Recently, some of the retired 5by5 shows that pre-dated several Relay FM shows were taken down. We wanted these archived episodes to be available, so we now have the back catalogues of Bionic, CMD+Space, and The Prompt on Relay FM.
It was fun going through these shows while getting this setup. There’s a lot of great stuff in these archives.
There is a lot to parse in today’s news. We’re about to record Connected and will be talking about it there.
This week on Liftoff, we discuss recent interviews with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Rockets, AI, dying on Mars and more!
My thanks to our sponsor this week:
This article discusses processor compatibility for NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP systems:
The Intel versions of NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP have been tested on Intel 486, Pentium, and Pentium Pro processors. These are the only processors Apple supports for use with NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP.
I’ve never been more proud to be operating a large podcast app that’s built on standard RSS, open access, and standard playback of podcasters’ original files directly from their servers, with no garbage ads being inserted, no behavioral tracking for advertisers, no proprietary lock-in, and absolutely no requirements that podcasters register with me, do anything differently, lose any control, agree to any terms, or even be aware of my app at all to be played, shared, and promoted in it.
Don’t let proprietary podcast platforms convince you that we need them.
We don’t.
Preach it, Brother Arment.
I worry that it’s toxic to combine advertising sales with an exclusive app for playback. Advertisers want tracking? You got it — in Stitcher. The end goal here is lock-in, and so I think it’s worth fighting right from the start, even at the expense of a few thousand additional listeners for my show. Maybe they’ll never become dominant. Maybe even if they do, they won’t do anything to promote lock-in. But now is the only time to resist the possibility that they’ll grow dominant and abuse their position. It’s too late once it happens.
I’m not as worried with services that re-host files — like Google Play — as Gruber is, but I agree that locking advertising to a select platform is bad for the industry.
Media company E.W. Scripps Co. has continued its push into podcasting with the acquisition of Stitcher for $4.5 million in cash.
Stitcher is a free app that streams more than 65,000 podcasts from publishers ranging from NPR to MSNBC to The Wall Street Journal. It will operate under Midroll Media, the podcast advertising company that Scripps acquired last year for $50 million, plus $10 million more over three years if the company hits certain milestones.
Adam Symson, chief digital officer at Scripps is quoted as saying:
We certainly have the ad sales force and the connections that make us a leader in the space, but today we depend almost exclusively on distribution into other channels. This puts in place, with a very strong brand, another piece of the puzzle in the ecosystem play.
In many ways, this seems like a pretty simple thing to understand. Having a distribution platform gives Midroll some space to play. I can see a future in which all shows on Stitcher are “powered” by Midroll ads. While I’m sure that’s good business for E.W. Scripps, it sure doesn’t seem the open future I think podcasting deserves.1
Totes doomed.
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Mark Bergen has a look at Nest’s new CEO. It’ll be interesting to see if his past roles in the security sector help Nest move to what seems inevitable — making home security systems a lot smarter.
In an interview with Ashlee Vance at Bloomberg:
Bloomberg: The internet says you might be a tyrant. Are you a tyrant?
Fadell: You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. That style may not be for everyone. But, you know, there are people that worked with me years ago at General Magic, and they have their kids working for me now. If it was true, it would get around like crazy. The Valley’s a small place. I’ve been here 25 years, right?
To me, it’s truly, what’s your mindset? Are you coming to work? Are you truly respecting the mission we’re on? Yes, things are going to go up and down. But because we have a true respect for the people, because they respect what we’re trying to do, we’ll get through anything together. And that’s what counts, right?
Bloomberg: What do you wish you had done differently at Nest?
Fadell: I don’t know of any regrets that I have.
I can understand getting stuff done at the cost of other things, but it’s easy to argue that Nest isn’t actually getting stuff done. That aside, no project or product is worth being a dick.
While there is never a perfect time to transition, we’ve grown Nest to much more than a thermostat company. We’ve created a hardware + software + services ecosystem, which is still in the early growth stage and will continue to evolve to move further into the mainstream over the coming years. The future of Nest is equally as bright given the strong and experienced leadership team in place, as well as the two-year product roadmap we’ve developed together to ensure the right future direction.
Although this news may feel sudden to some, this transition has been in progress since late last year and while I won’t be present day to day at Nest, I’ll remain involved in my new capacity as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry Page. This will give me the time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest. We should all be disrupters!
Given all the drama that’s been leaking out of Nest, this isn’t shocking news. I’ve got several Nest products, and I really do like the company. I think this is probably the right move.