So where are the Black Engineers these days?
ans: Right here in the neighborhood.
Have you seen the call-outs from corporate diversity recruiters for them at job fairs, career expos and newspaper want ad columns? Then, there is the magazine publication titled “Diversity Careers in Engineering & Information Technology”
Its latest publication arrived leading with an article titled “Women of Color find success in IT.“ Locally, members of Boston’s Black Data Processing – don’t let the words “data processing” foolya, because members work in marketing, financing, banking, law, accounting and other professional positions throughout the world: Greater Boston’s Metro BDPA chapter holds networking events around town often.
Want some FOSS? John William Templeton’s Digital Tipping Point segment is about free open source software from an African American software developer’s perspective – now playing on our online video playback system named smallwall.net.
We’ve spoken to scores of African American, African and international engineers lately who are comfortable making things happen in the Greater Boston area.
Some are building stuff for the future, like this.
ex-Microsoft developer Don Dodge's new software dream
The community of Roxbury is making history again. Its been a cluster test zone for LTE 4G wireless technology.
An invisible LTE 4G wireless cloud now hovers over Roxbury and Dorchester.
What’s weird? SOME people in Dudley Square, Orchard Park, the Harrison Avenue area and near Roxbury Crossing don’t trust what test vans are doing in their neighborhoods because they said so.
No all, but some – enough to require police detail to watch over crews testing day and night. But this not unusual because Verizon and NSTAR hires police details for their field work crews too.
Engineers can build some products in labs before they are boxed, packaged and sold in shrink wrap but this is not the case for 4G/LTE wireless cell clusters because each system has to be custom fitted to the terrain where it is designed to work - the Roxbury and Dorchester community is one laboratory chosen by Verizon, in this case.
People who question what testers do in the vehicles may be paranoid because the Boston Police Department has had its problems with community relations over time. They have called testers “the po po,” short for “police.” They think personnel are spying or taking down license plate numbers. They want the vans to leave.
not the po po
Take a look at this picture.
Personnel in the vehicles test the invisible RF frequency.
They do not pull up your personal identifiers and the cell phone signals they see are on entirely different frequencies than yours.
Obviously, people who have something to hide are not the target.
This blog also features a story from Nigeria’s Black Bill Gates about what the last computer will look like and ……
At the Grammy Music Awards show 2010, Wyclef Jean is on air now representing Haiti and his music, so we talking about music in this post with an opener from Plato.
Plato said ” music is a moral law, it gives flight to the mind, wings to the imagination and spontaneity and gaiety to everything in life.” AMEN
At the time of this writing I wondered how much Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts State House politician who has now been elected to the United States Senate for 2010 and beyond, payed in $ to use a pop hit song in his campaign.
boom box hipster
Brown’s people played the song “I’ve Got a Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas on television as they celebrated election night when his opponent conceded the contest.
This was a public performance of the song and perhaps included sync right licensing orders because his campaign played the song on television in Boston where radio stations often play Black Eyed Peas music.
Some music licenses by will.i.am are represented by the Cherry Lane Music publishing company www.cherrylane.com/will.aspx
They take orders for licensing projects related to the founding member of the grammy-award winning Black Eyed Peas.
A Boston Phoenix music reporter wrote during the summer and said this song by the Black Eyed Peas song was one of the most inexpensively produced songs to become a huge it.
His Cherry Lane catalog includes songs by Mary J. Blige, Santana, Earth Wind and Fire and others. We believe Adams has done a lot for music, especially hip hop, r&b and soul. One select credit by Adams as WRITER listed by Cherry Lane is the hit song titled “Boom Boom Pow” by The Black Eyed Peas.
Regarding the I’ve Got a Feeling tune – pl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas described this song to Billboard.com as a, “college anthem for people looking forward to escaping life’s pressures by going out and having a ball.”
That’s interesting!
BlackBoston.com scribes may never know how much U.S. Senator Scott Brown’s campaign payed in $$$ to license the track sync.
Obviously they chose a great song that brands well with his style of campaign that others may try to emulate in upcoming Republican races for office in many states to come.
this blog post by W3.0
new age music maker for cell phones
Watched Steve Jobs demo the iPad and it was so cool.
Go Steve!! You da man!!
DEAR STEVE: Did you ever see, sir, the Motorola Envoy wireless device? (photo to the left)
Do you know it could send faxes too? Can your iPad send a fax direct to a regular fax machine from anywhere?
I bet it won’t!
to wit: we sent a fax from an Envoy while sitting on the Massachusetts state house steps, read our emails, etc., but that was 20 years ago and it worked wirelessly with little effort.
- at less than $500 retail today, your iPad seems like a winner! And, its got a black face plate cover. Oh, wow!
