I haven’t listed to a lot of podcasts, but I’ve certainly taken in a few good ones during the past year or so. In no particular order, they are:

Elite Tech News Podcast – some of today’s best tech bloggers get together and talk about the latest happenings in consumer technology and other related areas.

The Drill Down – a weekly tech news and social news broadcast by the three top Diggers, always interesting and fun. Also check out Drill Bits, the often funny extras that don’t make it in to the regular Drill Down podacst.

Social Blend – CGT2099, SilentJay74, BDog2g2, Nomadelle and other guests cover similar ground as The Drill Down, with social news site Mixx acting as the center of the universe, I mean podcast.

Six Pixels of Separation – Mitch Joel talks about business, marketing, social media, and communications.

I’m interested in other podcasts, particularly revolving around social media and technology, although science fiction and pop culture would be good, too. Any recommendations?

Also, if anyone ever wants a guest voice, someone who’s not that up on technology, you know who to contact.

This week I’ve been trying to do something different here at Broadcasting Brain – I’ve been focusing more on creating original content vs. joining the echo chamber. Or, to put it another way, I’ve been trying to create conversations instead of following them. It’s been interesting to compare the two weeks.

Last week was a lot of fun because I was feeding off some other conversations from guys like Alexander van Elsas and Colin Walker, among others.

This week, I’ve been trying to go my own way. Trying to start my own conversation threads. Trying to move away from the ongoing conversations and talk about what other people aren’t talking about. I think there’s been some good conversations here this week.

Which is better? I really don’t know. Some would say that it’s always better to blaze trails down different paths. However, I think I’ve really come to appreciate the value of echoing.

Echoing makes you feel less alone and more like you belong to something bigger. It makes you feel like you are a part of a larger conversation. It allows you to take a concept and make it more interesting. That’s one of the great things that’s been happening on FriendFeed – new and better conversations. Sharing. A sense of community, even.

If you’re lucky, you can start new conversations when you strike out on your own. Sometimes you won’t. It’s a lot like planting seeds. Some will grow, some won’t. Some will be dwarfs, some will become giants. You don’t always know.

I think you need to try both: to join in conversations and to start your own. Sometimes it’s hard to strike out in a different direction, but many people value new thoughts and new ideas.

It’s easy to echo other people or to climb on to the latest conversation train in social media. Some people think it’s the wrong thing to do. However, if you can add your own good ideas and make an honest attempt to analyze part of the conversation, then there’s nothing at all wrong with doing that.

We have to make our own choices about the conversations that we’ll start or join. However, either alternative is perfectly acceptable if your intent is good and if your contribution is thoughtful and heartfelt.

There is no right choice; any discussion choice can be the right one at any given time. Make the choice, commit to it, and make the best of it.

Nothing fancy here, just a simple list:

Andy Partridge (musician of the band XTC)

John Cusack (the brilliant cool actor guy)

Seth Godin (I’d pick his brain)

Al Gore (ditto)

David Suzuki (same)

Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison (comic book writers, all)

George R. R. Martin (novelist – author of A Song of Ice and Fire series, among others)

Stephen King (novelist)

How about you?

EDIT:  May 30/08 – of course, it would be pretty cool to meet them in person, too!

I believe in the potential of the little guy and that can easily justify the need for social media.

I believe that big is getting to be far too big.

I believe in influencers AND having the right environment to make an idea spread.

I believe that being famous is like wearing a target 24/7/365.

I believe that name recognition is a conversion factor.

I believe that the vast majority of large publicly traded companies will never get social media because they shy away from risk and must quantify ROI.

I believe that social media will look very different in two years.

I believe that a lot of what Seth Godin writes makes sense, but lumbering giants don’t die easily.

I believe that social media is a pyramid scheme (of sorts) AND that it can be a rising tide that lifts all boats.

I believe that technology is just a set of tools.

I believe that a lot of people want fame or recognition, but they don’t know why, nor do they have a plan to use it when they get it.

I believe that social media works best with a healthy dose of cynicism and practicality

I believe that social media has to move beyond selling things and focus more on sharing things (the original intent).

I believe that social media is changing the world, a tiny bit each day.

You may well be laughing at me for writing such an odd title for this post and I don’t blame you. Bloggers are known for their ideas, writing skills, multi-media expertise, and often their wit, but most of us aren’t known for good looks, physical prowess, or heroic deeds.

