Web Development Live

PUBLIC radio is drawing its largest audience ever, some 28 million listeners nationwide each week. But if it’s a golden era, you wouldn’t know it from the frenetic activity to remake the genre.

In WNYC’s antiquated downtown Manhattan studios, the veteran National Public Radio and NBC journalist John Hockenberry and his co-host, Adaora Udoji, formerly of CNN, are rehearsing to find a comfortable rapport for their new live morning news program, which begins Monday. Flush from a $2 million Knight Foundation grant, this program, “The Takeaway” is designed with it partner, Public Radio International, and collaborators including The New York Times, the BBC World Service and the Boston public station WGBH, to be a stark counterpoint to the taped interviews on NPR’s venerable “Morning Edition.”

In the Chicago area, an 11-month-old FM station, :Vocalo, never mentions that it is affiliated with Chicago Public Radio. There’s no “All Things Considered” or “Car Talk”; instead hosts weave together interviews, commentary, reports and music, culled from user submissions to a companion Web site, vocalo.org.

NPR itself started the Web-radio hybrid “Bryant Park Project” last fall, hoping younger listeners would like to hear lively hosts banter about news and culture. And NPR’s year-old midday talk show “Tell Me More,” anchored by the former “Nightline” correspondent Michel Martin, aims at diverse new voices.

The urgency to find new formats is driven by audience research that can be read as glass half-empty or half-full. The 28 million weekly public radio listeners recorded by Arbitron in spring 2007 topped the previous high of 27.5 million in 2004. But the research also showed that the listeners were tuning in for shorter periods.

Public radio “had an enormous surge in listening over about a 10-year period from the mid ’90s up through about 2003, principally driven by a huge response to public radio’s news and information programming,” said Tom Thomas, co-chief executive officer of the Station Resource Group, a public radio consortium. But since 2003 “the audience has essentially been flat,” he said.

To address this, the consortium recently received a Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant to identify ways to get the audience growing again, and “Everything is on the table,” Mr. Thomas said.

Last year some 1,400 people entered the Public Radio Talent Quest, an online search for new hosts run by the Public Radio Exchange, a Web site, prx.org, where independent radio producers market their content. None of the three winners — a science blogger, a slam poet and a nonprofit executive who is a storyteller — reflect that typical public radio sound, said Jake Shapiro, the exchange’s executive director.

Executives stress that the new programming won’t abandon in-depth news, just “get away from a tone that feels too clubby,” said Graham Griffith, executive producer of “The Takeaway.” Nor do they want to tinker with existing programs; they just want more options for more people.

“A lot of the research that guided public radio’s direction in the last 30 years focused on us discovering a niche we could serve and serve well,” of highly educated, news-craving listeners, said Maxie Jackson, WNYC’s senior director for program development. But, he added, that formula “didn’t appeal to people of color.” He called it an issue of tonality.

“The Takeaway,” Mr. Jackson said, could be a model. It will be interactive, he said, and multicultural, with “voices, perspectives, contributors and stories that are relevant to a wide swath of people.” Its tone, he said, “has to be more compelling, with more verve.”

“People want to feel that the hosts are committed to the topic,” he added.

At a recent run-through, an Iowa State University economist discussed global food riots, and an assistant professor at Morehouse College dissected the Atlanta Ballet’s collaboration with the hip-hop star Big Boi. Listeners were encouraged to comment online about how fuel costs would affect vacation plans.

The morning hours where radio thrives have become a battleground, even though NPR’s “Morning Edition,” with 12.9 million listeners a week, is the second-most-listened to national radio program, behind Rush Limbaugh’s.

NPR itself created “Bryant Park Project” because the organization is “mission-driven, and if we can reach more people, great,” said Ellen Weiss, NPR’s vice president for news.

The program had a tough start. One host, Luke Burbank, quit just before the first day, Oct. 1, although he didn’t leave until mid-December. The Remaining host, Alison Stewart, is on maternity leave. Online listening is growing, and with few broadcast stations carrying the program, a plan to go Internet-only has been discussed. Ms. Weiss said that would not happen but declined to discuss coming changes.

