A Barking Dog

Quick show of hands… Who here used to use the computer BBS’es of the ’80s and early ’90s? How about the Compuserve message forums? How about the original AOL People Connection and Usenet gateway? What do these have in common? For the most part, they are all dead as fried chicken, replaced by other technologies and the Internet as a whole. This form of digital Darwinism is one of the reasons techology development still moves at a breakneck pace. Except of course, in the world of online pro audio sites. A recent study (pdf format) by Nielson//Netratings found 75% of all online connections were not using a browser.

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Those of you that have been following my adventures or misadventures as it turns out to be know that I have a penchant for high performance kart racing. I’m going to blog this season, however abbreviated if nothing else for my own enjoyment. These aren’t the karts found at Putt-Putt or powered by tater digger engines enjoying use as a yard kart. These are finely tuned race machines capable of speeds in excess of 115 mph. Even with a middle aged fat guy like me at the wheel.

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Over the last couple of days there’s been one of these religious debate threads that pop up every now and again on the LAB. Well, not exactly a debate but some posts where someone feels compelled to share their religion with you. It happens when an over zealous “believer” feels the need to impart his or her vision of morality and belief system on the rest of us poor unwashed souls. It started when what I presume to be a secular person posted that he had applied for job at a church and they asked him about his religious beliefs. Well of course they did. To make a long story short, he didn’t come clean with them and doesn’t think he’ll get the gig. Most of you know the story, though there are some that read ABD that don’t do sound or hang at the LAB.

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I purposely held this column until after the New Year. With all the media hype around this time of year, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Around the holidays every year pundits line up to offer predictions of what they think may happen in the coming year. Or worse yet, the year in review or “highlights” of the previous year.

The potential for interactivity in the professional audio realm remains largely untapped. Sure, there are great forums, the LAB and Gearsluts and of course, the home of the Shit Brigade, the RecPit. With the exception of PSW, the sucessful communities are operated by the participants or benevolent persons from within the industry, donating time and services to make the communities happen. The dot com crash of past few years has either bankrupted or in the case of the two media giants that control the pro audio trade mag biz (Intertec and Primedia) caused them to retreat, not being able to find a sustainable business model for an online operation. It’s difficult enough to operate a narrow vertical market media company, though the behemoths have the advantage of scale in that they also operate publications in other industries. That though, doesn’t necessarily transfer to a medium like the modern Internet.

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