While uploading to my Flickr account last evening, I had fun labeling some photos I had of Tod Maffin; which leads me to this post in which I identify some of the many different versions of Tod. Collect them all and let me know if you have any others.

• Urbanite Tod
• Dapper Tod
• Vaudeville Tod
• Motivational Tod by roland
  
• Evil Grin Tod
• Super Hero Tod by Laurent LaSalle
• Super Spy Tod
• Cuddle Tod by William Spaetzel
  
• Sideways Tod (sorry Whitney) by Whitney Hoffman
• PC-using Tod by tyfn
  

Tod Maffin’s email came out earlier today: a last minute social media meet-and-greet with Jeremiah Owyang (formerly of PodTech, soon to be with Forrester) would be held this evening in a Vancouver lounge.

As it turned out, the lounge was booked for a private event. Thankfully, us social media types are very adaptable. We ended up talking about the web and digital toys (like Andrei’s Sony Ericcson phone that scans and reads business cards) at Milestones in Yaletown.

By this time tomorrow night, I’ll have attended three new media/social media events in three nights. What’s particularly nice is that I’ve made new friends (Tatsuya Nakagawa, Rachel Newton, Vern Baker, Chuck LeDuc and Andrei Iancu) that I will have the opportunity to connect with, again, tomorrow night. It was also great to hang out with Derek Miller (not because he was my ride).

I published my very first podcast on April 29, 2005. I can’t even listen to the damned thing any more - much as I expect I won’t be able to listen to the shows I produce this week in two years.

To celebrate this event, I did something that I haven’t been doing on a regular schedule this year — I released an episode of Electric Sky. My guest on the anniversary episode is Tod Maffin, the man responsible for me podcasting and blogging.

A long version of the conversation with Tod will be published later this week on MarkBlevis.com.

I’m flattered that I was nominated by the Never Was blog for a Thinking Blogger Award. The idea appears to be to promote blogs that are interesting, informative, and provide value. What a compliment!

I have decided to make my nominations based on people who are bloggers first and may (or may not) podcast as a way to further spread their message. Here are my nominations for a Thinking Blogger Award:

1. Michael Geist - I realize that this is seconding the nomination that appears on the Never Was blog. Michael blogs about copyright, licensing, net neutrality and many other issues that relate to technology and Canadian law. Besides being well written, well spoken and prolific, Michael is an incredibly nice guy and that has to be worth some points.
2. Tod Maffin - While Tod does publish the odd satirical and off-beat post, he predominantly blogs with a critical view on many topics including technology, broadcasting and social media. Another well written, well spoken, prolific and all-round nice guy. What is it with these people?
3. Chris Brogan - Chris is a champion of the community aspect of social media, both online and in-person. His blog offers insight into the application of social media to build communities and it regularly examines the relationship of social media to traditional modes of communication. On top of everything else, Chris gives free hugs.
4. Robert Safuto - Awakened Voice is a fantastic blog that examines the tools of social media and offers great thoughts on the social media phenomenon. Robert publishes video tutorials on how to setup and use the tools. I’ve never met Robert, though I’m sure he’s as nice as everyone else on this list. I wonder if he’ll come to Podcasters Across Borders.
5. Dale Arseneault - Dale’s blog specializes in knowledge management and organizational innovation, though his expertise stretches further to include areas such as transformation, facilitation and collaboration (and many other “ations” I’ve overlooked). If you can think beyond the professional/business centric focus of his blog, you will find that there is a lot in there that can be applied to everyday living. Oh… and Dale’s incredibly nice, too.

Here are the rules of participation in the Thinking Blogger Awards:

1. If you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think;
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme; and,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

Tod Maffin said that the problem with being a futurist is that people hold you to account when you “get it wrong”. So, I will say that this post is a combination of my (ahem) predictions and hopes for 2007.

In no particular order…

1) Podcast and RSS distribution networks will become more influential

They have separated indie bands from those signed to major labels, and they will start to increase the gap between the basement Podcasters and those who produce “gold” or have connections or money — distribution networks will bridge the gap between the producers and consumers via those who can repackage and mass-circulate content to those with influence and large audiences.

2) Apple’s M4A will become widely available

Whether through affordable licensing options or released to the public domain, Apple will make its proprietary M4A file format widely available. In fact, this will be the first step towards Apple making it possible for any portable player to hook into iTunes thus increasing the profile of its powerful online music store.

3) Tracking tools will be developed

Some genius will develop a tool to track and report on Podcast listen details (time of listen, length of listen, fast-forwards, etc…) from a portable or computer player to the creator. Who will be the first? iTunes? Microsoft? iRiver? PodPress?

4) Google will index audio

Google will launch an extremely accurate speech-to-text translator that will index audio content from RSS feeds, leaving PodScope and Podzinger in its wake.

5) Powerful commenting functions

It will become easier for listeners to participate in the conversation when someone rolls out a feature that makes it possible to cache a text or audio comment that will be sent to the Podcast producer the next time the device is synced with a computer.

6) Taking managing the media to the next level

Political parties and companies will eliminate press releases and refuse interviews, replacing them with internally produced Podcasts (audio and video) as a way to manage their public image and press relations. They will create their own reports and sound-bites and publish them through RSS using an open license for reuse by media organizations.

Here’s to the year that was, and the year that will be!