outright will all be available via the iPhone app. But if that’s the case, you might be looking at the biggest challenge yet to the iTunes Store…at least for iPhone and Touch users.

I’ve blogged previously about the Adam Carolla podcast and how I think it’s the leading edge of a wave that will sweep away the old model of broadcasting.

My man Jeffrey Ross is on the podcast today.

Funny stuff.

Have a listen.

The pioneering LA punk band X helped get me through high school. They’re getting on in years, but they still tour and still put on a pretty good show.

The band has dubbed their spring tour Total Request Live 2009 and they’re letting their fans vote for the songs they’ll play in each city.  There’s an online poll for each stop on the tour with about 40 songs to choose from.

I’m hoping to see them when they come to Boston.

Here are the songs I voted for with links to listen to each on Napster:

Los Angeles [Live]

The Hungry Wolf [LP Version]

Devil Doll [Live]

Burning House Of Love [LP Version]

Have-Nots

Are there other bands doing similar things?

If you’re into X, what do you think of my picks?

I’d never claim to be a Twitter expert (I’ve only got 158 followers).  But I am using Twitter a lot these days to connect with friends and colleagues, and stay abreast of industry trends.

Here are a few Twitter utilities that I’ve found useful:

tr.im

Most Twitterers use a URL shortening service like TinyURL when sharing Web addresses. tr.im creates short URLs and provides useful statistics on who is clicking on those links. It even has built-in tools that allow you to shorten a URL and tweet it at the same time.

pic.im

Run by the same people that run tr.im, pic.im gives you a place to store an image you want to share via Twitter, along with a compact URL to access that picture.

txtb.in

Twitter’s 140 character limit is unforgiving. txtb.in gives verbose Twitter users a way to cheat the system.  If your comments run long, type them into txtb.in, grab the compact URL the service provides, and tweet the results. txtb.in is essentially a way to create a disposable Web page that holds your text, along with a Twitter-friendly URL the access the page.

Selective Twitter Status

Lots of people use various social media tools to update their Twitter and Facebook status at the same time. But what about those times when your tweet makes no sense to your Facebook friends — like when you tweet @ replies? With this Facebook app, your Twitter updates are copied to Facebook only when you add the hashtag #fb. Very simple. Very handy.

Back in Ye Olde Web 1.0 days, the term “frictionless commerce” was coined to describe how consumers can buy a vast array of goods and services quickly and easily online.

There are two developments that have me thinking about something new:

Frictionless Broadcasting.

The first development is the Adam Carolla podcast. Adam Carolla is a TV and radio personality who had his own syndicated morning radio show until his flagship station, KLSX  in Los Angeles, decided to switch formats last month.

Carolla decided to switch from broadcasting to podcasting.

He created a makeshift studio in his house, invited comedians and other celebrities to join him, and started making radio again.

During its first week,  Carolla’s podcast was downloaded 1.6 million times. In the second week, it recorded 2.4 million downloads. This was accomplished without any advertising or support from traditional media outlets (though I believe Carolla did mention the podcast idea during his final days on the air).

Now, podcasting has been around for a while — nothing new there — but this is the first time a general-interest radio show has made the jump from old media to new. (Howard Stern jumping from terrestrial radio to satellite doesn’t count here: Stern still depends on a traditional radio infrastructure, even if the transmission medium is different.)

(Full disclosure: I’ve never met Adam Carolla, but he is a friend of a friend and I am a fan of his podcast.)

The second development is the proliferation of devices that can access video content via the Internet like Roku digital video player. Now, I’ve got one of these $99 beauties and firmly believe that the days of renting (and perhaps purchasing) physical discs or other media are numbered. That’s no great insight. But consider the implications for traditional television and cable networks:

With my Roku box, I can access old episodes of shows like The Sopranos or Weeds and watch them at my leisure. That’s because HBO and Showtime issue these shows as DVDs.

But imagine a television series created for specifically for devices like the Roku. You could create a series on your own terms, and distribute it directly to potential viewers, and bypass the networks completely.

OK, so it’s not that easy. You’d still need to get financial backing and work out a deal with Netflix or Amazon to distribute your show.

But if the rumors are true that Roku will be adding YouTube as a viewing option, anyone with a video camera and a YouTube account will be able to create content that I (or any other Roku box owner) can watch on the same screen that I use to watch 30 Rock, the Food Network, and Red Sox baseball.

As with podcasts, if you can produce the content, you can distribute it quickly and easily. Frictionless broadcasting.

In the new world of media, anyone with a mic and a copy of Audacity can be a radio star. Anyone with a Flip and a broadband connection can be a TV star.

Here’s the new Cayem.com. Please take a look and let me know what you think by adding your comment. Thanks.