Summer Camp Bus Ride, originally uploaded by nyjuls1904.

As I board the bus to Summer Podcast Camp, it will be with some trepidation. The backpack is crammed with all the right gear (and my brown bag lunch), but I worry that none of the cool kids will want to hang with an old public radio hack like myself.

So see that lonely kid alone at the Utterz refreshment table sipping chocolate milk (surely dairy must be among the complimentary beverages)?

He could use a couple of hip friends.

And let me ask you this: As someone in the public radio biz, what should I keep the antenna especially attuned for during camp? What sessions, events, or over-arching themes do you think WBUR should pay particularly close attention to?

I should be more surefooted on my home turf, which you are invited to explore Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 5ish (details here). Conceived as a Tweet-Up, it, in the interest of fairness, has morphed into more of a generalized social media event as I used sites in addition to Twitter to court participants. Reminder: Please bring your cameras and other electronic appliances to record the 90.9 meet-up. I would love to see the documentary evidence of our get-together splashed all over the Web!

See you tomorrow or Sunday or next Wednesday.

Blogging for Cats, originally uploaded by Vicki’s Pics.

A tip of the hat to that other public broadcasting giant (you know the one that also does TV) for embracing blogs in a big way. More specifically, for one show in particular that has embraced blogs in a big way, and here I refer to the estimable “The World.”

Producers/reporters offer background and context to stories that make it on-air, leavened with insights into the story-creation process. Rumor has it some of them “Tweet” as well.

Very impressive guys.

Blogging here at 90.9 has come in fits and starts—often times more the former the latter. I won’t kid you, acceptance has come at a slow—at times almost glacial—pace. But despite pockets of determined resistance, we are light years from where we were back in 2003 when our Iraq War “Weblog” (to use the common taxonomy of that period) was our first attempt at tackling the medium.

The “Weblog” was an aggregation of news and analysis (gathered and summarized by yours truly and the late, great Will Thomson) chronicling the build-up to the war. We were perhaps naive in thinking it would generate appreciable traffic (it in fact didn’t), but what it lacked in visitors it more than made up for as a first-hand lesson on the resource demands and potential of a new medium then on the cusp of gaining critical momentum. The lessons learned have informed our subsequent efforts. And while our latter attempts have not been traffic-generating goliaths, they have been far more successful in courting readers on a consistent basis.

Case in point: “CommonHealth,” a “community blog” on the healthcare insurance debate in the Bay State, and which under Martha Bebinger’s stewardship at times gets more page views then many of our news stories. I know of no other news organization that does anything remotely comparable on this issue (and please tell me if I am wrong). Kudos Martha!

Yes, we have come a long way, baby, since ‘03. Blogging has been considerably demystified here at the station. It no longer functions as an epithet.

So naturally I am thrilled at yet another reporter venturing into the world of blogging. Welcome Meghna Chakrabarti! For those not in the know, Meghna is currently a producer for Radio Boston. Prior WBUR stints include On Point producer and cracker-jack environmental reporter. Her blog features insightful addendums to her considerable on-air work, musings on public radio and new media, and is a zesty expression of her singular, zany wit.

Now go read “Shooting an Elephant” and comment away. Make sure to tell her what you like and what you don’t. And fully expect her to reciprocate with comments on your own sites.

this sucks at ten15am, originally uploaded by Michael Surtees.

It’s a sad day for fans of “The Bryant Park Project.”

The NY Times reports that National Public Radio pink-slipped the show that deliberately courted Gen-Xers through its “informal” tone and “robust Web presence.” And though the number of listeners was small, especially compared to the traditional NPR standbys, the BPP website did accrue millions of page views monthly. The cancellation has some fans incandescent with rage at National Public Radio.

Anemic station carriage and a flagging economy likely conspired to doom the show. Various postmortems in the blogosphere also cite internal politics, staff turnover, and flawed execution.

The fate of the BPP brings to mind Christopher Lydon’s “Open Source.” Like “The Bryant Park Project,” “Open Source” attempted to transcend divisions between old and new media, aspiring to be a “blog with a radio show.” But as Doug Kaye so trenchantly observed, it was this very embrace of the new technology within the framework of the old assumptions that foreordained the program’s failure as a traditional “radio” program (a slimmed down “Open Source” lives on as a podcast):

Radio Open Source’s problem is just that: It’s a hybrid. It has the cost structure of a public-radio program — a $1 million/year budget — in a podcast-revenue marketplace.

Perhaps this is what ultimately undid The Bryant Park Project as well. The old thinking just doesn’t apply anymore. Public radio consultant Robert Patterson, seems to suggest as much. Mirroring Kaye, Patterson calls for a new economics:

The NYT mentioned that in April and May they had a million unique visitors on the web. This is brilliant. As a web based show you can build the audience until you have enough momentum to add more radio. I would also have made it easy for “members” to donate to BPP. What about the stations? I would have had a split. Try the new economics for real all the way. So what went wrong? The show was conceived as Radio! In St Louis, many of the best staff of the Dispatch left the paper and started a new one. The one thing they did not consider was using paper!