Meanwhile in February, with competition looming, NPR cut the fees to carry “Morning Edition” that stations had long complained about by a total of $5 million (to take effect next fiscal year).

Still, stations in Boston, Cape Cod, Baltimore, Miami and across Wisconsin have committed to give “The Takeaway” a try, although “Morning Edition” will still be widely available in those places. On WNYC “Morning Edition” will shrink to five hours between the AM and FM stations, to make way for two hours of “The Takeaway.”

By June 30 the new program will be broadcasting four hours daily, although not all stations will carry the whole thing. Mr. Griffith envisions “The Takeaway” as a “breakfast table,” where a nationwide conversation can take place. Mr. Hockenberry uses a more high-tech metaphor, calling it in an interview “a massive multiplayer game, the rules and title of which are, basically, curiosity.”

Timeshare buyers are cautioned about labeling their weeks as “investments.” Think of it as prepaid vacations, timeshare developers famously say.

While an investment, especially in real estate, often stands an excellent chance of making money, the usual return on a timeshare typically centers on enjoyment rather than cash.

Timeshares continue to be big business — more than $8 billion a year — despite the sluggish economy. The American Resort Development Association reports that more than 4.5 million U.S. households own one or more timeshares in 1,604 resorts.

A growing number of entrepreneurs, with an exceptional grasp on how to purchase, close and sell timeshares have begun to acquire inexpensive weeks at upscale resorts via resale channels. They then rent out the properties at a weekly or a per-night rate comparable to what a nice hotel would charge.

“We have people who will go to our Web site and buy 10 weeks at a time,” said John Locher, vice president of sales and marketing for Redweek.com, an online conduit for timeshare buyers, sellers, landlords and renters. “They have studied certain resorts and markets and know what’s possible as far as rental income during a majority of the year.”

Steve Shermoen, a self-described “small-town attorney” from International Falls, Minn., said he now controls about 100 timeshare weeks and plans to spend most of his retirement years rotating through some of them in different parts of the world. Is he concerned about owning so many pieces of the only real estate asset class that always loses money when resold?

“You cannot make the rental concept work if you buy directly from the developer,” Shermoen said. “You have to be sure of what you are buying and purchase only on the resale market. The cost from the developer simply is too high for it to become a rental that will pencil out.”

Shermoen and others like him typically stick to Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton and other upper level properties that they can pick up at a fraction of the original purchase price. They often seek sellers who are extremely eager, often desperate, to dump a timeshare contract because of unexpected circumstances including loss of job, divorce or death. Many timeshare bargains can be found online right after the annual fees are announced for the coming year. As an attorney, Shermoen also offers to close the transaction at a discounted fee.

“Many people are grateful that there is a buyer who is willing to take the week off their hands,” Shermoen said. “They simply are tired of paying the annual fee and can’t wait to get out from under it.”

I was one of them, yet I didn’t even consider renting it out. Nearly 20 years ago, I spent hundreds of dollars marketing the timeshare and considered myself extremely fortunate to get back most of my investment. While some people swear it’s the only way to travel with a family and that the international “bank” of resorts not only offers flexibility but also destinations they normally would not consider, it didn’t happen for us. Basketball tournaments, family reunions, budget restraints and four different school schedules, coupled with the fact that we are very picky about accommodations, led to a three-year timeshare shutout. We owned the “points” for three years and never spent one night in a timeshare resort.

Timeshares come in a variety of packages, including a points program where owners exchange a specific number of accumulated points for a week, weekend or individual nights at resorts that participate in the points arrangement. Some of the larger timeshare companies now offer a point system, permitting owners to split the traditional week into smaller segments. The concept has worked very well for out-of-town family reunions, weddings or simply a needed weekend getaway.

The idea of breaking up the timeshare week into a few one-or-two night stays can also make sense for vacationers traveling a country by car. The average worker typically receives two or three vacation weeks each year and often prefers not to spend a large percentage of that time in one location.

