1. Jason,

Just so you know - only your voice was recorded on the MP3. We don't hear any of the responses, kind of like listening to one side of a conversation.

Joke or not - I really do think that there is a significant market need. Not necessarily designed for podcasters only because of the size of the current market, but an RSS-based media player definitely has potential.

Posted at 12:35PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Marc Nathan

2. Open source hardware design, RSS based media, Winer likes it. Put me on the list of buyers!

Posted at 12:50PM on Dec 4th 2006 by randy edmonds

3. wheres the wiki for this? ;)

Posted at 1:06PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Duncan

4. Jason,

I'll happily transcribe interviews for you. Drop me a line!

Posted at 1:16PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Mark

5. Does Dave Winer have to interrupt you guys every second?

Posted at 1:30PM on Dec 4th 2006 by John

6. Love the idea. I hope this becomes more than just the topic of the day for you three. I know Peter must be sensitive to having his name tagged with a device that could compete with all the companies he blogs about though.
For a device name, how about the "Wironis"? If you adopt the name, I get the first player manufactured and autographed by each of you.

Posted at 1:38PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Eddie

7. Marc - The cast is in stereo... maybe you've got the volume turned down on one side, etc?

Posted at 1:41PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Tim Dineen

8. RE: Evil

Apple, Microsoft, & pretty much everyone else in the "game" these companies that use DRM aren't necessarily evil.

DRM itself is evil.

Posted at 1:58PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Daniel Nicolas

9. Re: John's comment (#5): I agree. Dave Winer needs to learn some manners. He constantly interrupted the other two through the entire podcast which ended up with Peter saying almost nothing toward the end unless asked directly by Jason.

Re the idea: the best differentiator you guys honed in on was having the ability to create and upload a podcast from the device from anywhere at anytime. Otherwise, everything else could easily be added on to existing players like iPod and Zune.

Stick with that idea as your central focus and you'll do great.

Andy

Posted at 1:59PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Andrew Bourland

10. I agree with Steve. Jason's voice isn't as loud as the other two which makes either Dave/Peter blow out my left ear, or have to really concentrate on what Jason is saying in my right.
The stereo is cool, but I found it more annoying than beneficial. With the stereo version I have to listen with both earplugs in rather than being able to listen at work with one plug in and the other ear listening for people to call my name. I had to quit 10 minutes in because I was getting a headache from the stereo affect.
Jason I'd recommend doing this in mono and to normalize the voice tracks so they are about equal in volume.

Posted at 3:07PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Ben

11. Seconded (or thirded?) on fixing the audio channels. I've got a pretty sweet setup and I've got Dave in one ear, Jason in the other.

Also, fixing the conference function from being 'always-on' to be on demand, otherwise while Jason is talking I can hear the other's clearing their throats.

Oh and to Dave, argh with the interrupting! and to anyone who is ever a guest on a podcast, please, there is no need to keep agreeing with people during their speech, it only distorts the audio.

Posted at 3:33PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Adam Cains

12. Souns great. Count me in as a pre-buyer. Will it support video? I may be missing something but I don't think I've heard anyone mention video.

With regard to Daves interruptions. Clearly he has quite a bit to say and most of it is very relevant, even when it's an interruption. Still, I'd prefer fewer of them.

Great podcast, yet again.

Posted at 4:14PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Stav

13. Jason,

Your sample rate is 24,000 kHz and not 44,000 kHz; so you and Winer sound like chipmunks in flash players (like on Google Reader, for example). You should also run interviews like this through The Levelator to balance out the volume (it's free: http://www.gigavox.com/levelator). It also wouldn't hurt to fill in your ID3 tags, too. Nice content, as usual.

I'll be happy to help you on the technical side of things, if you want. Just drop me an email.

Posted at 4:17PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Tim

14. FYI - the transcription is coming. It'll be posted completely tonight. I'll post the link once it's all up.

Posted at 4:19PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Tim Dineen

15. Where is Jason on the podcast, I can't hear him. Maybe Winer had the same problem.

Posted at 4:33PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Klaus

16. I was surprised nobody talked about marking podcasts as listened to. This is a simple feature, that the ipod has, that everyone seems to over look (or at least I've never hear this advertised). I love that my ipod keeps track of what podcasts I need and which ones I don't.

Also, after listening to your podcast I still don't understand the value of local unit to unit transfers. I know Jason asked the question 'why' and Winer answered 'how' but I really want to know 'why.' Gadgets have been implementing new ways for people to interact with each other locally for at least a decade with little to no success. I'm thinking of palms that beam business cards, game boys that link up, etc. Although these features are fun toys I've never got the impression that they are used that much. Truth is we've spent millions of years evolving so that we can interact with each other in person; we really don't need any extra help.

However, I would love to be able to send a podcast to someone who is not local. Even though people almost never use devices to interact with someone locally, virtually every device that aids in remote communication/interaction is picked up (cell phones, email, internet gaming). It would be great if I could be listening to a podcast that concerns my friend John, sms him about it, then send the podcast right to him.

Oh, and Rojas's idea of making the system hackable by playing flash apps is wicked. I have absolutely no idea if this has made products more sellable in the past. I just think it is cool.

Posted at 6:08PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Steven H. Noble

17. Tim - thanks for the heads up on the stereo - turns out I had a loose L-channel cable. I'm looking forward to the transcript later tonight. I have to agree that after listening to it again with the "other" voices it made a lot more sense ;) The ideas presented are more important that the mix-down or the sample rate - but I agree that I'd like a normalized mix in future discussions.

Posted at 6:13PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Marc Nathan

18. Jason I hope you asked the guy who made the PEZ MP3 Player to take a look at your little project Hes an independant developer who works out of his basement .The type of guy who would be interested in such a project and has done it before .

http://www.pezmp3.com/

http://helmetmp3.com

http://lincolnwest.com/

Posted at 6:51PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Matt

19. I think this is a sweet idea. I think one of the best features is being able to sit at a wifi hotspot and browse and download music/podcasts without having to connect the device to a computer at all.

On the idea of having it pre-loaded with podcasts, I don't think it would be a good idea because that would pretty much just cause the consumer to spend the first 1-2 hours deleting all of that crap off of their new player to make space for stuff they really want. I think a better solution would be to just make sure it's really easy to discover and download new podcasts with the device, maybe even start some sort of voting community around it (as mentioned in this podcast). The idea of pre-loading just sorta makes me think of how some companies load new computers up with software that most consumers don't use.

Posted at 7:02PM on Dec 4th 2006 by jon

20. Jason, your voice was a little low compared with the other two guys. I haven't done any interviews yet on my podcast, but will have to give that a try.

Posted at 7:40PM on Dec 4th 2006 by Steve