Reprinted from mobilejones.com

I've been experimenting with podcasting using free tools with the intention of launching a podcast that crosses the subject matter of both mobile jones, and the Blogher Blogging and Social Media publication where I've joined as a contributing editor.

Steve Rubel announced his transition from CopperKatz to Edelman (big PR firm) and his plan to launch a Social Media Tour.  It seemed like a great opportunity to jump in and give it go.  So as a presentation for mobile jones and Blogher's Blogging and Social Media features, the podcast was Steve's first stop on the Tour.

March 1st, wednesday,  evening I was all set up with Gizmo which a VoIP competitor to Skype.  I chose Gizmo for it built in recording capability.  In addition, I'd installed Audacity for editing and LAME for MP3 encoding.  Audacity is amazing as it's open source and has an easy to use interface.

First, let me apologize about the audio quality.  I'm learning and it will get better.  I'm going to go ahead as talking with Steve was great fun and his perspectives are interesting and given his new role important for the rest of us.  Steve's responses are high quality but my attempts at capturing them are a bit crude.  I can't wait to have more opportunities to get better at the production side or podcasting and in the mean while, I hope you enjoy this chat on social media, mobile and what's next with Steve Rubel.

The podcast is 50 minutes:   Social Media Tour - Steve Rubel in MP3  

We discuss: 

• Steve's new role and what drives his blogging
• defining social media
• some things about mobile (not enough as I missed a couple of opportunities to ask follow ons concerning existing mobile communities and how to mine the conversations in phone only communities)
• Amy Gahran's coining of the term webfeed (Microsoft owes her royalities)
• MySpace
• Steve's cosmos analogy for social media
• The long tail and advertising approaches
• Tagging

Steve if you're listening.  What sort of strategies or tools can marketing and PR pros use to gain insight into mobile communities like UPOC, SMS.ac, Text America, Moblog UK, or even mobile operator owned social media communities?  The blog search engines have no visibility into those galaxies either.  Perhaps, we can take up the topic in a future podcast.

cross posted at mobile jones