The value of the points can vary greatly. For example, weekend nights will require more points than weeknight stays, and popular resorts will demand more points than a run-of-the-mill getaway. In addition, the future value of points also can be a consideration — not unlike trying to predict the future value of money.

Similar to dollars, timeshare points can be worth a lot more today than they will be down the road. If a resort continues to increase the number of points necessary to rent the unit you covet, the value of your allotted points will decrease. You will need more annual points than the number you are receiving now to reserve the same unit. Seniors and other consumers on fixed incomes may not be getting the perpetual week they initially purchased, which could seriously curtail their dream vacations down the road.

Properly applying points and a resort’s bonus time are just two pieces to successfully renting timeshares. There’s also a huge caveat when shopping.

“Some people try to sell you weeks they don’t really own,” Shermoen said. “It’s another one of the pitfalls to consider when buying and selling. Acquiring and renting out timeshares is complicated and not for the unwary. If you are going to jump in, you have to do your homework.”

In December, Dana Neil Oaklund, of Fort Lauderdale, began streaming live video on the Internet from a laptop in his SUV to assure his customers that their cargo was safe. What he didn’t expect was that dozens of people would get a kick out of seeing him stuck in traffic in California or cruising between snow-covered mountains in Colorado.

“It just blows my mind,” said Oaklund, who escorts oversize loads, while parked in San Diego. “Right now there are 33 people who think this is interesting enough to watch. A lot of people tell me, ‘Oh, wow, this is cool because I am getting to see the country without leaving my desk.’ ”

Oaklund is a “lifecaster,” one of a growing number of people creating their own reality shows by broadcasting live for a few minutes or hours at a time from their computers or cell phones. Unlike videos uploaded to YouTube, lifecasters are inviting viewers into their world to see what they see, comment on it and ask questions, all in real time.

Broadcasting live from a webcam is nothing new, but what makes services such as Justin.tv, Ustream.tv and Yahoo Live (live.yahoo.com) different is that technology has evolved to the point where practically anyone can stream live from almost anywhere and interact with people who are watching.

You don’t need to be a technical genius or even have your own Web page. And with the spread of wireless Internet and the fact that webcams have become a standard feature on many new computers, you might not even have to buy anything.

Oaklund, 40, uses a mobile broadband connection to broadcast as the “Master Roadcaster” on Justin.tv. People tune in from all over the world to laugh at his jokes, make comments about other drivers, tell him to slow down or suggest hotels for him. While driving, he glances at the computer screen when it’s safe and speaks into a headset to respond to questions and comments. He usually has 15 to 100 people watching.

“People are already looking at video online, so wouldn’t it be funny if you could watch a funny video clip and you could tell the person doing it, ‘Hey, do that again’?” said Michael Seibel, CEO of Justin.tv.

Seibel started Justin.tv in 2006 with three friends to live-broadcast co-founder Justin Kan 24/7 as he walked around San Francisco with a camera attached to his hat. In October, the site opened to everyone, and it now has more than 430,000 registered users, about 34,000 of whom are broadcasters.

Britta Seisums, 18, typically streams live from her red-polka-dot-covered bedroom for about four hours after school each weekday. She plays games with viewers, dances to pop songs, hangs out with her friends, talks about school and curses out people who come into the chat room and are rude.

Seisums has been creating her own Web sites since she was about 10 and wants to work in Web development. “I keep the camera on as much as possible, but I like to have privacy. If I don’t want to be on camera, then I put the camera on my animals.”

In recent episodes, she has bathed her guinea pigs, painted a video-game console and accidentally spilled soda on her laptop.

Activists trying to save a corner of historic Tiger Stadium are down to their final at-bats. So they’re opening a last-minute, Internet-based fund-raising effort in a bid to pull off a miracle win.

The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy is working against a June 1 deadline to come up with $369,000 in cash and proof it can raise $15 million to pay for its preservation project.