- those schools who have stocked up on the Amazon Kindle should return them
- don’t know the facts yet, but if you gotta pay Apple big licensing fees to make software that will run on it, then its a PROBLEM. If the iPad software licensing policy descriminates against FOSS programers then they should be pissed about this.
- Apple should co-invest with LTE wireless technology companies to insure this thing will run everywhere there is oxygen and LTE cells on the planet.
- prediction: African entrepeneurs who live in areas on Africa’s continent where there is no governmental mission to administer and monetize waste disposables could enjoy the largest profits by producing and selling cool iPad covers and cases for the unit as they work with those abundant raw materials their communities dump into the trash bin.
What’s Hot: The first African American Governor of Massachusetts runs for reelection . Votes will be taken in about10 months.
There’s interesting activity - 1/27 – network party .. kicking it for DEVAL PATRICK at Mistrals.
Feature: President Obama’s State of the Union Address at 8:00 p.m., lively discussion to follow. To connect with people doing this and to get on board with this campaign send a cell phone text message, if you don’t mind to (617 )417-7456 for a referral to the Mistrals/Deval Patrick event producer and to consider a support action.
REACTION FROM SCOTT BROWN: “we are all one, right?” ( our words)
Next.
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AFRICAN NETWORKING what’s up
Two takes:
Take 1) http://www.artcapitalghana.com - important African art work for investors.
Download their catalog off the page. DHL shipped the physical CD to us from ARTCapital and we uploaded that catalog there. Thank you.
Take 2) Africa Investment & the Corporate Diaspora Eyembe Elango,a respected Male in Atlanta e-mailed in to say: “Hello, We’d love to meet more business leaders and entrepreneurs from Black Boston. “
his signature line says: “The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa, for he has so much to look forward to.”
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OBAMA’S SOTU ( SOTU 1/27 ) STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH – the first black guy to do it.
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BRKB-1-5 year hold – is a stock symbol and we are recommending that every person who games with the Massachusetts Lottery system cut back as much as you can, and invest your money in BRKB stock.
Background – the maker of this stock (BRKB) owns your
JORDANS MARSH furniture store. why do it
The only stock to buy today in the AGE of OBAMA is BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY STOCK.
BRKB is affordable. For comparison, a BRKA stock is cost …
know that [some] people investing in (Warren Buffet) who operate stock/trade companies in Boston, have supported the Bay State Banner ( as friends) and have given huge money to a school in Mission Hill at that magic time of the year when the MUST-give-money-to-non-profts for tax reduction benefits kicks in.
Would you want to see COMCAST buy NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, the Spanish-language Telemundo network, and the USA and Bravo cable channels with one fat check? Gee whiz! They just might do it soon.
Investing in the Online Newspaper
This article mentions investors by name who are buying and building online newspaper businesses. You can read about current projects and learn about non-profit companies that have been formed from the investments. In one business plan, $5 million in private money was put up for 120 journalism students to work with a radio station with 28 reporters to make an online newspaper.
Journalism Online is another well capitalized effort. They are dead set on taking over the hosting of newspaper web sites so they can insure they’ll get paid when they get read. On a their sites, a consumer would sign up for annual or monthly subscriptions, day passes, and single articles from multiple publishers. The publishers set the prices and viewing options.
The Black Press Boston Update
The Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall has a 200-320 capacity space. It can be configured for a variety of events such as conference. On September 30th it was reported that 200 people met with the operators of the Boston Banner newspaper, to conference with them about their plans for becoming a continued success story. { http://tinyurl.com/yd9ht2p ]
For the past 60 days or so this writer turned off the TV set and switched off Obama bashing radio talk shows. They were all replaced by my FM/AM battery-operated radio that cost about $19.00 from Radio Shack. I began paying more attention to my Facebook newsfeed. When I glanced at magazine covers or turned their pages at the store, I rarely bought them.
During my media-blackout, I would read the NYT, WSJ, the Globe the Herald, etc. but from a distance. I’d scan them quickly, then put them right back on the shelf where I got them. I brought the Boston Banner, the JP Gazette, and the Boston Phoenix papers home with me. I’d stuff litle LOLA and COLOR magazine into the brief then bring them home as well.
Information Overload
I think a less newsy world is not a bad thing really.
Newspapers in print rarely have been arranged to give a person exactly what they are looking for. The online editions aren’t much better. There is some customization but showcasing the ads often trumps the convenience of having a completely user-controlled experience when you view the material online.
I think print or electronic information that provides an answer to what people are looking for is something people want and likely to pay for. With 411, that happens.
Time after time, I have found information I needed faster by using the Yellow Pages directory, than I have using either Bing, Google or Yahaoo Search Engines. The advertisers pay for both.
A person called the other day seeking a “black” investor for his medical device product that would help solve the problem of sexually transmitted diseases. He wanted a person’s name and contact info. Frankly, I don’t think a “product” is going to solve that problem but it was an interesting question to pursue getting an answer for.
