Vote now in the Slam Idol podcast Contest 6

[Simon Toon]

If you could play or mention this I'd be jolly grateful! Thanks very
much in advance!
Simon.
http://slamidol.tripod.com/

[JBT]

On 10/15/05, Simon Toon <simon...@mac.com> wrote:
> If you could play or mention this I'd be jolly grateful! Thanks very
> much in advance!

Very cool, I sure will !

[Simon Toon]

Hi Julius,

Thanks very much! Hey, Julius, why are the Netherlands so prominent in
the podcasting world? Is it because Adam Curry was living there for the
first 6 months?

All the best,
Simon.

[Dave Hitt]

We've started voting on policy and categories at the Podcast Peer Awards.
If you're a member, stop by and vote. If you're not, sign up and be part of
what is destined to become the most prestigious podcast award in the world.

http://podcastpeers.org/index.html

[JBT]

On 10/15/05, Simon Toon <simon...@mac.com> wrote:

> Thanks very much! Hey, Julius, why are the Netherlands so prominent in
> the podcasting world?

Is it that obvious? I'm actually a bit surprised reading that,
there are only about 200 Dutch podcasts now (that's a guess).

> Is it because Adam Curry was living there for the first 6 months?

I don't think Adam was that influential, although we all know him from his days
on Decibel Radio Amsterdam, Radio Veronica, and Countdown on TV.
I sort of planned an online broadcast around the same time Adam
started podcasting,
and had some involvement in audio-streams for years already.
The Dutch also have PHILIPS, they are a very radio-minded people,
always have been. This country is still loaded with pirate-radio,
illegal FM-transmitters, electronics experts, audio-technicians,
and of course lots of DeeJays.
On top of that we are very well connected, the entire country can have
broadband access now. Some neighborhoods of larger cities are
fibered with 10 Mbit up 10 Mbit down now, and Dutch Internet traffic
(in bytes) is more than doubling each year ever since 1996
(see http://www.ams-ix.net/technical/stats/CUMU.html for a hint).

But why are we so prominent then? Hmm..

Maybe it's our love for freedom, our spoiled godless minds
(41% of the Dutch is non-religious) and our big mouths because of that?
Maybe it's the weather, we must be used to doing stuff indoors ?
Maybe it's the reliable power over here, the high uptimes of 'the grid'
(I've had a total of 40 minutes of power-outage in the last 5 years) ?
Maybe it's because we can all read and understand English
(the main language on computer-systems and networks) quite well ?
Maybe it's because we live in between all kinds of superpowers, or
because we don't really belong, or don't want to belong anywhere
and therefore feel at home in everything that is worldwide?
Because we might as well be another state of the US of A? Maybe
it's because we are still among the most prosperous countries in the world?
Maybe it's in our genes to create, to publish, to exhibit, to shout,
or even to be somewhat arrogant ?

Some of all of that, I guess.. ;-)

Regards,

Julius