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I sent off an e-mail to Adam Curry today after listening to the most recent issue of the Daily Source Code podcast.  He has been talking a lot about the Podsafe Music Network and Podcast Delivery Network but I’m a bit confused about when different parts of those networks will be going live so that both users and podcasters will be able to try the services out.  I’m most interested in two things: When will people be able to buy songs off of the Podsafe Music Network?  And: What services will be offered via the Podcast Delivery Network?  Can podcasters, who have video blogs, upload their content to a directory and then set the price of what they want to sell their content for?

I’m curious about these new services that are coming in the near future.  From what I’ve been hearing and reading on the Web, it looks like an entire revolution of online content is about to flood the Internet.  Between   Google video and the iTunes store, people have a choice of buying lots of video content online (I just saw a few days ago that you can now purchase, for $1.99 an episode, South Park shows.  Nice!). 

I agree that it’s exciting to see content for sale, but what will happen when mom & pop and everyone else online puts up their videos for sale?  Will they sell?  Won’t they?  What will the quality be like?  What type of video will you be able to buy?  From the information that I can see on the Podsafe Music Network, I’m overwhelmed with the thousands of songs available at a podcaster’s fingertips.  There’s tons of songs for me to be able to use in any podcast I put together.  Last week I used Brother Love’s “Summertime” song in my episode 4b of   The Magic Sock.  I reported the use of the mp3 through the Podsafe Music Network and I’m pretty impressed with how it all works.  However, I do have a lot to learn.  I’m still torn between the great audio quality of recording podcasts with Castblaster and the not so great quality I’m obtaining when using Camtasia.

There’s a lot of innovation happening on the web and I’m trying to keep up with experimenting with new technology, but I haven’t had much free time.  Still considering that I have put out four episodes of The Magic Sock, one audio podcast for The Magic Sock, and a video of “how to subscribe to podcasts using iTunes,” that’s not half bad.  I have a long way to go in learning about conversion of files, hosting of files, and the like.  I’m also interested in Bit Torrent technology that would allow for the downloading of files outside of my web hosting server. 

I’m trying to remain plugged in so I can keep up with what’s going on in the podcast industry.  I am interested and have put together some shows so I am getting my hands dirty in all this: I’m stumbling along with the rest of people out there on how to pull of this together.  I’ll continue listening, learning and experimenting as best I can. It’s an exciting time to see such changes happening in content that can be provided by people throughout the world.  Will any of this be around in a few years?  Who knows!  Still, it’s fun to help in the experiment and to learn about what works, what doesn’t, and what people want to see/listen to.

In other news, I’ve been partly troubled by the news that   Google has agreed to censor some of the results from users of its Chinese search engine.  Google has also agreed to not offer gmail and blog services to those living in China as per the Chinese government.  I must admit that it is disturbing that the world’s largest country still restricts the information that its people can obtain and can cause a company with a net worth in the billions to listen to its requests.  Google defended their actions stating that they also limit Nazi searches from France and German versions of their search engines as well as DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) illegal searches here in the United States.  But if you read between the lines, I believe the message that Google is giving to the world is: “There’s a billion Chinese over there and we want to continue to make money so we’ll go along with this.”  I don’t get the sense that the Goggle motto “Do no evil” is being ignored—I just think that Google is overlooking the censorship so that their shareholders will be happy.  Google, with its growing market share and clout, can play hardball with the Chinese.  With 1 billion potential customers, there might only be a little over 110,000,000 Chinese online now but what about 5-10 years from now?  There’s a great business opportunity for Google behind the Great Wall and I think they realize that they’re not in the business to save the Chinese people.  I recently   read a quote in which John Palfrey, author of a study on Chinese Internet censorship and a law professor at Harvard Law School, said: "There is no question. Google would tell you that going into China is about making money, not bringing democracy." That about hits the nail on the head.  Google is a business and that’s what they do. 

I’m disturbed that the Chinese government continues to censor information from its people.  I’m not naïve enough to think that similar censoring doesn’t happen in other countries (or even here in the US), but I do wonder what the Chinese youth are thinking.  Are they frustrated about the limited amount of information they can obtain?  Do they not care?  I’m just curious. 

We live an ever changing world with technology pushing forward the boundaries as to what we can see, listen to, and experience.  Sure, it’s not the same thing as being there, but watching something online is the next best thing.  With Google Video about to be rolled out along with the Podsafe Music Network content (available for sale soon), that’s a lot of content!  Yet even with all this positive news, there’s still the somber reality that even Internet giant Google bows to the power of political pressure.