I had an hour to figure out where to go to obtain a duplicate social security card the other day in Boston. I was out and about so I decided to stop by FEDEX/KINKOS to rent computer time to look it up. At $0.25 a minute, time flies. It cost me a bit more than $3 to pin down where Room 148 is in the Tip O’Neil Office Building. When I got there, the office was closing at 4PM, although their web site said 5PM. I had 8 minutes left to go but got the deal done.
“Time” is manufactured by human beings in the UK
I don’t know how much time is left for newspapers to maintain an adequate revenue stream. Its hard to say really but I have seen a few trends that I’d like to remember.
[ here today, gone tomorrow ]
I’ve seen custom wordprocessing shops with people in them charging $1 a page to type pages for you get replaced by computer word processing software. Seen music recording studios that charge by the hour get replaced by home pc variety ProTools/Logic and Audacity software working in concert with hi-quality portable electronic audio processors. I’ve seen BYTE magazine, PC WORLD magazine and others like them who thrived on the Mail-Order advertising customer like the DELLs, Gateways and IBMs, get replaced by online Internet catalog sales, ebay, craigslist and etc.
The last Craigslist Killer
Craigslist by most accounts, is an amazing success story, but on the other hand – they have a hard time controlling SPAM Listings and its totally pissing off a lot of people. With newspaper want ad listings THERE IS NO SPAM. Spam may kill Craigslist.
On Saturday, September 19th from 12pm-5pm, over 500 Black Boston-area undergraduate and graduate students will gather at MIT’s Johnson Athletic Center for the 7th annual HollaDay. HollaDay, hosted by the Boston Black Student Network, Inc. (BBSN).
The networking extravaganza provides an arena for area Black college students to connect and realize the professional, community, and political opportunities in the Boston area.
produced by BBSN, Boston Black Student Network
BBSN is an entirely student-operated organization. It has grown to include over 1500 members of the BBSN Facebook group, over 2500 views of the monthly Newsletter, and over 500 students at its annual networking event, The HollaDay.
BBSN has been also able to partner with various student groups and Boston organizations to host informational workshops to benefit the Black student community throughout the year.
Additionally, the organization continues to serve as a source of support for greater issues affecting the Black community at large.
In 2007, due to the organization’s tremendous growth and existence of stable leadership, it finally branched off from the student groups who have supported its financial resources and became its own nonprofit organization.
For more information regarding HollaDay or to receive the BBSN monthly Newsletter, please contact:
Jarell Lee
Senior Co-Director
bbsnetwork.org@gmail.com
Just wanted to send a warm shout-out to the Foundation for a Green Future, Inc. and the co-sponsors for presenting the Boston Green Fest 2009 at City Hall Plaza. Thanks!
Aug 20th – Boston’s Black Hipster Mr. Lif (Jeffrey Haynes) is the closing act for tomorrow’s Boston Green Fest Kickoff Concert on City Hall Plaza beginning at 5 p. m. Bands are The Motion Sick, The Click 5, Samba Tremeterra, Tem Blessed and Mr. Lif on Thursday followed by two more days of music and festival.
At the three-day Boston Green Fest, neighborhoods will come together from across Greater Boston to work on solutions to make our city a healthy sustainable place to live.
Features:
ECO FASHION SHOW
EXHIBITS
FILM
FOOD & CRAFT VENDORS
GREEN BUSINESSES
KID’s AREA
MUSIC
and more….
NOTIFICATION OF SECURITY BREACH
PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS CHAPTER 93H.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (the “University”) hereby provides notice that a breach of security regarding personal information of students attending the University during the period of 1982-2002 and a few students prior to 1982 occurred from September 15, 2008 to October 27, 2008.
ok now, who got the data?
Under Massachusetts law, you have the right to obtain any police report filed in regard to this incident. If you are the victim of identify theft, you also have the right to file a police report and obtain a copy of it.
Massachusetts law also allows you to place a security freeze on your credit reports. A security freeze prohibits a credit reporting agency from releasing any information from your credit report without written authorization. Be aware that placing a security freeze on your credit report may delay, interfere with, or prevent the timely approval of any requests you make for new loads, credit mortgages, employment, housing or other services.
—>
if you have any questions about this matter
you may contact this web site www.umass.edu/computerintrusion or a SPECIAL TELEPHONE HELP LINE can be called
at (413) 545-8376
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
You can also e-mail correspondence to computerintrusion@umass.edu
Can Ya Dig It?
It was July 18th, Saturday morning when we read that Boston’s invaluable African-American owned newspaper had made news again with the headline “Bay State Banner to accept city’s loan offer” in the Boston Globe’s business section.
It was a good day for the Banner and Boston’s Black community!
