the first thing i’ve been wondering about is viewers. or how do we get them? and how do we get more of them? it seems to me that most people who take the time (yes, i know, they are LONG) to watch our videos generally seem to like them. so a big question mark for mike and i has always been… why don’t we have more viewers? why are our numbers so low? how come we still only have 122 subscribers???

I’ve been thinking about this a lot myself, not least of the reason being that I’m in the middle of reading Clay Shirkey’s incredible “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations“. In this age of mass amateurization and instant world wide publication, it’s hard to remember what’s important in the quest to building an audience as an independent artist.

So to Amanda: I think you might want to consider re-adjusting your questions. Why? Because at the moment, you’re not selling advertising against your media. Since you’re not looking to make money off them in that way, it doesn’t matter how many people watch your videos, but rather, the quality of the folks who watch. I think a lot about that when I see ‘famous’ YouTubers and the kind of garbage stuff that they generate purely for the sake of an audience. You guys are aiming higher.

I think it’s important to establish and recognize your true goals in that light. Are you trying to become ‘internet famous’? Probably not. Project Pedal is probably too sincere and heartfelt to go ‘viral’. But is your goal to become a financially viable filmmaking team who gets hired to develop and direct projects for people or organizations with money? Well, dang, you guys are getting close! I think you should set your eyes on a higher prize – like maybe getting this puppy into an awesome film festival or two, and figuring out a way to distribute (independently or via a film distro company), and then getting someone to put up the money for you to make the next film or web series.

Also, do keep in mind that the way you guys are running your project is super cutting edge. In fact, I often point to your project as one of the thought leaders in this space, and even hope to emulate you with our own project. That in and of itself is valuable – again, to the right audience. I firmly believe that in the future, everyone is going to want to know how to do this stuff. How to leverage these web tools. You’ll be able to teach this stuff at a university, if you can’t find a program already. We’re not moving backwards. The world isn’t going to ever become less digitized or less interconnected or less mobile. Those of us who know how to make stuff happen now – we’re ahead of the game.

Don’t be discouraged. You’re on the right track.

To anyone else who’s interested in this kind of nerdy stuff… and you’d like to read more on the subject (I sure seem to meet a lot of you lately), I also highly recommend reading Ask a Ninja creator Kent Nicols’ blog where he’s always posting sage insights into the changing world of media and The Workbook Project, which is a great resource for content creators of all kinds.

Allow me to say a few words about grouping music by genre: it’s a stupid concept. I wish the world would banish it to the annals of mid-20th century mega-rcrdlbl company dinasaurs. There is no use for such vague labels as genre. What the hell do they even mean? Look, for example, at the image above – just a small segment of the, oh, 200+ ‘genres’ I have in my iTunes library. I think maybe 10% of them make any sense at all.

Okay, now, many of you probably noticed that iTunes launched a new version of it’s software this past week. Cool, if you use it a lot. But for some ridiculous reason, they decided to disable the ability to get rid of the ‘genre’ column while browsing in the old (and my preferred) boring, spreadsheet style layout. Luckily, I found a quick and painless solution for us Macheads on MacOSXHints.com.

Quit iTunes, launch Terminal, and enter this command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE

Relaunch iTunes, open the browser, and you’ll notice the Genre column has vanished. You can reverse this by quitting iTunes and repeating the above command, but with TRUE instead of FALSE.

Bing. No genres.

This does get me thinking about the ways in which people initiate their music listening sessions is changing. People once touched, held and looked at at the records on a shelf and pulled out something cool and fresh and in-the-moment. Now, iTunes looks more like a spreadsheet than anything else. And oddly, even with their fancy new CoverFlow layouts, I still use the spreadsheet look. Because I’m used to it? I’m not sure. When I want to listen to something, often times it’s specific and browsing by title is the easiest way to get there. CoverFlow kinda works when I have absolutely no idea of what to listen to, but that’s usually when I default to shuffle. Or ditch iTunes all together and hit up Last.fm or the Hype Machine.

What’s the solution here? How do we recreate the analog, physical experience of listening to records in an immediate digital world when memory is no longer based on a physical object like a record, but rather a name of a band, or how recently I bought something?

Go buy a record player, I guess.

Today, I found one of the best shows I have ever seen on my beloved sport of thrifting. I’m now a huge fan of the awesome, amazing and fabulous ThreadBangers Show! See for yourself how these kids are doing it oh-so-right:

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about bike safety in the city lately. Recently, a bicyclist in my neighborhood, George Gonzalez, got crushed by a bus just two blocks from my house at a spot that I bike past dozens of times a month. And this morning, I’m reading about a popular blogger named Adam Finley of TV Squad who was killed last week by a bus in Minneapolis. What a bummer. Hearing about this just makes me so mad. Didn’t the bus see him? Wasn’t he riding safely? Even rock stars aren’t immune. Remember Mary Hanson of Stereolab?

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I like to post about bikes and biking. I love my bike, it’s a sturdy ride. An old steel-framed Schwinn with a single speed on a freewheel hub. It’s got a weird LiveWrong sticker on the downtube that a previous owner slapped on the frame. He told me it was to raise awareness about bicyclists being hit by cars, but when I google it, all I get were stupid tounge-in-cheek references to another campaign.

I was thinking about covering the sticker over, but instead I am going to declare a new meaning. I want it to be about fighting the senseless carnage of road rage, careless driving and unsafe habits when bikes and cars collide. Literally. Those of us who ride around big cities on a daily basis make our best efforts to be safe (usually). I sure do. Let’s all remember to keep an extra eye out for those two wheelers while driving cars, okay? And I guess I’ll be making sure not to casually cruise through red lights anymore.
Lastly, I hate news like this because it discourages some people from getting in the saddle. We need more bikers, not less. Here are some resources and tips to help your make urban bike riding safer:

BikeSafe.com
Bike Safety Tips on Treehugger.com
Paul Dorn’s Bike Commuting Tips
Urban Cycling Resource Guide

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Last week they had a major server crash, but have risen as a phoenix from the ashes to form their 2.0 version… and it’s great.

The idea is awesome, and their hearts are totally in the right place. First of all, they’re a non-profit social networking site that wants to stay tight knit with good people. Secondly, they’re a collective of travelers and high-minded idealists trying to foster positive interactions with people from all over the globe. All valuable things.

But most importantly, friends, they are an amazing and cheap way to travel. I’ve couch-surfed for years before the “Inter-Web” weaseled it’s way into every facet of our daily lives. It has done so, admittedly in many super annoying ways. CouchSurfing.com, though, embodies all that is good and wonderful about instant inter-global communications.

Do if for yourself. Do it because a network of like-minded souls is probably the most powerful tool any Poverty Jet Setter could ever wish for.

If you do join, come friend me up at my profile.

Technorati Tags: advice, community, couchsurfing, dollaraday, magdalenus, povertyjetset, travel

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The greatest thing about the Kombucha is that once you make a batch, it continues to grow a new culture on top of the mix which you can share with someone else.

We here at The Poverty Jet Set truly believe in sharing the love. So, in light of that, and because Catie shared one of her cultures with us and our batch is just about finished, we’re going to include the HowTo on Kombucha Tea. Have fun! (And if you need a starter culture, drop me a line!)

Technorati Tags: diy, homebrew, howto, kombucha, magdalenus, povertyjetset, tea

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