The nonprofit conservancy would like to save a dugout-to-dugout corner of the ballpark, about 25% of the stadium structure, and convert it to use as a community center and museum.

But June 1 is only five weeks away, which is the bottom of the ninth in any fund-raising effort. The conservancy has one employee, virtually no money in the bank, and its Web site, www.savetigerstadium.org, won’t be up for another week or so.

Despite the long odds, Gary Gillette, one of about a dozen board members of the conservancy, said recent presidential campaigns have proven the power of the Internet to raise cash in a hurry.

“No one thought five years ago that you could raise enough money to finance a presidential campaign by small donors on the Web,” Gillette said. “Of course, we’re not Barack Obama, but I think there’ll be a similar dynamic. People will say it’s easy to push that PayPal button and just donate $20 or $30 … . There are millions of Tigers fans everywhere.”

If the conservancy doesn’t raise the $369,000 in time and show proof of its ability to raise the $15 million long-term, the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the city’s development arm, said it will proceed to tear down the entire structure, including the corner the conservancy wishes to save.

Skeptics of the conservancy’s efforts include George Jackson, president of the DEGC, who said Friday he thinks that the conservancy, if well-meaning, has no chance to succeed.

“We don’t need any more pie-in-the-sky financing schemes,” Jackson said. “Every time we come up with a deadline, they come up with a new financial fantasy, and that’s what this is.”

University of Massachusetts scientists have developed a new robot friend just for Grandma and Grandpa.

The “uBOT-5” can dial 911, do household chores, remind elders to take their meds and allow health-care workers and loved-ones to pay virtual visits via a built-in Web video monitor.

“In the next couple of years, there’s going to be an explosion of robots like this that I think are going to come pretty close to being ready for home use,” said Patrick Deegan, a graduate student at UMass-Amherst’s Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics and member of the uBOT-5 devlopment project ASSIST. The university announced the robot’s development this month.

A market for the robot is being created by U.S. demographics that will see 77 million baby boomers set to retire in the next 30 years - straining the resources of a health-care field charged with caring for an elderly population that far outnumbers those of past generations.

“We’d like to see a robot like the uBOT-5 being used in controlled situations like hospitals or nursing homes in the next five years,” Deegan said.

The uBOT-5 - equipped with a Web cam, a microphone and a touch-screen - allows doctors and other medical professionals to check on patients remotely. The robot also can apply a digital stethoscope to transmit information to doctors or EMTs.

While the uBOT-5 is far from cute and cuddly, its design is inspired by human anatomy, said Deegan.

With an an array of sensors that act as eyes and ears, the robot can detect human activity and “sense” when something is amiss, such as a fall. Its two Segway-style wheels mimic human legs, giving it greater dexterity than the clunkier, bottom-heavy robots found in many science labs today, he said.

The robot was developed in collaboration with western Massachusetts elder-care centers, which allowed the uBOT team to learn about the preferences of potential users - a preference for a robot that can do chores, for instance.

“They’ll provide the comfort of keeping your house clean, emptying the dishwasher or picking up the trash,” Deegan said.

The robot is now in the research and development phase. The university owns the intellectual property, but Deegan and his team are launching a company and hope to commercialize the robot for in-home use.

The University of Central Oklahoma office of the Oklahoma Small Business Development Center has been named one of the top 10 small business development centers in the nation after winning the regional “Small Business Development Center Excellence and Innovation Award” from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

UCO’s development center office competed against small business development centers in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas for the award after winning a similar award on a state level.

The center, which helps those throughout central Oklahoma who want to start or expand a small business, is now in the running to win the national award, which would recognize it as the top small business development center in the country.

Susan Urbach, director of UCO’s development center office, believes they stood out from other centers because of their emphasis on pro-activity and innovative technology.

“We are so excited about this award. I believe that what makes us special is the fact that we focus very much on staying at the forefront of information and technology. By always embracing change and development, we can be as efficient as possible in assisting our clients,” she said.