We don’t read the Globe everyday but we read it often enough and its Saturday edition is often full of surprises. This Banner story was a good one. Yeay!
Now on another unrelated note….
The paper’s legal notice page printed an announcement that may appeal to minority-owned construction contractors.
It was about the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority invitation for bids on Contract #094-581 which is an order for work described as “Ted Williams Tunnel Ceilings Remediation and Anchor Testing” and the bid is open to everyone who can do this kind of gig.
Remember, this may include part of the section where the tunnel ceiling fell, but I have no idea if it does.
Interested contractors may contact the Office of Contract Administration at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority as soon as possible.
Bids are due August 5th, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.,
address: John T. Driscoll Building, 668 South Avenue, Weston,MA.
CompuServe enabled black online entrepreneurs in Atlanta, Boston and Detroit to monetize their passionate interests in black community online social networking well before the Internet reached mass appeal and this is an accounting of how it happened.
It was -14 degrees outside in Washington D.C when the female African American mayor was captured in a photograph by the Washington Post driving a snow plow through the streets. We were inside warm offices negotiating. Our collaboration with nationwide Afronet BBS sysops, Congressional Black Caucus members and attendees of a Department of Commerce conference about blacks on the new Information Superhighway, had created an opportunity to join people who operated independent African American online properties with an established publisher who welcomed the chance to build something together. The new online project was named GO AFRO.
>>(Jul 8, 2009) – Network World magazine reports that the granddaddy of the online industry, CompuServe, has been closed down by its parent AOL as of July , 2009, after 30 years in operation… full story <<
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(1995) The Museum of Afro-American history on Beacon Hill at 20 Joy Street had an online history moment “first” when its director, a Ms Sylvia Mckinley approved content for use on CompuServe’s Go Afro social networking forum.
Boston’s Kenny Granderson, the founder of Blackfacts.com, was actively working his magic in Go Afro. He also had bought the domain names roxbury.org, mattapan.org and dorchester.org and was publishing online while meeting with the City of Boston about possibilities to collaborate. One project was in association with banks installing kiosk-driven screens in their locations containing digital Black Boston history. That story was televised by Karen Holmes of Channel 5’s CityLine because the content was written in a book published by historian Robert Hayden of Boston’s South End. more details…
The Internet was bare of Black destinations for people who surfed online to go places and discover the world at the time. We searched the CompuServe network for the word “Afro and African American” only to find references to Grolier’s encyclopedia at the time. CompuServe had over 2 million active members and hundreds of connected social sections. We didn’t see any black operated ones. BostonMurrell co-produced the GO AFRO Compuserve venue on behalf of American Visions magazine, a world-wide magazine featuring Afro-American culture and arts. American Visions was the official magazine of the African American Museums Association when CompuServe partnered to launch its content online.
Clinton was the President of the United States as the project was unfolding. A new President of Haiti was being elected. Musician Greg Osby was gigging at Wally’s Cafe and signed copies of CDs distributed to online members of Go Afro. Boxer Joe Frazier, actress Pam Grier, and author Connie Briscoe’s (“Sisters and Lovers”) were forum interview guests. George Curry published Emerge Magazine and appeared to chat online audience twice. The USA Today newspaper publicized Go Afro online events nationwide.
To get it going, BostonMurrell hired Boston’s Roxbury Media Institute founder to assist with writing copy for 18 GO AFRO online introductory areas. The approved material and the upload of 8 years of digitized material from the magazine launched Go Afro’s online debut. It was one of the first significant revenue generating online destination for anyone that appreciates Afro-American culture and the arts, and was in direct competition with AOL’s NetNoir online venue. AOL had invested $500,000 to get NetNoir off the ground. CompuServe’s investment was the partnership agreement to join its system and their international media marketing machine was thrown in. Go Afro revenue came from connection fees and people had to pay to get there.
The competition for black online mind share was an all-out war. Analysts predicted GO AFRO could generate a million dollars in gross revenue and it did. Revenue splits were pushed out to the sponsor and CompuServe retained most of it. The rest covered staff hours and funded offline networking meetings with members in different states.
This writer went to a member meeting in DC and 60 people were there from across the United States. Participants dropped thousands of consumer dollars on the host city. Staff were a mix of volunteers who were expert in their respective areas. Most resided in the US while one, the leader of the Music section, lived in the United Kingdom.
CompuServe was charging for access and people didn’t mind paying. GO AFRO had registered 35,000 paying subscribers, managed 600,000 personal communications and CompuServe distributed a Go Afro team produced “Museums without Walls” multimedia CD ROM to its three million subscribers nationwide in recognition of the importance of Black history, art and culture in America for free.
CompuServe was the home of GO AFRO – the world’s first online revenue producing crowd sourced destination for everyone who appreciated African-American culture, worldwide.
This post is a tribute to CompuServe and a thank you to American Visions magazine ( I hope all of you are doing well).
