BuzzMachine

It’s a hoot to see yourself translated and subtitled. Here’s the Elektrischer Reporter’s new video of me when I was in Munich for DLD. Below, that’s me saying, do what you do best and link to the rest.

This was another subtitled interview with Die Zeit a few days ago.

My book has been sold in Germany and so there, too, I’ll be translated. I’m actually a bit ashamed of all the years of high-school and college German I took leading to naught. I didn’t dare try to do any of this auf Deutsch myself.

Die Zeit came to interview me at CUNY and here’s the video — subtitled. In it, I mention discovering the early German blog Der Schockwellenreiter and he noticed that in turn with a classic of Denglisch: “Jeff »BuzzMachine« Jarvis hat den Schockwellenreiter genamedropped.” The past perfect of verb namedroppen. Ich namedroppe. Du namedropst. Wir namedroppen.

Here’s another overdue recommendation: One of my favorite podcasts from two of my favorite podcasters — Filme und So (translation: movies and stuff) — is now in video, as I hoped it would be. Fans of Annik Rubins and her most charming voice from her other podcast, Schlaflos in München, can now see her award-winning dimpled smile. Cohost Timo Hetzel has produced a simple and shorter versin of the audio podcast and I like the added connection it gives us with both of them. They know how to podcast well by being informative and casual but still professional and just slick enough. OK, so most of you won’t be able to understand a word (and I can’t understand every word) but I use them as a model for what podcasts and vlogs can be.

: I also just saw that Annik Rubins has a podcasting book from O’Reilly (auf Deutsch).

: And more: Annik held a contest to come up with a podcasting logo. I like it.

Google blacklists the German BMW site. And the German Rocketboom protests.

In the Sunday Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Stefan Niggemeier writes about interactivity in American and German media, jumping off from the Washington Post comment kerfuffle. It’s amusing to see the Post’s Deborah Howell called an “ombudsfrau.” Heiko Hebig, in turn, jumps off this (in English) to write about actionable content.

I wrote my Guardian column this week about Annik Rubens (aka Larissa Vassilian), the podcaster behind Schlaflos in München and Filme und So, whose voice was a siren call that helped draw me to Munich on my way back home from Europe a week ago. The column is here; an alternate page is here. An excerpt:

I wanted to meet Vassilian to find out whether that voice was indeed authentic - it is - and to learn how she does it. In a Munich cafe, she told me she has loved radio since she was young. Instead of watching German TV, she escaped to her room and listened to the Voice of America because “it seemed wonderfully exotic”. As a result, she learned to speak flawless English and also how to make lively radio - how, in her words, to put laughter in her voice as she speaks into her microphone, imagining that she is simply talking to a friend on the phone. As a teenager, she worked part-time at a Munich radio station. Now, as a 29-year-old journalist, she can be, like any freelancer, chewed up and spat out by various German publications. And so she came to try podcasting.

This is a cautionary tale for media bosses: it’s hard for talent to rise and survive in your institutions. But on the internet, with her podcasts and her thousands of faithful fans, Vassilian has the freedom to be herself. Later, I asked her partner on Filme und So, Timo Hetzel, what he plans to do when he finishes his studies. “Podcast,” he replied, without hesitation. Beware: tomorrow’s stars are no longer necessarily interested in yesterday’s media.

We spent hours in a Schwabing cafe talking about podcasts, journalism, advertising, media, and that night, I got to meet Timo with other bloggers in a restaurant over great wurst (Eamonn Fitzgerald reported).

One tidbit I didn’t put in the Guardian column because it would have been meaningless to a UK audience was that one of the DJs who influenced Vassilian was Shadoe Stevens. See, he was good for something.

She was amused that one of the commenters here wondered, upon learning that I’d meet her, whether she was a “babe.” I’ve never been asked that about meeting bloggers. (Winer’s no babe.) Her smile is every bit as enchanting as her voice and, yes, she is as lovely as she sounds. But she doesn’t look like what you’d expect. And this leads to a funny media story she told me. Vassilian’s mother is Bavarian and her father is Armenian. She has long, curly, and dark hair — which is to say that she doesn’t have the blond hair and blue eyes you’d expect. She said that based on her cohost Timo’s voice, she might have thought in turn that he has blond hair and blue eyes but he, too, doesn’t look like he sounds. Anyway, Larissa said that the German TV magazines (more successful these days than TV Guide) seem to have a rule that they must have a blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress on the cover for every issue and she had to write some of those cover stories. One week, part of her story was how the actress had two different colored eyes and how bizarre that is. But by the time the issue came out, though that anecdote stayed in the cover, the actress’ picture had been Photoshopped so she had two blue eyes. In old media, you have to look the part. On the internet, nobody knows you’re a brunette.

Here’s a ridiculously broad generalization based on nothing more than reading headlines and book titles during two days in Munich but…

Germany seems depressed — not economically but emotionally. And I’m not talking about the people but the journalists and the politicians. On bookshelves, I saw plenty of titles pondering whither Germany and opportunities lost. In the papers I (tried to) read, I saw plenty of headlines and stories about no end of knotty social issues. There’s a new regime taking charge and no one is jazzed about it because it is truly a none-of-the-above government.