A profession that requires you to spend a lot of time inside, sitting on your bum, and developing carpal tunnel syndrome doesn’t exactly pass most tests of coolness (although it does bear some resemblance to car racing when you look at it the right way…)

NASCAR driver are walking billboards and their cars are billboards on wheels. Look at your average stock car or driver’s uniform and you’ll see that there’s barely any space for color: cars and uniforms are covered in logos and company names of several different sizes.

Some of the logos are quite recognizable and show up very well on TV. But some of them… you’d need a telescope to see them from a short distance. They’re positively tiny compared to their larger neighbours. There’s virtually no chance that anyone’s ever going to see or recognize those logos, but they are there in spades.

I’m not writing this post to advocate selling every pixel of blank space on your blog for ads. What’s the value for sponsoring something when no one can see your ad? However, seeing those tiny ads made me thing about the bigger ads and about how NASCAR drivers make a lot of their money. I think there’s an opportunity for bloggers to monetize themselves in a different way than most do today: through bigger, longer term sponsorships.

Consider:

• You can place an ad on someone’s blog and it’s a simple business transaction that might have no lasting value.
• Or, you could be a sponsor of a blog and that entails something different. Sponsorship could be a longer term relationship and support for the sponsored.

There’s also another possibility, a reason why people buy tiny ads on racing uniforms and cars. You know what that is?

Bragging rights. Some people will take any opportunity to be associated with greatness. That’s where the small ads come in. And the really big ads, too.

Think about it. It could be good for the blogger and the advertiser. It might not be something that many bloggers have the pull to do, but who knows? Maybe it’s worth checking out?

Just make sure you wear your seatbelt. And a helmet. Because falling asleep at your keyboard can be hazardous to your health.

With all of the talk of microblogging and lifestreaming of late, I wonder how the lowly old art of social bookmarking is doing.

I think this question is particularly pertinent given that FriendFeed is giving new and heightened visibility to any kind of social media activity. For example, you can use FriendFeed to monitor your friends’ social bookmarking activity that occurs on sites like Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, StumbleUpon, Furl, and Google Shared Stuff.

Seeing this activity front and center in a new way made me think about how and why we use social bookmarking. As I see it, there are four main reasons for indulging in social bookmarking.

1. Used to track websites for our own future use
2. Used to share information with our friends and social media contacts
3. Used to support your friends and contacts in social media to help build up your own social media profile
4. Used to build links back to websites for SEO purposes

The interesting thing about this is that the last three reasons are not for your own personal information tagging – they are for directing web traffic (i.e. other people) to specific websites. Although each person’s reasons for bookmarking will vary, there are plenty of reasons to bookmark for other people or for reasons other than their own information retrieval.

Therefore, when you see people bookmarking stuff in Del.icio.us, is it more likely that they are saving this information for someone other than themselves?

Bookmarking seems to be evolving from the original purpose of saving information for your own use at some later date. However, it’s still perfectly fine for its original purpose. However, how many of us really use it to its fullest potential?

I’ve researched social bookmarking on several different occasions. I looked at Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, Netvouz and Google Bookmarks, as well as StumbleUpon. Without question I use StumbleUpon more than any other bookmarking application but I rarely go back to check out the things that I’ve bookmarked, nor do I ever search through StumbleUpon by tags.

For ease of use it’s hard to beat Del.icio.us, including its toolbar. Yet it seems so spartan.

Ma.gnolia hasn’t made much of an impression on me, although I understand it has strong groups and community.

Netvouz is probably the strongest bookmarking tool of all that I’ve used, but for some reason it hasn’t “stuck” with me. I think it’s because I know that I’d have to devote some time and energy to set it up properly so that I could use it to its fullest potential. Quite frankly, I’m a little too lazy to use it properly when I could just use StumbleUpon or Del.icio.us.

In fact, I rarely ever go back to my bookmarks to check them again, relying mostly on Google searches or the favorites functionality in my web browser.

This begs the question: is tagging and bookmarking really worth the trouble for tracking your own information? I’m starting to wonder if it is.

So, I’ll turn the question over to you. Do you use social bookmarking? If so, do you regularly create bookmarks? And how often do you go back to find something that you’ve saved in a social bookmarking program?

Why not leave a comment and share your thoughts?