Online content creators seeking to monetize their time online have it harder now. The game has changed.
CompuServe put revenue in the hands of content creators and 15% of the proceeds was not unusual. ISPs and Search Engines are still getting paid from people surfing the net. The ISPs ( Comcast, Verizon, etc.) will share revenue with a few content producers but not many. Google banks $21 billion a year from displaying ads during search activity while a tiny amount is shared with content creators.
Google’s latest cell phone has the capability to involve African Americans in the high growth cell phone industry in ways that were never possible before the G1 phone with Google’s Android operating system.
How to make money in the Google G1 Android Cell Phone market.
create a software idea in your head
focus on who will use it on the G1
Buy the G1 phone
Go to Craiglist
Hire a cheap software programmer
Build your software program for the phone
Make two programs
One should be a limited demo version. Give that one away freely.
Figure out a way to get paid. Monetize it.
Show friends, get feedback
.Develop a marketing plan for it
Distribute the demo program via Internet Software download sites
Get together with BlackSoftware.com to promote it.
That site has thousands of leads for you.
As soon as you finish your first program, start working on another one.
You do not need to have great programming skills to do this.
201 CMR 17.00 is a new Massachusetts State law subject to go into effect on January 1, 2009.
Titled “Standards for The Protection of Personal Information of Residents
the portable office
of the Commonwealth” the new regulation may cost you money to deal with it – depending on your business situation.
Costs- The state estimates compliance will cost $3,000 upfront, plus $500 a month, for a small business employing 10 people, with three laptops, seven desktops and one network server.
Requirements - When and if the new law takes effect every business handling Massachusetts residents’ personal data must: Build firewalls and encrypt data whenever it is transmitted or stored on portable devices; Develop a security program, designate an employee to manage it, and discipline employee violators; Train employees regarding security, and on and on… These are just some of the requirements reported by Mass High Tech Times online.
Its about how you electronically handle “personal information.”
The new law defines personal information as follows:
“Personal information,” a Massachusetts resident’s first name and last name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements that relate to such resident: (a) Social Security number; (b) driver’s license number or state-issued identification card number; or (c) financial account number, or credit or debit card number, with or without any required security code, access code, personal identification number or password, that would permit access to a resident’s financial account; provided, however, that “Personal information” shall not include information that is lawfully obtained from publicly available information, or from federal, state or local government records lawfully made available to the general public.
The Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation administers 201 CMR 17.00. Read their web site to see the entire law as written.
Business groups have spoken up about it. Legislators have been encouraged to delay its effective date at the time of this writing.
Christmas colors of red and green can’t seem to keep retailers and television newscasters from singing the blues about the drop in expected sales during the holiday season.
A lot of money is spent on intercepting your attention with spirited discount offers from merchants. Those cookies in your web browsers drip with chocolate somebody pays for . Unfortunately, they know who you are as a profile customer.
Their investments in cyberspace market targeting is focused on reaching your e-mail in-box or social network environment space to propose “interesting offers.”
Boston in Blue
The Top 5 Paid marketing keyword
buyers in Cyberspace USA list & how much bling was purchased:
It used to be that the customer was king but that is not the deal today. When Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall someone watched him land to see which way he would turn, in order to offer him a service.
And that’s what’s happening right now with Search Engine Keyword Bling Bling technology – cyberspace marketers have learned how to interrupt you with just the right offer at the right time but its not a perfect science yet.
That’s right, and its not a bad thing when done kindly. A Web 2.0 consultant observed- “Advertisers are testing campaigns on social media platforms and publishers are testing and running trials on how to monetize their offerings while delivering value. “
Ultimately, I think that means we the people are evolving in cyberspace in a way that manipulates advertisers expectations to get what we want when we want it.
He won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, the Nobel prize of supercomputing.
—->
“One day, the Internet will become our shared planet-sized supercomputer and individuals will become nodes on the Internet and the Internet, as we know it, will become obsolete and “disappear” into our collective memory,” he said.
I felt the hard, cold steel of a gun against the back of my head. I spun around and saw my assailant’s finger shaking on the trigger: “Don’t run or I’ll shoot you,” he said. I was just 14 years old, and death was a stranger to me….. “
The OBAMA Jan 20th swearing-in ceremony event is being shown on wide screen television in Boston at The Historic Charles Street African American Methodist Episcopal Church,
551 Warren Street, Roxbury, Ma. 02121
Phone 617-442-7770
with Rev. Dr. Gregory G. Groover, Sr., M.S.S., Div., D. Min. Pastor.
This event is FREE and OPEN to the general public. It is sponsored by The Community Life Ministry Department, Charles St. A.M.E. Church & The Historic National Equal Rights League Inc. ( HBERL ) Boston Branch.