Off the air for a bit. Just had a delightful meeting with Ms. Schlaflos in Muenchen; more on that later. Heading to a Bloggertreff with Mr. FilmeUndSo and others.

Once again, we’re having a little blogger meetup in Munich on Tuesday evening. If you’re around…. Details here.

Jochen Wegner reports on the debate in German on whether “Blog” the noun is masculine (der Blog) or neuter (das Blog). Why not feminine (die Blog)? Call in the forces of Blogher!

: Speaking of, if not in, German: I wish I could be there tomorrow for JoNet Day and wish I could have been there a few weeks ago for Munich Media Days. Both look more lively than our U.S. journalism confabs.

: See also Wegner’s 10 characteristics of journalism 2.0. I’ll translate later. Wegner is the founder of JoNet.

: LATER: Wortfeld is liveblogging JoNetTag.

We’re set for a small blogger meetup in Munich as I pass through Tuesday. Time: 7p Location: Wirtshaus im Fraunhofer, Fraunhoferstraße 9 (U1 + U2, Fraunhoferstraße). If you can join in, please leave a comment. Vielen Dank to Fabian Mohr and Timo Hetzel for setting this up.

You’ll think this is strange but two of my favorite podcasts are made by the same woman and I’ve become obsessed with listening to her (in a most professional way)… even though it’s all in German. But stick with me here, for I want to make a bigger point about what makes podcasts good.

Annik Rubens — a nom de pod Annik Rubens — started with Schlaflos in München (Sleepless in Munich), a very brief, daily snippet of her life. And now she is costar, with Timo Hetzel, of Filme Und So (Movies and Stuff) a very well-produced but still casual review of movies, books, gadgets, and more. Both are among iTunes top German podcasts.

I happened upon her because I am forever doing penance for not paying attention in German class (which I got into by mistake, really). And I’ve found that listening to German audiobooks — and now, better yet, podcasts — is a great way to try to brush up.

As soon as I found Schlaflos, I was smitten. Rubens, as I’ve said before, does the oxymoronically impossible: She makes German sound sexy. But as I’ve listened to both her ‘casts over time, I’ve also realized that her voice — more broadly, her personality — is what makes her the ideal podcaster.

You see, she’s friendly and appealing and funny and real, unlike radio and TV “professionals,” who’ve been made fake on a scale from stiff to overbearing to obnoxious. Think about it: Would you really want to sit in a chair across from Rush Limbaugh or Randi Rhodes yelling at you, or any given newsreader boring you? Even Howard Stern isn’t Howard Stern off the air, he says. But I’ll just bet that Rubens is Rubens. That’s what makes her that ideal podcaster… and that’s what makes podcasts as unlike radio as weblogs are unlike newspapers. They’re made of people. Yet Rubens is also not clumsy and crude and long-winded like some podcasters, bless their hearts. She is just slick enough; she cares about making a good show and thinks it through and the effort shows. She’s friendly and entertaining but informative and organized (which is to say, unlike some podcasters I won’t name, she knows that just because you can talk for two hours, you don’t have to).

She and Hetzel also created a great blog to go along with their podcast. But note that: The blog isn’t the thing, it’s just the value added. The podcast is the thing.

So as strange as it may sound, I recommend that you go listen to either of her podcasts. In some ways, it’s better that most of you can’t understand, because you’ll hear the tone and it’s the tone I’m talking about. It’s the ability to create a good show without turning yourself into something you’re not.

: I am also a big fan of Diggnation, where Digg.com founder Kevin Rose and friend Alex Albrecht talk about the stories that the public voted up to the front page of Digg… while they try a new beer. It’s that simple. But that’s what makes it so good: They actually care about this stuff. They give their opinions. They give credit to the people who found these stories. And they give us news. They’re two guys talking and you can imagine joining them over a beer and joining in the conversation. And, like Rubens, they produce the show to a clock and keep it moving.

My son is the one who got me into Diggnation. Today, he’s wearing his Diggnation T-shirt. And I hope he’ll forgive me for messing up an effort to meet Rose when I was at Web 2.0/1.0 in San Francisco. But note well that Rose is a celebrity to Jake and the audience. Podcasts are making stars.

Jake also got me to make it a habit to listen to and enjoy TWiT (This Week in Tech) with host Leo Laporte and a bunch of regular guests, including chronic curmudgeon John C. Dvorak. And he got me to watch video versions of both.

So one week, I thought I’d download tech podcasts produced by NPR so we could listen together. But they quickly bored Jake — and me — silly because they’re overproduced. They’re underhuman. That is the voice of “professional” radio and it’s not a compelling voice at all. I’d rather listen to friends — or people I come to think of as friends, or at least would like to meet — than the strangers of big-time broadcasting.

That is the true voice of the internet.

: Some people I have met are making podcasts, too, and so I’ll throw them props: Ken Rutkowski also has chats about technology at KenRadio and Steve Rubel and Joseph Jaffe are talking PR and marketing at Across The Sound.

Oh, and by the way, go listen to Nerd TV’s interview with podcast papa Dave Winer. Nobody has a more authentic voice on the internet than Dave and I enjoyed hearing the history of many of his innovations.