DIGITAL-LIFESTYLES -- A lot of mainstream media sites have been producing quality audible feeds for years. To make things even easier for the masses, BBC Radio has spawned some of its radio shows into MP3s. This means you can download a program and listen to it while underway and out of range of a transmitter or well away from a computer. This effectively heralds the rebirth of local radio. It means having a personalcast in your backpack.

On a recent Channel 4 programme, the top 100 British box office films since 1927 were listed. A number of interesting facts arose from the outcome. The genre with the most number of films on the list was science fiction with 16 films. Next on the list with 12 films each, were war and animated films.

WIRED -- George Masters' 60-second animated ad of flying iPods, pulsing hearts and swirling '70s psychedelia is perhaps the first viral iPod event. The ad is set to the beat of "Tiny Machine" by '80s pop band the Darling Buds. Several A-List blogs picked up the ad last week and Wired featured a story on it this week. In a matter of days, the ad has been watched more than 40,000 times. I listened to it push a viewer over the edge and into the Apple sales queue.

D2R -- Diego Doval asks readers to name the top 10 titles that appear in shuffle mode on their hard drives or personal media player. Mine goes beyond music.

CLONMEL -- We have an on-going discussion pertaining to the tendency of both the government and the press to spin things as they explain things. The discussion also relates to events in Iraq. In the case of Donald Rumsfeld meeting a question from a deployed soldier that asked why the armor plating was inadequate, many American press sources make up an event instead of exploring the issue.

INSIDE STUDIO SIX, we explore two topics when producing Podcast 0450. One comes from the Media Writing course and it asks questions about Christmas in Ireland. The second extends electronic discussion about connected schools from a topic emerging in the lecture "PR in education."

Liam Burke produces Open Media Podcasts at Tipperary Institute.
Bonus Link: Educational Podcasts, some made in the classroom.

x_ref125rv

CLONMEL -- Lahra Prendergast's TippSnaps project is getting to a point where the first thematic content will be available for public consumption. It looks like it will be a series of Christmas photographs designed to be syndicated through Flickr.

FORRESTER -- A recent Forrester report focused on collaborative communication in corporations, including the importance of blogging.

Forrester envisions a day when new employees on their first day will be handed a sheet of paper with their phone number, email address and a URL for their blog. The company would give all of its employees a personal internal blog where they could provide project updates, trip reports, and market intelligence anything that they think others should know about the work that they are doing. This information could then be tied into the company's VoIP phone system for internal calls, the caller's photo, title, bio, and a link to his blog would appear on the computer screen. The blog content would give context and background for the call, making it unnecessary to send extra emails or to have extensive discussions about a project.

CLONMEL -- In our lecture on public relations in education, part of our focus turns to the specific theme of ICT in education. It's important to note how effective public relations often softly sells a product or service. In the case of selling ICT in education, too much can hurt the message. This realisation is supported in current publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor.

RUSSELL BEATTIE -- Although he doesn't have an Apple computer, when Russ Beattie writes about Apple, he attracts global viewers. On top of that, he knows that stuff written about Macs attracts people more than stuff written about mobile phones. Not only that, but the advertisements Beattie uses on top of his website generate a nice little earner that skyrockets with the mention of Apple.