Contact Jacquolyn Payne-Thompson 617-442-4535 for more info.
ALL MEMBERS OF CHARLES ST. A.M.E. CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY ARE INVITED TO ATTEND.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Light food will be provided by Chef Lee Famous Soul Foods at
7 Washington Street, Dorchester, Mass. 617-427-0164.
Producers on BlogTalk Radio and the zinged Living n Black platform are “podcasting” program segments. The compilations define Internet Radio today, yet there’s more.
Internet Radio comes in two flavors in our opinion. One is the combination of hosted streamed audio of live terrestrial station programming with pure web site platform stations. The other can be live, but mostly pre-recorded podcasts listed on portal site playlists as “Internet Radio” programming compilations, which may be pre-linked into your cell phone media service option screens and on software-based media player lists.
“Behringer” is a popular name in the Podcasting/Internet Radio production business, in fact before writing this article, we couldn’t find one negative review of their podcaststudio boxed kit shown on this page. We know Behringer is a serious audio products company.
[insert] Boston’s Touch Radio FM 106.1 black owned radio station merges online radio streaming with interactive live broadcast show content conversation influenced by MYSPACE people in Boston. The Funky Fresh Boston Marathon Radio Program on-air broadcast show is impacted by their MySpace Friend communications in real-time!
to wit: creating pre-recorded podcasts for Internet Radio audience playback can be a rewarding but challenging experience. Its like having an FM audio quality broadcast station in your closet, but you have to feed it often with new content or it will get rusty in there.
We began producing podcast segments using the Network Solutions Platform (netsol.com) because NetSol is the oldest, biggest domain name registrar in the business and their $12 pe r month hosting plans provides: a) a streaming Windows Media Server and b) a streaming Real Media server at NO extra cost – while providing all you need for HTML directory web site content storage space for web site language.
For a while, it covered our video and audio streaming requirement by delivering streaming media right away to capable web browser screens, that is before we built our own video playback system.
What’s cool about having your own audio streaming server is:
Think Youtube in your dresser drawer.
What’s bad about having your own streaming server is:
You need THREE: a Quicktime, a Windows, and a Real Media server; not to mention a FLASH file streaming capability just to satisfy every single possible web site viewer that comes to your page, because, not every Windows, Apple, Linux or Cell Phone browser knows how to handle stream x, y or z. Streamed Windows Media audio has WMA as a file extension.
Streamed Real Media audio uses the RM file extension. Both Windows and Real Networks provide free encoding software. Microsoft named it the Windows Media Encoder, Real Networks named it Helix. Both files are efficient and small, however; MP3 audio files are far more universally used and that’s the way it is still trending today. Apple’s Quicktime requirement is different, very different and the streaming server for it ain’t cheap.
everyone used to have one of these
So, we tossed netsol out and began to store our MP3 podcst files on a regular server and took a break from podcasting for a while. Shortly after, the Boston Globe called to give us a preview of a soon to be released podcast from their servers about ethnic and minority community issues in Boston and we liked it so much we took a break.
Imagine your own FM radio quality broadcast ! You can do it with use of creative roll-ins, an anchor lead and PSA style embeds.
Save your files in the MP3 /44khz 16-bit format because every CD or MP3 player and web site anywhere can handle them.
No matter who downloads them, your name of track, author; even logos or brand images will pull up on your listener’s browser if you carefully add that information when saving the audio files.
Flash format audio files are appropriate in some cases.
This broadcast opened with Governor Patrick’s Massachusetts win. It also covers topics about the New England Urban Music Awards Show, politics, and thoughts about Roxbury ‘07.
AboutBlackBoston.com recorded it on consumer gear at home: a $10 mic and the built in sound card in the computer and it works!
The Behringer PodcastStudio USB shown in the picture holds promise. Its a complete package. The USB version cost about $100. Add another hundred for a firewire version kit.
stay tuned: programming about “live food” topics are planned for recording on the Behringer
Leave a reply about your podcast / Internet Radio interests
He stood before Congress.
Goose bumps all across the nation
are rising.
Supposedly, its an economic mess out here.
BOA IRA accounts pay 2.10% over 18 months and Government secured.
Just left Circuit city at South Bay. They bankrupt. All things in store are gone. The cashier playing Hip Hop Rap on the Boom box wasn’t disturbed. She said “well, we gonna be here till March, they told me, or wheneva all this stuff gets sold…..”
I tried to buy a bikers bag. She told me it ain’t coming up in inventory. Can’t sell it to ya, she said. Yarn!
OBAMA’S SPEECH: Limbaugh producers are taking down notes. Imus will have a better show tomorrow though. The allies are listening. Terrorists are too. The closing message in the speech is coming soon. R&B, NuJazz and other artist call it “the outro.” Well, its done now.
Quick Save
the pundits on air tv are talking. Interesting.
