Audioblog.com: A commercial blogging/podcasting service

Audioblog.com is a commercial video and audio blogging service that are setting things up to make it easy for us to podcast or vblog. They seem to use Flash recorder utilities to make it easy. In the basic service that you get audio clips of up to an hour and 1 Gig of downloads a month (which they say would be 5000 downloads of 1 minute audio clips.)

How long before someone offers this for free?

The new cold-war: Ready.Gov

ready.jpg

The Department of the Homeland Security now has a site, Ready.gov to help us ready for biological, chemical and nuclear threats. It is full of wisdom like,

Studies have shown that taking steps to temporary seal off a room using common materials enhances the safety of a room against the impact of a chemical plume. (Ready.gov – FAQ)

Reminds me of the paranoia I grew up with during the cold war. How to prepare for the end of the world. Perhaps that’s the point – a bit of fear goes a long way. Look at the graphics from the ready.com home page. The women looking up to a “ready” man. The Buisness looking confidently at us like the Ready Kids (who are coming soon.)

Ready-to-fear.

So why is the Ad Council advertising Ready.com on the Guardian Unlimited site? That’s where I saw the ad … Is the Department of Homeland Security so insecure they have to advertise in a left-wing UK online news site? Is the Ad Council just randomly buying advertising space? Is someone trying to make fun of Ready.com?