GDAY WORLD!!! #153 – No More Mister Nice Guy!

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Rich and Cam are back and we’ve decided it’s: NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!!

Outro track: James Brown, “Gut Buster”
If you want to put money into the TPN paypal account, like many of our listeners already do, you can do it by setting up a deposit to thepodcastnetwork@gmail.com.

The G’Day World Theme Song: “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts, America’s baddest rock n’ roll band!

WWT gets interviewed on About.com

WWT, host of one of TPN’s top rating podcasts, The Cranky Middle Manager Show, has been interviewed in depth by John C Havens on About.com’s podcasting page. It’s a terrific and revealing interview, even though he manages to take an in advertent dig at me for putting out longer shows! He has a lot of tips for podcasters who want to succeed over the long haul, something he can talk with credibility about, as WW has been going for over a year and has seen his audience slowly grow to a serious size. I like this quote from him:

I know why I do it. I’m building the brand, what Tom Peters calls Brand You and it seems to be working. My new e-book (shameless plug) , is the first thing I’ve put out attempting to make money at podcasting to see if the brand has legs. People seem to be responding. I may someday be able to build a real business out of this.

I was saying to Dave Gray (host of our Global Geek podcast) this morning on Skype that most start-up businesses take five years to get to a point where they are sustainable. Why should a podcast be any different? Sure – there are businesses that skyrocket overnight. But they are always the rare few. Most, the vast majority, of businesses grow over time, building a steady, loyal customer base. I’ve always had the same vision for podcasting and The Podcast Network. Too many people are fly-by-nighters. It they aren’t world famous and P. Diddy rich in a month, they suck their thumb and stomp their feet. I don’t tolerate that behaviour from my five years olds and I think it’s pathetic in an adult.

Anyway, enough ranting… good interview WW!

PayPal co-founder puts money into life extension research

From the Mprize press release today:

Peter A. Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of online payments system PayPal, Founder and Managing Member of Clarium Capital Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund, and angel investor in social networking site Facebook, has announced his pledge of $3.5 Million to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging, to be conducted under the auspices of the Methuselah Foundation, a charity co-founded and Chaired by Dr. Aubrey de Grey.

If you don’t know who Aubrey de Grey is, listen to my interview with him: G’Day World #42 – Dr Aubrey de Grey

Very exciting to see more entrepreneurs getting behind life extension research. If Gates and Buffett threw some of their Gigantor cash at it, it could probably get knocked over in ten or twenty years. By the way, Thiel is the same guy who co-produced THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. According to Wikipedia, he has also made early-stage investments in several companies, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, and Ironport. In May 2006 he spoke at the Singularity Summit. I’ve got to get this guy on the show. How long do you think it will take me to get an intro?

Dave accidentally invents Virtual Psychotherapy

Dave the lifekludger can’t help himself. He *thinks* he’s been having an emotional breakdown. But what he was *really* doing was re-inventing an entire industry.

I ended up spending my days with my head switched off in Second Life (SL). And it was my answer in this period, my therapy. I needed something that didn’t take any analytical brain power and yet could occupy me enough just to relax. I found a whole new side of me, a side that had been buried under that rock I talked of for 25 years. I knew from outset that the word ‘expression’ was a key, but didn’t know what that meant. SL gave me a new way of expression and of freedom from the constraints that come with my disability and those constraints I’d built myself as a way of either escape or coping.

I predict that years from now there will an entire industry and a shelf full of books about using virtual worlds such as Second Life as a path to therapy for all kinds of emotional and psychological problems. And Dave just happened to invent the whole shebang while he thought he was having some downtime. You just can’t stop some people. Even when they think they are chilling out they are breaking new ground.Â