Obama’s lead was important. Choke. Bailout. School. Bank. Secondary Market. Roseveltian. Emerge. Strong.
Not a State of the Union address…. or was it?
Speaking into the middle,
PRESIDENT OBAMA ASKED
Saw McCain
Ron Emanuel was there with the swish of humanity…
Chairman of the Fed was on the Hill today. Concerned.
Rare Positive Session of the Dow. It went up 200 points, oh wow!
This story continues. Why bailout banks. [The Bank of America has been sued before all this. Yep, its a class action thing about those $35 charges resulting in so many people going negative when comparing ATM balance, to Web Balance to whatever the real balance was.] Research the net, learn more about it – its current and if you are a BOA customer – you’ll get some bucks back for sure, if you join the class…
The concert is awesome and we are hearing it right now on the radio as Bono and U2 closes up the night singing Hello Hello, do you feel …..at the Somerville Theatre, in Somerville, Massachusetts.
U2 came here to reboot. Bono said the music business is being run by software so here we are in a 900 seat theatre setting playing live music to people. They’ve been everywhere before and will make rounds around the world carrying a new album with them after Somerville’s performance.
Bono was also to do a special moment at Obama’s inaugural but it was yanked at the last moment by Axelrod and crew. Couldn’t happen because of a modesty thing they told him. His original plan was to open with the tune “Pride ( In the Name of Love) after producers put up Martin Luther King speaking, in 1963, the “I have a Dream Speech” on the big wide video screen before inaugural crowds, but the speech was pulled, Bono said.
They performed five songs in Somerville and took questions from the audience. The new album was recorded in North Africa.
A commercial from Dr. Dre cut in talking about headphones he’s marketing under his own name. Bono was nominated for a Nobel Prize for his global advocacy for Africa’s poor. Good luck Dre.
Interesting band, interesting times. Music is good.
Keep it coming U2.
Thanks WBCN.
Thanks MTV- the MC, for the U2 in Somerville live radio show.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC’s jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.
Regulation is cool but a democracy is a hard thing to administer.
Low-Powered FM radio stations are broadcasting to add value (some call it “distortion”) and content you can hear on ordinary radios in cars and homes. A lot of people are enjoying this form of alternative free radio.
Boston’s FM Station named TOUCH FM 106.1 is on a mission.
These types of Low-powered radio broadcasts serve a unique tribe. This tribe is comprised of content providers: musicians and program producers, who cannot get aired on commercialized corporate-owned stations, and their listeners.
FREE FM Radio content is a friend to most of us.
Now, we call attention to the Conductor Mr. Charles Clemmons, owner of Boston’s Touch FM 106 community radio station, aka “The Fabric of the Black Community.” Touch radio signals have been peeked at by communications broadcast engineers. He knows it and he’s Walking for Power.
Specialized equipment, such as a Cushman CE-6030 Radio System Analyzer with a Tracking Generator and Power Monitor will measure radio broadcast station power. Cushman equipment helps when adjusting the RF signal.
It will monitor a broad range of frequencies. I remember the spectrum displays of the device. The screens are green, the wave forms are somebody’s radio transmitter. They flow like an ocean wave near calibrated grid lines. Its been years since I’ve seen these ten thousand dollar puppies.
When used for good intention it will insure one radio station is not distorting another one’s center frequency. We used to whistle a 1Khz tone into a radio transmitter to tune them on the Cushman.
But, this instrument is blind to the hunger of the unsigned, unknown music artist seeking a break.
During Berklee’s Envisioning the 21st Century: Music Business Models public panel discussion sat Marsha Vlassic who has represented a celebrated roster of rock and pop acts, such as Ben Folds, Ozzy Osbourne, Neil Young, Lou Reed and others. Vlassic is credited for pioneering music festival packages including Ozzfest and others.
“Without Radio it is nearly impossible for an unknown music artist to break through” she informed the audience. She didn’t endorse community radio stations, nor was that the question she had responded to. The word IMPOSSIBLE is a strong point!
Web sites like this one http://www.aareff.com/100wtx.htm exists to enable communities to program radio content on air and blast it underneath the cloud of the commercial megawatt powered stations.
For the tribe that doesn’t care about low watt FM radio stations, you shouldn’t be too surprised to see The Conductor of Touch FM 106 walking from Boston to Los Angeles on a mission to educate you about the value of low power community radio stations nationwide.
He’s out there coming to a place near you. ( www.touchfm.org )
Soul Train’s Don Cornelius moment was a highlight, I think. Later, as the Ojay’s stretched out, you could see the younger artists taking notes and learning some new things from watching them perform.
Imagine the pressure BET producers must have been under to change plans so quickly and come back with a nice tribute to Michael Jackson’s legacy within two short days. Add in the humanitarian segments and the Jacksons appearances and it was all good.
