Download the show here!

I first met Fausto Fernós & Marc Felion of the Feast of Fools at the second podcast expo where I briefly said hi. I was very much in the closet at the time so I didn’t want people to see me talking with them. How ironic that I would be outed to some of my best friends at the time, Dawn and Drew, during that trip.

We hung out quite a bit more at the 3rd podcast expo a year ago. It was a week after I moved to San Francisco and was on the way to being able to be more myself and express who I was. I had a great time hanging with them and was there for a great cake sitting video with their hot fan Jonathan.

We then hung out at The Stud in San Francisco a few days after the expo for a live show. I was given a free pass from Curtis Jensen to Steamworks, one of the sponsors of the Feast of Fools show. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time but eventually decided to check out the club.

Thru the Feast of Fools and Curtis being there I learned about Steamworks, which is now the company I work for, and have for the past 3 months now. I was able to come out under my own terms 3 months ago and feel better about myself, and life. I am free to finally be myself.

Since then a lot has happened….It was great to be able to hang out with Fausto & Marc in Vegas at the 4th annual New Media Expo (formerly podcast expo). We recorded a show and discussed being outted 2 years ago by Nobody Likes Onions, depression and my suicide attempt on Twitter, and the future of podcasts and online communities.

Here is the invite code for Ping.fm which I mentioned towards the end of the show: vivalaping

It is a great listen as I think there are quite a few unanswered questions about me and who Nick Starr really is. If you are in the San Francisco area make sure to head out to Meet & Greet in San Francisco  (Pilsner Inn) with Peaches Christ on Thursday, August 21, 2008 • 7-10pm 225 Church Street, San Francisco, CA, and donate to their travel fund.

Download the show here!

I am getting ready to fly out to the New Media Expo (formerly the Podcast expo, and about 3 other names which everyone will be saying. You will be seeing a lot of tweets about different meetups, dinners, lunches, events, and parties if you follow me on Twitter over the next few days, as well as some cool info about people I meet out there.

This is my 4th year, and the conferences 4th as well. It sort of became a bit too corporate last year, but I think Vegas will bring the life back into the attendees.

I’ll be headed to the GLBT Podcaster & Listener Meet & Greet hosted by Fausto & Marc of Feast of Fools Thursday at 7pm at the SpaceQuest Bar, Hilton Hotel, NLOL Comedy show Thursday night at 10:30pm, Revision3 Meetup Friday at the Double Down Saloon from 6-8PM, and have friends flying in from Toronto which I met recently just for vacation. I am sure that there will be other great events I’ll be at, so if you want to say hi and are in the area, watch my Twitter stream.

Also, if you want to see what is going on (wether you are at the expo or not) watch/bookmark this link for all tweets related to the New Media Expo. I try to filter out all the noise and get all the tags people will be using in that customized Twitter Search, but if there are extra tags I should add let me know.

I also did an interview a few weeks ago, which is live today with Victor Cajiao of the Typical Mac User Podcast about social media & new media. We discussed a variety of services and how you can use them to gain and keep an audience as well as other trips and tricks of the this new media world we live in. Make sure to listen to the show here, subscribe to future shows in iTunes, and follow Victor on Twitter.

Well I’m off…my brand new Moo business cards arrived 1 hour before I was leaving the office so I’m ready to have fun and party it up in Vegas baby! Cya there!

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I more often then not go out and buy the biggest most expensive Apple product the second it comes out. With my move to SF, I wasn’t able to buy an iPod Classic when they first came out, but now that I have a job (BTW I got a job!!!!) I can now spend that $100 Apple iPhone credit and buy a brand new iPod Classic. The question is do I go 80 gigs or 160?

A while back I lost ALL of my music and was able to re-download the iTunes purchases. I’ve built my music collection back up to around 45 gigs (including music, movies, podcasts, etc). Does it make sense for me to spend the extra $100 for a thicker iPod when I won’t even be filling up the 80 gig anytime soon?

Recently I haven’t been buying much music, and I have all of the cd’s from the bands I enjoy. So what is the point of expanding my music library beyond the confines of what my laptop HD can hold? (I’ve had some bad luck with external laptop HD’s recently as well)

So the question is, do I spend the $149 (plus $100 store credit) for the 80 gig or do I spend the $249 (plus $100 store credit) for the 160 gig iPod which I won’t be filling up anytime soon?

Your thoughts?

Today internet radio stations across the board have decided to shut down their broadcasts to protest the new outrageous rates recently set by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C.

All of the major players including LAUNCHcast, Pandora, MTV, Real/Rhapsody, WXPN.com, KCRW.com, and many many others with the exception of AOL and Clear Channel have decided that today is the day to make a stand.

The new rates are higher then any online streaming company can afford to make a profit. Yahoo!’s LAUNCHcast is one of the largest in the industry and doesn’t plan on operating as a loss-leader.

There are ways in which you can participate in as well. Visit the SaveNetRadio.org which includes links to your local congressman and other industry execs that need to hear the message of the little man.

There’s also lots of independent artists out there which freely allow their songs to be streamed without royalties like Brother Love and Slau pictured above. Their songs can be found on iTunes as well as the PodSafe Music Network.

Read

P.S. Brother Love is going to be at the Canal Room in NYC on June 27th for the FREE live show.

Doors open at 8pm and Brother Love goes on at 10:00pm. RSVP to attend here.

Just placed my order for the #9 book on Amazon’s Top 100, Ancestor by Scott Sigler. Scott has become the web’s biggest podcast novelist. Starting with Earth Core and progressed into Ancestor. It’s a great listen if you haven’t ever heard a podcast novel. The story line is gripping and he’s quite the story teller.

It is pretty cool to see a podcaster in the top 10, let alone 100 over at Amazon with a book they published based on content that is already out in audio for for free. Congrats to Scott. Now I just have to get him to sign my copy at the next podcast expo.

>Buy your copy todayhis site

There has already been 2 Tampa blogger meetups in the past week or so, and I’ve been unable to attend any of them. Tonight I will be up at the Panera in Oldsmar at the meetup starting at 6:30. There are a good number of confirmed people attending. Look forward to meeting everyone tonight.

You can find all of the details here.

This isn’t the first time that one of my sites has been mentioned on commandN, but it is pretty cool to see it up there. It’s one of the few video podcasts that I am able to keep up on.

They linked to my site about Google opening Gmail up to the everyone, and the funny Gmail ad on YouTube.

If you don’t watch commandN, you should. Check out Episode 80 here, and subscribe to their video podcast using iTunes.

When’s Amber going to invite me up to co-host a show with her?