Podcasting novelist, New York Times best-selling author and “failed pimp” Scott Sigler has announced the formation of Dark Overlord Media, a publishing house created to produce books and other properties for established online personalities.

“Entertainers are using the internet to establish their own audiences,” Sigler said. “You no longer need a big publisher or a network marketing machine to generate a fan base. Dark Overlord Media wants to help those entertainers and journalists create tangible products that will make their audiences happy, then facilitate selling directly to those audiences.”

Dark Overlord Media’s first publication is the hardcover release of The Rookie, a far-future football novel written by Sigler. He gave the story away as a free podcast in 2007, then sold a young adult version iPhone App in early 2009.

Sigler’s established online audience allowed him to put The Rookie up for pre-sale on April 24, 2009, and immediately sell 1,000 copies.

“Within three hours, we had capital for layout, design, printing and shipping,” Sigler said. “The pre-sale made the book instantly profitable. That’s turns the traditional publishing model on its head.”

Sigler plans a Rookie Tailgate Tour to support the book, visiting 20 cities in 24 days.

Awaiting Inspiration has published an article that describes how to create a DIY iphone call recorder:

I’ve wanted a way to record phone calls to and from my iPhone since I’ve had it but hadn’t really looked into solutions until a couple of weeks ago. What I really wanted was a native iPhone app that would record incoming and outgoing phone calls – there is SpoofApp but it requires a JailBroken phone, per-minute fees, and looks like it only works on outgoing calls. Another iPhone app Recorder 10, does not require a JailBroken phone but like SpoofApp you have to pay per-minute fees and it only records outgoing calls.

So with no native iPhone apps out there I looked for other ways and found this solution which uses a splitter form you iPhone headphone output to record one side of the conversation. It seems like the obvious solution but requires that you use a computer to record your side of the conversation. Plus I found that the headphones acted as a microphone, so when you listened to the recording the other side of the conversation echoed. Still, in a pitch a workable solution.

Not finding anything that did the job, in either software or hardware, led to the creation of a DIY breakout box. The solution allows for individual volume control for you and your caller and has jacks for record, mic and headset.

You’ll need to be able to read simple schematics to build the iPhone call recorder.

If you’ve got a more elegant solution, leave a comment below!

PodCamp Pittsburgh, being held Oct 10-11, is looking for volunteers.

PodCamp Pittsburgh is a FREE community UnConference, run by and for people who create, enjoy, or are interested in learning more about social media.

Volunteer positions are as follows:

October 9, 2009

• Meet N Greet set up and clean up
• Meet N Greet Greeters

1-2 hour time slots between 5:00p.m. and 10:00p.m.

October 10 & 11, 2009

• Registration and Information Table
• Swag bag giver and t-shirt sales
• Food set up, stocking, clean up and trash emptier
• Mentor Lounge Coordinator

Time slots are all 2 hours each between 8:00a.m. and 5:00p.m.

If you’re interested in volunteering for PodCamp Pittsburgh, contact Jennie Roth.

Google has quietly launched Listen, a free new app that brings podcasts to Android phones:

Listen from Google Labs brings podcasts and web audio to your Android-powered device. It lets you search, subscribe, download and stream.

By subscribing to programs and search terms it will create a personalized audio-magazine loaded with fresh shows and news stories whenever you listen.

In this release Listen is indexing thousands of popular English-only audio sources.

Install instructions are available here.

If you’ve tried Google Listen, leave a comment with your thoughts!

via RRW

A new Department Of Education report on online education (pdf) reached a controversial conclusion: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

According to the report summary:

Researchers have previously found that students that listen to lectures as podcasts do better than students that actually attend the lectures. This study, though, looked at the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008.

Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of students receiving face-to-face instruction, with an average effect size of +0.24 favoring online conditions. The mean difference between online and face-to-face conditions across the 51 contrasts is statistically significant at the p < .01 level.

The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.

“We are at an inflection point in online education,” said Philip R. Regier, the dean of Arizona State University’s Online and Extended Campus program.

via NYT

Image: turtlemom4bacon

Kodak has released the Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera, a $179 HD handicam which features – finally – an external mic jack.