Regardless of the reasons, the show’s end is a clear loss for those of us trying to help create additional relevance for public broadcasting in this furiously evolving digital world. My greatest fear is that its cancellation may be taken as justification to throw cold water on further online experimentation.

I think that would be perilous for the future of public radio.

I would be curious to hear from some BPP fans—as well as those not too keen on the show. Share some of your thoughts about the program. What do you hold as the primary reason for its cancellation?

Those Car Talk Guys Sure Are Animated, originally uploaded by WBUR.

Wow. I am humbled by the response to my call for a “Tweet-Up.”

Based on demand registered here and elsewhere, I’d say there is enough interest to easily justify two sessions: One for the afternoon crowd, and perhaps a morning session for the bagels and coffee set (Be forewarned, Mr. Howard, I fully expect you to reciprocate with a quick Wet Paint tutorial. An account has been created for this very purpose.)

Let me pencil in some dates and get back to you on Monday.

Both sessions will be a highly informal and ideally bucketfuls of fun. But don’t let this dissuade you from voicing your brutally honest opinions about our 2.0 efforts. Your feedback is vital. Without it, WBUR’s social media ventures are destined to wither and die on the vine.

And now, file this under “other things”:

The new Car Talk cartoon is taking a critical wrench to the knees.

To wit:

Sadly, their [Click and Clack's] new PBS television series is a clunker in need of an overhaul.

Ouch.

And:

Unfortunately, the show proves to be a major disappointment, inexplicably leaving out much of what makes the radio show as enjoyable as it is.

Now that really smarts.

For obvious reasons I am uncomfortable tipping my hand publicly, but that won’t stop me from requesting that you do so. So Click and Clack fan boys and gals, those not, and the rest in between: Did you catch the show, and if so, whattaya think? Are the critics all wet?

I look forward to reading your reviews and discussing them, and other things, at the Tweet-Up.

tweet, originally uploaded by sierraromeo [sarah-ji]

How about a Tweet-up of WBUR listeners?

And lest you think this is simply a callow attempt to burnish my social media credentials, let me emphasize my genuine interest in meeting the folks behind the avatars. It has been very informative and great fun exchanging ideas with you online about WBUR’s humble Web endeavors. It would be even more so live and in person.

As this is terra incognita for us hoary media folk, we are going to need to lean on you new media hipsters for guidance. So how about it? Any interest out there for a stroll through the mostly empty warrens of the station (presumably this will be held after work hours, though lunch remains a possibility) before repairing to one of the choice establishments lining Commonwealth Avenue (tongue firmly ensconced in cheek here) for drinks?

I am even toying with the idea of raffling off some schwag.

If interested please offer some ideas about possible venues and optimal times to meet. And tell me what can I do to pull this off as smoothly as possible. As much hand-holding as you are prepared to give would be sorely appreciated.

Thanks and look forward to meeting you!

Sleeping off that summer heat, originally uploaded by roddh.

Vacation didn’t sharpen the gray matter. It remains as dull as a butter knife.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy my time away, but it was characterized more by mud and mosquitoes than epiphanic Web 2.0 visions. And the return home has me cursing Hub haze and traffic. Summer ennui saturates the office, these damnable dog days having fried our collective focus. I am kaput, running on fumes, an empty vessel after hitting the proverbial blog wall.

But don’t sweat it. A dip in the mercury and gallons of chilly coffee should help me—should help all of us new media folk—get back in the groove. I anticipate blogging with some modicum of coherence by week’s end, and those long-overdue project such as *ahem* the On Point makeover will be completed … exactly when is beyond my poor power to divine … but surely by the end of summer. Surely.

Thank you, Will, for minding the store in my absence (Brushfire Starts with Kindling … nice). Please share some more of your prescient observations on new media and public radio. And, BTW, how’s the On Point gig going?

Keep cool everyone.

The Passage of Time, originally uploaded by ToniVC.

So now it’s July. Independence Day is just around the corner, Boston is steaming up, and ice cream trucks are back to their predatory creep along quiet city streets. As part of the July switchover ritual I have to flip my wristwatch’s date from “30″ to “1″, as it has no way of knowing that “Thirty days hath September, April, June…..”

After doing this I got to thinking about something a friend told me, about how the sales of wristwatches have plummeted in recent years due to the ubiquity of cell phones. It’s safe to say this isn’t a temporary fashion fluke—unlike neckties, which have lately suffered a drop in popularity, or so I’m told—but an inexorable outmoding of old technology.

What we have now is a “new” tech swallowing up whole swaths of old—dissolving not only date- and timekeeping devices but rolodexes, cameras, calculators, personal CD players, answering machines, and (oh yeah) wall-mounted telephones into a pocket-size good time. I think that’s pretty much the definition of a paradigm shift.

