Who needs radio anyhow?

Everyone I know who listens to WDET is absolutely irate with their decision to drop daytime music in favor of NPR talk programming. An open letter on the WDET website confirms that this extends well beyond my immediate circle of friends and family. Some have taken to the web to vent their frustration in blog form. others are getting organized. While I understand and share some of their frustrations I don't know if there is a remote chance that things will revert back any time soon. So what are we to do?

Maybe we should just start our own radio station. How, you ask? Well I wouldn't know where to start in terms of building a studio and broadcasting on the airwaves but maybe the airwaves are beyond saving. The barriers to entry for internet based broadcasting have gotten ridiculously low. There is no reason that any and all of the former WDET DJs couldn't start podcasting tomorrow. They have a loyal fanbase, lots of connections and years of experience as djs. To take it one step further why not start a Motor City Broadcasting Collective? Who says you need to have a studio, or even a single location. News, music and other programming can be recorded and edited at any computer and sent to the "station" for broadcast. Anyone interested?

Read more at www.wdetfm.org/

Tags:

• wdet
• detroit
• radio
• poscast

Blogger Web Comments for Firefox

Googles new Firefox extension that allows you to view "Blogger Web Comments" seems like a pretty solid idea. A quick view to see what other people have to say about the page you are looking at on their blogs. This is especially nice for pages without the option to leave comments or trackbacks. One problem though. None of my comments ever seem to show up in the new extension. I have added comments to a couple sites and even several days later nothing seems to appear. I am hopeful that the bugs will get worked out soon. After all it in beta. Of course everything on the internet is in a perpetual state of beta-ness.

Read more at www.google.com/tools/fi...

Tags:

• firefox
• blog
• google

Does customer service apply on the web?

I ran across a story on the consumerist that at least confirms that I an not the only one who takes issue with Amazon.coms customer service. It seems that once an order has reached a certain point in their workflow it can not be stopped. In this particular the items were Christmas gifts that were not going to make it in time for Christmas but no notice was sent until 4 days later, leaving Mark in a bind. He figured that he could at least cancel the order but was told that it was impossible. I had a similar experience a few years ago when I was told in all seriousness that God himself could not prevent my order from being shipped. Eventually they told me that they would refund my card and asked that I send it back when I received it. Amazingly enough I never received it. Oh well I guess someone with more authority than God intervened. So is it just me or do some of the biggest online players have lot to learn about customer service.

Read more at www.consumerist.com/con...

RSS Widget madness

So maybe I am alone in this but it seems to me that the idea of a LifeHacker Konfabulator Widget to grab thier rss feed is contrary to the idea of both life hacks and RSS. The beauty of RSS is that it lends itself so well to the aggregation of content. So why on earth would I want to give up precious desk space to an rss feeder for 1 site. A quick search of the Yahoo's Widget Gallery shows scores of these site specifc RSS Widgets. I suppose ths is just a marketing tool to cultivater dedicted readers but it just seems that anyone who reads a site like Lifehacker on a regular basis is unlikely to see this as a good idea.

Read more at www.lifehacker.com/soft...