There are a lot of cheap portable video cameras, but almost all of them suffer from horrible sound and no support for better mics.

Let’s hope that other companies will follow Kodak’s lead and start including external mic jacks on their cameras.

Here are the Kodak Zi8’s features:

• Capture HD quality 1080p video with 16:9 aspect ratio
• Plenty of room for more—record up to 10 hours of HD video with the expandable SD/SDHC card slot that can hold up to 32 GB*
• Make audio awesome—the external microphone jack lets you record in stereo
• Get a new perspective—take amazing 5 MP 16:9 widescreen HD still pictures
• Get sharper videos and less blur thanks to built-in image stabilization
• No USB cables necessary, just swing out the USB arm to upload, share, and charge
• Complementary HDMI cable lets your videos debut in full glory
• Share on Facebookâ„¢ and YouTubeâ„¢ social networking sites with ease—built-in software makes editing and uploading simple
• Compatible with PC and MAC operating systems

If you’ve used the Kodak Zi8, leave a comment with your thoughts on it!

Podcasting network Wizzard Media has announced that it will be promoting and distributing three more iPHone apps – Word Party, Dietician and Yo Mama.

Wizzard hopes to leverage its podcast distribution network to market the apps in an effort to generate revenue. Wizzard believes this step will put it closer to its goal of profitability. The Company plans to continue to acquire the rights for up to 100 already launched and approved iPhone Apps to provide podcast producers with a continuous stream of relevant, paid advertising for their episodic shows, provide app developers with increased sales revenues and provide for profitable App sales for Wizzard.

“I envision customized Word Party apps for our various participating language and grammar podcasts and targeting the Dietician app to yoga, action sports and other fitness enthusiasts we can reach through the many Health & Fitness podcasts on the Wizzard network,” says Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard Media.

A common problem of indie podcasts is excessive or unwanted background noise and room sounds. Several companies have responded by marketing mini vocal booths that are portable and help block out unwanted sounds.

Instructables has published a tutorial on building a DIY portable mini vocal booth:

The DIY Portable Mini Vocal Booth is ideal for podcasters, DIY filmakers and sound designers alike. My personal motivation to build this, was a desire to have a mobile mini deadroom to make foley recordings and recordings for my music.

It’s probably not going to do the job as well as a professionally designed portable sound booth, but it’s cheap to build and could be a useful tool for improving the sound of your recordings.

Wizzard Media announced today the availability of LibsynPRO 3.0, a new digital media publishing platform designed to give media producers the ability to pick and choose, in an a la carte fashion, media syndication packages to suit their needs.

The LibsynPRO 3.0 digital media publishing system is based around a redesigned publishing engine that is capable of formatting, transcoding and delivering content suited for various destinations. The new platform can publish not only podcast content in iTunes and your site, but to over 20 social video sites, including YouTube, MySpace and Daily Motion.

iPhone App Support

This new platform also lays the groundwork for ‘click-to-build’ customized iPhone application.

Podcasters will be able to turn their shows into interactive iPhone apps, and with standard approvals, sell them in the iTunes App Store.

Details on LibsynPRO 3.0 below.

If you’ve used LibsynPRO 3.0, leave a comment with your thoughts.

Zombie Girl: The Movie is a documentary that looks at 12-year-old Emily Hagins and her quest to write and direct an indie zombie movie:

Inspired by an Australian zombie import called Undead, she set about her first full-length feature film, Pathogen, when she was just 12 years old.

Enter filmmakers Aaron Marshall, Erik Mauck and Justin Johnson. Having worked on numerous short films and television themselves, they were looking for a bigger project. And then they stumbled upon Hagins and her project. “We all used to live in Austin, where Emily lives,” says Marshall, who spoke to Hulu by phone last week. “And we came across a casting call for her movie on the Internet. She was looking for 12- to 15-year-old kids to act out a zombie movie directed by a 12-year-old girl. We contacted her family, and within a week we were filming.”

The film is viewable online for a limited time via Hulu.

Hagins has funded her second film, a ghost story called The Retelling, with proceeds from Pathogen.