So what I’m really dying to ask is this: Are you okay with this? Are you still using pocket calculators and timepieces? Or has the switch to digital been pretty painless? The reason I ask is because this shift is just getting started, and there are a lot of industries (radio included…hey! There’s our tie-in!) that are banking on your using your mobile to pretty much run the world. Broadcasters are hoping you’ll use your mobile to snag podcasts and gear—such as the eco-friendly “Nina Totin’ Bag“—and send feedback all at once, no radio antenna necessary.

Is it all coming a little fast? How much time will you need to get comfy with this? I have more questions for you, but right now my watch needs winding and my slide rule is glitching. Back to business.

Freecycle kindling, originally uploaded by DrStarbuck.

Last Wednesday, On Point had Amazon founder & CEO Jeff Bezos on to talk about his behemoth Internet retailer. Bezos talked to Tom Ashbrook about the looong list of products Amazon offers (chainsaws? really?) and the various services—online storage, for one—that they’ve gotten into.

But what the two returned to over and over again, and what callers seemed most interested in talking about, was the Kindle, Amazon’s portable piece of hardware designed exclusively for book reading.

These aren’t “books” like, say, a battered Louis L’Amour novel whose pages get creased by greasy breakfast fingers, and whose cover loosens with each successive stuffing into a jeans pocket. But it’s similar: you download the text of the book (or newspaper, magazine, etc.) to the Kindle, then chip away at it when you’ve got a moment to burn.

Is it the “Death of the Book”? Is Jeff Bezos the next Gutenburg? I suggest you give the episode a listen for yourself. Or, if you’re really feeling this Kindle thing, go ahead and plunk down the robust $360 and give it a shot. It’s a pretty fun machine.

I think this digital ramp-up will take some time. On the bus this morning there were at least ten people reading newspapers, novels, and magazines, with nary a Kindle in sight. At my neighborhood library the patrons are zipping through books with a lust and intensity that makes me steer far clear of the leather chairs, which are circled up like wagons for protection.

Bezos can enthuse to his heart’s content about the future of reading, but at my library he’d get the brush-off by the serious book devotees, hunched over, feverishly dog-earing pages and nodding to the rhythm of the words. There is trouble brewing.

Courtroom One Gavel, originally uploaded by Joe Gratz.

We have spent a lot of our time of late tinkering with 2.0 tools.

Much of our time is spent tearing out of whole chunks of WBUR and scattering the bits before the winds of Web 2.0: Dollops of local news here, a generous slab of On Point there. Snippets of audio, video, and photographs sprinkled here, there, everywhere.

And then there is all that Tweeting.

Craned-necked managers spying monitorfuls of YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Utterz, Twitter, etc. clear their throats and entreat, “Tell me again, what is the point of all of this?”

The standard-issue response is chock-full of the obligatory “leveraging social networks” … “community”… “distributed architecture” … “relevance” … “wisdom of the crowds” … and of course the recently minted “engagement and authenticity.” Buzzwords that conveniently buy us new media folks a reprieve, while (in my case at least) conceal nagging self-doubt. I often wonder if all this tinkering is simply an exercise in self-indulgence. That this 2.0 stuff is all for naught.

My anxiety is born from the not all that unreasonable assumption that most WBUR listeners—the folks who cut the checks—can’t stomach all this disintermediation. They want their public radio served up whole. Radio … not pictures. More Fresh Air than fresh Tweets. The functionally anachronistic “driveway moments” still carry more currency for them than a podcast.

While it is not clear how I might reach these listeners, what is crystalline is my indebtedness to all those who have indulged in WBUR’s social media experimentation. Thank you. I believe you folks will be major arbiters of the station’s future.

And thank you, Will Roselip. While I vacation in Cooper country, seeking epiphanic visions to assuage my misgivings, On Point’s resident intern will offer fresh perspectives and insights on WBUR and Web 2.0 from a rather unique vantage point.

See you all on the other side of the Fourth.

Sprinkles aka “Jimmies”, originally uploaded by Qfamily.

Hello, my name is Will Roseliep and I’m a summer intern for On Point. They’re keeping me busy over in the Southwest corner of the building, but when I get a free moment Ken George has graciously allowed me to blog for The ConverStation. Ken has done a fantastic job getting The ConverStation off the ground and into the public radio/new media consciousness, so I know the bar is set pretty high for guest bloggers. Let’s hope that if I can’t clear it I’ll at least ably limbo underneath.

Before things start in earnest, I’ll tell you a couple things about myself: I’m a recent graduate of the U. of Iowa in Iowa City (lately, of “500-Year Flood” fame) with a double major in English and cello performance. I’m a homegrown Iowan who moved to Boston a little over three weeks ago, and if you’re wondering about the difference between the two regions, it is this: a complete absence of quality donut stores in Iowa. It’s fitting that my new apartment is within striking distance of Dunkin’ Donuts, which is providing a delicious, deep-fried education.

So I’m looking forward to becoming a regular ConverStation contributor, and I welcome any comments and criticisms that you can cook up. Nice to meet you!