Jay-Z’s statement song about auto-tune philosphy added an interesting twist. That song reminded me of what one of Michael Jackson’s producers had said during one of the many CNN / Larry King Live reports. Michael had asked the producer “why can’t we make a new musical instrument and use that.”
The Color Purple musical left Boston a few days ago and is on its way to another venue now.
Here’s what some people had to say who saw it.
“..it was amazing and Im glad that they are involved with the Black community. I know I got a notice that the YPN would be having a The Color Purple night and they would be going early and meeting that cast (something I would have loved to do), but all in all that show was AMAZING, and…My friend and I had a really enjoyable evening.“
#
“… it was such a wonderful show, my mom and I enjoyed it was such a great musical. I think it will do very well here in Boston there is a buzz already.”
#
“It was great. ..my daughter and her friend says the seats were great and the play was ‘FANTASTIC’” #
from the Dorchester Reporter – DOTNEWS http://www.dotnews.com/2009/arts-coalition-treats-hundreds-color-purple-citi-center
Arts coalition treats hundreds to “The Color Purple” at Citi center
“I would go back again, and again, and again if I could!” exclaims Cindy Reed, one of scores of Dorchester residents who received free tickets for the June 16th Community Night performance of “The Color Purple,” the hit “musical about love….”
Boston Bay State Banner http://www.baystatebanner.com/arts41-2009-06-11
Boston Banner newspaper
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White Rhino Report http://whiterhinoreport.blogspot.com/2009/06/color-purple-limited-time-in-boston.html
Our visit to the theater last night was a triple treat. We saw a terrific performance of a fabulous show. I got to spend the entire Fathers’ Day with my first-born. And the piece de resistance: Ti and I sat next to a fascinating and accomplished actress, Miquel Brown, who is in town shooting a film.
#
Despite the heavy storyline, the musical is full of life, light, and humor; I didn’t expect to laugh and be moved as much as I was. The entire cast was great and presented solid singing, dancing, and acting, although the woman who plays Sophie stole the show. #
Got to wonder if an article like thishttp://tinyurl.com/mvozfj (“As weekly paper closes, black community loses a voice: Bay State Banner falls victim to the downturn,” Boston Globe, June 8 2009) will excite the saver putting money in a savings account at-a-rate-like-no-other-time-in-history, enough to pull out some to invest in the Boston Banner?
What will they want to know more to do it and is that explained adequately in the article? Probably not!
Tomorrow, the Banner will likely update BostonBanner.com with more relevant information about their financial situation.
Used to be that Boston banks who loan money to local businesses to cover receivables and such wanted to see $2 in current cash assets for every $1 of the credit line requested, but perhaps times have changed all that.
Media mongul Rupert Murdoch was quoted recently as saying “newspapers have to charge more for content.” This is probably right, but then again, his Myspace interactive media property has had huge layoffs recently and the digerati on Techcrunch.com are saying their comeback against FaceBook is next to impossible, even though Myspace revenue from digital sales stretches towards $500 million a year gross.
So what could the average Boston Banner reader say to help save the Banner? They could say “no more free newspapers, charge us and we’ll pay.” Could be a lesson to be learned considering….
If the Boston Banner closes (let’s hope it doesn’t) there will be a slew of minority-culture indie publications attempting to its place. I do mean “print” like sheets of paper, not web sites.
Black media web sites in Boston aren’t newspapers but a lot of people read them. The Boston Black web cloud is free from the constraints of journalism theory, although they have learned a few tricks from journalists and reporters.
Predictions on possibilities:
Consider Color Magazine - they could take on an expansion to capture some of the print territory the Banner leaves behind if they can handle that financially. The publication is distributed on the street now and in many locations their boxes sit right beside the Banner’s. To do so may encourge them to drop the word “magazine” from their title, print less glossy pages and scratch the word “[diversity] as in hire-me-I’m colored” from their masthead.
Consider Unity First, a newspaper/magazine that been going strong for at least 20 years. They have a good audience and had roots in Boston.
Can’t leave this post without mentioning the Dorchester Reporter newspaper. DR already covers topics found in the Banner and its a great paper.
Then there is the unique Black Bostonian newspaper which has its own tribe and voice… The El Planeta / Boston Latino media orgs – any of these could become players, but will they?
Probably the best possible outcome for continuing operations at the Banner is to influence a saver, not the VCs, to jump into the pop and help it break through. So saver, when you do it, take away that word “free” on the Banner’s header and put a price on it.
Aug 20th – Boston’s Black Hipster Mr. Lif (Jeffrey Haynes) is the closing act for tomorrow’s 
Google’s latest cell phone has the capability to involve African Americans in the high growth cell phone industry in ways that were never possible before the G1 phone with Google’s Android operating system.
PRESIDENT OBAMA is on air now.
