April 2005

“Don’t worry cuz I’ve got it / Got the car door / Got the front gate and I / Got my own back / Through the shadows / In my Friday clothes / Through the wardrobe / Through the snow / I have seen a light / I have seen a light / I have seen a light / I have seen a light”

Boston singer-songwriter Rose Polenzani has a new tune available for (free) MP3 download. Grab it now in Rose’s music shoppe. It will be replaced with another tune sooner or later. It’s called “I Have Seen a Light.” Rose describes it best:

It’s a really simple song, kind of repetitive. It just gets bigger and bigger. That’s my thing. Anyway, the ‘light’ isn’t the one you might be thinking of, it’s something kind of hard and real like a medicine ball.

So.Very.Good. Grab your headphones and turn up the volume. If you like that song, buy her album October that came out last Fall.

tag: rose polenzani

This is old news as of a couple weeks ago but I haven’t had a chance to write about it until now. Meetup is now charging a monthly fee to organizers. I currently run one Meetup group: The Boston Wi-Fi Meetup and I plan to pay the $9/month (it goes up to $19/month in 2007). Some people seem to think it’s a tragedy that Meetup is asking us to pay. I have no problem with the fee. They’re even setting things up so that group members can chip in. What’s the big deal? Meetup has done a great job of attracting a lot of people to their site and there’s no way I could ever reach out to everyone in the Boston area interested in WiFi on my own or even with the help of our newish BostonWAG organization. I appreciate the services they provide. Maybe Meetup could have done a better job of getting money out of venues and advertisers; but $9/month is really not a big deal. If you can’t find $9 worth of value in what they offer then I don’t really see why you’d use their service in the first place. Nine dollars! I’m sure we could find individuals or companies who might like to sponsor the Boston Wi-Fi Meetup to offset the costs, too.

The people who are whining about this remind me about the people I’ve encountered who don’t understand (all that quickly) the value of WhizSpark’s services either.

In more recent news, Michael and I concluded our 10 day road trip this morning when he dropped me off at Dulles Airport at 6AM so I could catch a 7AM flight to Los Angeles for The Media Center’s (@ American Press Institute) Mobile Media Conference. I discovered earlier that I forgot the USB cord thingie to download audio files for podcasts in Michael’s car. So, unless I find a Radio Shack that sells the cord relatively cheaply, audio tidbits will have to wait until Sunday. Hopefully I don’t sound like a broken record but mega thanks to Susan Mernit for inviting me to speak on a panel with her at the conference about community wireless. I’m excited (albiet very sleepy) to be here! Also, it’s worth noting that Susan does the best job of introducing people in the hallways between sessions, etc. I really admire her down-to-earth and approachable style.

tag: mobilemedia

After three days and twenty-four hours of driving, Michael and I finally got to Miami Tuesday night. We haven’t had as much internet access as we had hoped but you can check out our updates over on the trip website.

The city of Boston is hosting a WiFi Summmit in May that a group I’m involved in, BostonWAG (wireless advocacy group), is helping organize along with City Councillor John Tobin’s office and the WiFi Task Force he’s assembled. In advance of the summit, there’s a community forum coming up on Tuesday, April 19th at The Boston Public Library’s Copley Branch at 7pm in the Johnson Building.

The purpose of the forum is to get community input on the possibility of wireless initiatives in the City of Boston. This includes opinions on how such a network would benefit the residents and what are the populations that would gain the most from a low-cost or free wireless network in parts of the city.

There’s a press release about the event if you’re curious. BostonWAG is also preparing a “WiFi 101″ info sheet that will be online soon and available at the forum.

As an update to my entry the other day about organizing an Event Group Blogging outing for OLLY’S PRISON in Harvard Square, I’ve got tickets for tomorrow night’s performance at 7:30 PM at the Zero Arrow Theater. It’s a bit last minute notice but I wanted to squeeze this in before Michael and I left on our road trip this weekend. If you’re a blogger and you’d like to join us tomorrow night, let me know. I have four tickets (out of six) currently available.

Michael and I will be dabbling with podcasting during our upcoming roadtrip to Florida. We’re using Word Press 1.5 for the trip website. Apparently Word Press will automatically create the proper enclosure tidbits for the RSS feed. Nifty! Unfortunately, my news reader (NewsFire) isn’t showing any of the site’s entries. I’m not sure what’s up. If you want to hear the first (pre) trip podcast, check it out!

I’ve been offering one-off review tickets and photo passes to bloggers via Exploit Boston! for a while. I thought I’d try something new (to me). I’ve got six tickets for a performance at this week’s A.R.T. (American Repertory Theatre) production of OLLY’s PRISON. It’s being performed April 1-24th at A.R.T.’s new performance space Zero Arrow Theater located at the intersection of Arrow Street and Mass Ave in Harvard Square.

Six of us will go to one of the performances together and then we’ll blog about it on our respective sites and link up to a page at Exploit Boston! that lists links to everyone’s entries. Let me know if you would like to participate at future group event blogging outings that I organize.

Kudos to Renee Farster, Director of Audience Acquisition at A.R.T., for sending me an email earlier today offering one ticket and then being cool about my request for five more tickets.

Thanks to Pete Caputa for linking (via Marc d’Avignon) to the “America We Stand As One” music video. I think 1983 called and they want this guy’s hair back.

Michael and I are going on a roadtrip around the southeastern part of the U.S. April 16-27th. We’re meeting up with his parents and sister who are flying down to Florida for a couple baseball games (Mets at Marlins and Red Sox at Devil Rays). And of course, we’ve got a roadtrip website that will document our travels with photos, words and audio. Add the RSS feed to your news reader if you’d like frequent updates. If you’d like a postcard, send me your mailing address. The travel schedule needs to be updated since I’ll be flying to LA on the 27th to speak at a conference that the American Press Institute’s Media Center is hosting called “Mobile Media.” Many thanks to Susan Mernit for inviting me to participate on her panel about “Wireless, Spectrum and the FCC – Issues and Challenges.” I’ll be contributing comments about community and municipal WiFi.

Other than conferences, I haven’t been on a real vacation outside of New England since Michael and I went to Chicago during the Fall of 2000. I’m really looking forward to our roadtrip!

When I signed Exploit Boston! up as a new publisher to sell advertising space via Blogads a few weeks ago, I don’t think I had to fill out the pre-qualifer form that is on the site today. It’s interesting that they now (?) only want sites that have 1,000 or more daily visitors and a “laser sharp focus.” (Do they mean razor sharp focus?)

I don’t think you need a site with a minimum of 1,000 daily visitors to make it appealing to advertisers. Even a site with just a couple hundred visitors could be useful as long as there is relevance between the advertiser and the blog publisher.

Update: It’s not new. Nevermind. Have I mentioned yet I’m going on a much needed road trip/vacation in a few weeks.