Podshow Plus

Last week on the 4th of july Podshow Plus went open beta. I was already part of the beta, got a golden ticket to access it through their devcast. And I only logged in twice. It’s layout and how things work is very cumbersome. They implemented some Ajax stuff on the site, but it was riddled with bugs at the time. I logged in again once it went live to the public and the bugs seems to have diminished, but the cumbersome interface remains :(. What is also very annoying is when you go to the podshow home page loud music starts blasting through your speakers and a truckload of commercials start flashing :(. Especially the Casino ones make it look like a cheap site (you know the ones you stumble upon when you mistype www.yahoo.com ;)).

Basically I am missing the whole point of podshow plus. I dont need their media player (which doesnt work properly on 2 of my systems btw) since I already have iTunes (or any other mp3 player will do just as well, probably better, their player ofcourse has an annoying ad on the bottom). And I certainly dont need the channel of your favourite podcasts, since not all podcasts are in there and I dont want one big feed making a mess of things.

Apparently I am not the only one who thinks this, got some nice reviews below.

http://kiwibloke.wordpress.com/2006/07/08/10-things-why-podshow-is-lame/

http://www.podcastnyc.net/blog/

There are a lot more, just do a technoratti search and a lot of posts will show up ;).

Tim Hildebrandt

For millions of fans around the world, the Star Wars poster that Tim and Greg Hildebrandt created in 1977 became the definitive illustration of that galaxy far, far away. It’s an exciting, vibrant and unforgettable image that is even more astonishing when you realize that it was created in just 36 hours. While it’s only one of countless beautiful pieces of art that Tim created in his life — including hundreds of other inspired Star Wars illustrations — the Star Wars poster is truly iconic and will always loom large in the imagination. We will miss Tim’s artistry and talents tremendously.

— George Lucas
http://starwars.com/community/news/family/f20060629/index.html