“We strive to teach them how to go from young businesses to professional status by turning their ideas into professional realities. You might say we help give their ideas both wings and feet.”

James Faulconer, president of MIDI for Kids and a former professor of music theory and composition, wanted to start a business that helps children learn to problem-solve through music. He went to the OSBDC for help.

Today, he credits Urbach and the OSBDC for MIDI’s success, which is currently helping 1,500 students and has been noted by some major music instrument manufacturers as the nation’s largest independent after-school music program.

“With Susan’s help, we now have programs in nearly 100 schools in five states and our Web site organization is truly amazing,” Faulconer said. “Oklahoma is really fortunate to have the devotion to purpose and inspirational guidance available through OSBDC. Without Susan and OSBDC, our business would simply not exist.”

UCO’s OSBDC is a bilingual organization that serves about 500 individual clients annually, helping the Oklahoma economy create 330 new jobs last year.

If there is a clear trend at this show it is that the Web 2.0 is no longer about social networking, SaaS, Web communities, or rich internet applications, it’s about moving as many of the core business processes as you can to the platform of the Web. Or, perhaps better put: Web-enabled process outsourcing.

You only need to consider the number of products that are now moving way beyond SaaS, to application development, storage, interface design, and middleware…all delivered as a service over the Web. Indeed, there is not much you can’t do with the Web-born tools around today, inclusive of the new Google App Engine on-demand application development platform product just released. So, the trend is re-hosting of core enterprise applications, business processes, information, and much of the enterprise architecture we see today, so they are much more efficient, agile, and cost effective…in essence living up to the core objectives of SOA.

This week, at the show, Bungee Labs launches their platform-as-a-service offering providing application development capabilities and core connection service with Web-delivered resources and APIs. This is on top of the platform capabilities already available with Amazon and Salesforce.com.

Also, StrikeIron announced an on-demand Web services-enablement platform called IronCloud. Building on existing Web service marketplace capabilities, IronCloud streamlines the process of on-ramping enterprise data to the Web, using an on-demand platform that makes enterprise information available as managed and secure Web service APIs. In essence, providing a cost effective way of making critical business data available for mashups, SaaS, or other Web-born computing applications, including the emerging platforms I just mentioned.

So, let’s see. Now you can design, build, deploy, and test applications completely using on-demand platforms delivered over the Web. You can access information on-demand, and now you can even share your core enterprise data on-demand.

This goes to the whole WOA banter that’s been a large part of the SOA blogosphere for the last few weeks. We are now finding it easier and more cost effective to place much of our core business processes out on the Web, where there are many resources, information, and tools all available as a service, either free or at a low cost. Thus, you can get up-and-running faster, create automation solutions that are much more cost effective, and meet the needs of your business better than you could in the past. It’s a paradigm shift that’s hard to ignore.

Visual Ajax Studio enables you to create Web applications using drag and drop assembly techniques. The software supports SOAP, REST, and RSS Web services and deploys a standard Java .war file.

WaveMaker offers open-source tools for Web development. Visual Ajax Studio has been released under the GNU AGPL version 3 open-source license (it’s also available under a WaveMaker commercial license).

WaveMaker noted that Visual Ajax Studio 3.2’s Mac release is a public beta version, and offers full support for Apple’s Safari Web browser.

Live Mesh is both a development platform and a folder-sharing and synchronizing service for end users, according to Amit Mital, general manager of Live Mesh. From a Web-based Live Desktop, users can set devices or PCs to have access to different folders stored both on the devices and on the Web.

Using the desktop, users can set preferences for what machines or devices they want to make “a part of the mesh,” Mital said. Once they set a preference, software will be downloaded to that machine or device to activate it on the mesh.

Once a device or PC is activated, users can set what folders from that machine they want to be stored online. If they update folder content in Live Mesh, devices and PCs on the mesh will be updated with the changes the next time they are connected to the Web. Similarly, if information is changed locally on the device, then once the device goes online again, folders will be synchronized across devices on the entire mesh.

