Also in the WSJ on Friday was a “story”:http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111171474341289451-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=clear+channel%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29 about Clear Channel’s plans to start podcasting.

bq.. Clear Channel ’s podcasting initiative will begin by May. The company will allow listeners to download programming such as comedy skits by popular morning show hosts. But music programming, which involves complicated licensing and royalty issues, won’t be included in the podcasts. Podcasting in general is focused mostly on talk-radio formats.

Well, I guess podcasting is finally going mainstream.

The WSJ had ran an “article”:http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111170694414889227-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=wonkette%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29 last Friday which gave an overview of the ad market for blogs. In general, they noted that some brands (such as Audi and Sony) where experimenting with running ads on blogs. However, there is a general fear on the advertisers part about how their brands will be perceived, written about and commented on in blogs due to the more chaotic nature of blogs — especially when compared to mainstream media. This is definitely holding back ad revenue. However, there are some success stories.

bq.. …Weblogs Inc., which now operates 76 blogs, including its own high-traffic gadget and car titles, Engadget and Autoblog. Weblogs has taken in $925,000 in advertising revenue over the last four months.

p. Not a bad chunk of change, but still just a fraction of the $9.6 billion 2004 web advertising market.

Brilliant! As reported on ZDNet “here”:http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39191834,00.htm.

bq.. “In the grand scheme of things Firefox is still a new technology. I’m not saying we are not going to be developing and exploring other areas — we are. But there are so many different products on the Yahoo network that there may be some products that are, perhaps, not appropriate for that browser,” the representative said.

p. Better to rely on your biggest competitor’s technology (yes, it’s Microsoft, not Google). In fact, it’s better to ignore the fact that a very large percentage of the power users on the web (the users you really want), are using Firefox (look at BoingBoing’s “stats”:http://www.boingboing.net/stats/awstats.boingboing.net.html for example).

I guess Yahoo! really doesn’t understand strategy. Browser competition is good. Firefox’s success is good for everyone (except Microsoft). Yaho0!, get with the program and start really supporting and _promoting_ Firefox.

How many times have you seen this message?
!http://www.zoinger.com/img/flickr_massage.png!

Flickr is _not_ having a “massage” — it’s having a melt down. Let’s hope that the folks at “Yahoo!”:http://news.com.com/Yahoos+game+of+photo+tag/2100-1032_3-5630403.html?tag=nefd.ac can fix this.

I suspect that scaling problems like this helped the folks at Flickr choose Door Number One (a pile of cash from Yahoo!) vs. Door Number Two (a pile of cash from some VC conditional on becoming a “real” company — e.g., one that can scale, handle all the legal issues, start marketing, etc. Basically, a lot of work).

_*Update: 2005_03_25*_
“This”:http://www.ishavingamassage.com/ massage parody is a crack up. Replace the “www” in the address for fun.

Speaking of Skype, the techAddiction podcast number “three”:http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/ta/2005/03/22/the-techaddiction-show-3/ also had a little bit on Square7’s “DUALphone”:http://www.square7.com/dualphone/index.htm. It’s “dual” in that you can make normal “PSTN”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSTN phone calls and Skype calls from the handset. It has two input lines — one for your phone line and a USB connection for your PC. The software that comes with the phone allows you to scroll through your Skype contacts from the handset. Pretty cool.

Of course, only available in Europe for now.