Yesterday came the conclusion of Gnomedex with Adam Curry ending it off with his keynote. For his keynote, he podcasted his 200th episode right from Gnomedex and it was cool watching a professional broadcaster do it live with all the sound effects and such. I think I've learned alot these past couple days, met alot of people and has definitely been an eye opener. Following the conference,
Mack and I attended a dinner that was initially a gathering for the Canadian contingent but eventually turned into a 20 more people gathering. It was good times and I even met another Blackberry developer! We also met up with two Microsoft employees afterwards for a drink where they gave a glimpse into what its like to work on the Microsoft campus and I must say Microsoft really knows how to treat their employees. From discounts, trips, membership into clubs to the daily little things- I would imagine after working for Microsoft it would be hard to work for another company unless they provide similar perks.
Going back to Adam's Curry keynote, he talked about how powerful podcasting can be in advertising. For one of his example, Adam played a piano song by Rob Costlow (a piano composer) on one of his earlier podcasts and within weeks, Rob was selling thousands of cds and booking 1000 seat theatres that sold out. As podcasting becomes more prevalent, the word of the common folk becomes more significant (granted Adam is somewhat a celebrity). And even now when I buy a book or hardware, I don't take the word of the author or manufacturer and base it heavily on customer reviews. The advertising model is going to have to change for it remain effective. Anyways, the real point of the above blurb is that Adam played an excerpt from Rob Costlow's song and it was unbelievably good. His melodies are simple, yet have a very distinctive tone that is reminiscent of Final Fantasy. The music he creates are slow and soothing - the type you would listen to by a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate making you feel like time slowed down. Actually, I'm listening to it right now beside a fireplace! As Adam said, Rob's music should be in movies and I have no doubt it will make it one day. Check out his songs at
http://www.robcostlow.com
You can download Adam Curry's 200th podcast
here
Tags:
gnomedex piano music podcast microsoft