“The whole idea, from an experience perspective, is you still have access to documents online and offline, and we take care of the changes,” Mital said.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie first introduced the idea of a mesh that could leverage the Web to connect devices, entertainment, business and development at the company’s MIX 08 conference in Vegas in March. Microsoft is expected to officially unveil Live Mesh at the Mesh It Up event at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Users also can directly access and control any devices within their mesh through Live Remote Desktop, a feature of Live Mesh built on the capabilities of Windows Remote Desktop. For example, users can gain access to their home PCs from any computer by logging on to Live Mesh.

In addition to letting users set Live Mesh preferences for their own devices, people also can use the service as a collaboration tool, allowing people in their trusted network to access certain folders or files stored on their personal Live Mesh service.

Microsoft envisions Mesh as not only a helpful service to end users, but also a way developers can quickly build applications to enhance the experience of sharing and synchronizing files among devices, Mital said. As an example, Mital said an application built on the platform could allow users to establish a central storage place for data that they upload on various Web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

The scenario he presented Tuesday sounded similar to how developers can easily build applications for the social-networking site Facebook and allow users to share those applications across the platform. Mital said Microsoft built Live Mesh on Web development technologies that are emerging as standards for Web 2.0 development — such as representational state transfer (REST) and Atom Syndication Format — that any developer has access to and can use.

Facebook has found a viable business model in advertising-supported social networking, so it may be that Microsoft is planning something similar for Live Mesh. Mital said Microsoft is considering several possible business models for Live Mesh, including using online advertising to support it or charging users a subscription fee to use it.

Microsoft is giving 10,000 users access to the Live Mesh preview by invitation, through a Windows Live ID. Initially, the service will be available only for PCs or laptops running Windows XP or Vista; in a few months, Microsoft will make Live Mesh available for Mac users and also mobile devices, beginning with the Windows Mobile platform. Eventually, devices such as the Zune, Xbox and digital photo frames could also be part of Live Mesh.

Mital acknowledged that once mobile devices can be added to Live Mesh, user access will be limited to the presentation and application capabilities of the devices. Microsoft is also working on a way to display an image of a document, such as an Excel document, from Live Mesh on a phone’s browser so that users can at least view a document, he said.

Is South Korea a graveyard for overseas Internet companies? American Internet heavies such as Google, YouTube and MySpace, leaders of the so-called “web 2.0″ frenzy, face heavy odds in South Korea. Why is it that these companies boast astronomical numbers of subscribers and users in many other markets around the Web Development Tutorial world but find little luck here?

MySpace, the world’s largest online social network, launched a Korean service last week, but local portal and blog users have given the new service the cold shoulder. “I signed up out of curiosity, but I canceled my membership soon after because I found it un-user friendly,” a Korean blogger reported. Another blogger said, “MySpace isn’t new or interesting for Korean users who are already familiar with online communities like Cyworld.”

Google and YouTube are also having a hard time here. Since it launched its Korean-language service in 2006, Google, the Web Development Tutorial world’s top Internet search engine, has earned a mere 2 percent-range share of the local Internet portal market. YouTube launched a Korean-language service in January. But while the world’s largest video sharing website boasts about 30 million visitors per month in the U.S., in Korea it has only about one-tenth the number of users as PandoraTV, South Korea’s No. 1 video sharing website.

Experts say the foreign challengers have failed to understand the peculiarities of the South Korean market. Their quality suffers in comparison to local offerings in terms of Korean-language features, site design and sophistication of services, South Korean experts argue.

In addition, South Korean Internet users generally tend to be uninterested in services from abroad. AFP reported recently, “South Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries, with some 70 percent of homes having high-speed Internet access. But it has largely shunned popular overseas services.”

Since 2004, there has been no notable change in the rankings of the local portal market, where Naver tops the list. Cho Il-sang, CEO of MetriX, an online survey agency, said, “Overseas web service providers should be more sincere in approaching the Korean market, so that their participation in the Web Development Tutorial market can give a wholesome impetus to the development of the Korean Internet industry.”