This is a first test, in fact, of how I might eventually be covering all the live events I attend in the United States in the future...and yes, it's inspired by the fact that I've recently moved all my blogs to automated "type engine" services. Simply put, the idea is this: instead of sitting down and posting a long entry every 24 hours concerning the events at Wired magazine's Nextfest here in Chicago this week, I will instead post short entries in real time throughout the events, not only sent from my palmOne Treo to my new MovableType-powered blog but also written on it from the events, using a portable fold-out keyboard I own. And while I'm at it, I'm going to post photos from my Treo in real time at my other MovableType blog (The Jason Pettus Instant Locator, that is), three or four a day, as well as my Blogger-powered site, [metafeed], which hopefully will be more like eight to ten photos a day, along with longer text explanations of what you're looking at. Plus whenever I get the chance, I'll be recording audio reports from my cellphone as well, which get converted by Blogger into MP3s and posted to [metafeed] too. So basically I'll be a one-man multimedia mogul this week, transmitting the latest in all kinds of formats straight from my hip to my readers around the world in real time, no matter what device they're on.

Yowza! Behold, people, the power of relational databases, and all the extra options they give your website in these modern times. But wait, there's all kinds of new ways to get this information delivered to you as well: you can get it all sent in real time to your RSS news reader, for example; or just subscribe to the one type of information you're mostly interested in (text, photos, or audio); or have some of it sent to your email account instead; or for the zealous, have it all sent to a mobile device or cellphone. And here's maybe the most interesting thing of all - anyone on MovableType or Blogger can do this stuff themselves. For free. I thought today I'd first explain how to access the information I'll be broadcasting this week in any way you want; then explain how to add such features to your own blog.

So first, probably what more readers are interested in, how to access all this information. For long-time web users, this involves a bit of a shift in how you interact with most sites on a daily basis; once you teach yourself the new routine, however, it will free up a considerable amount of your time on the web for doing more fun stuff. Basically - start using an RSS reader, if you haven't started using one already. I use Bloglines, for example, which is free, has a great interface, is quite powerful, has an awesome mobile version, etc. What's not to like? Then, whenever you see an RSS feed mentioned at a website (like I'll be doing below), you just right-click on that link (Command-click on a Mac) and choose "Copy Link," "Copy Link Address," etc. Then in Bloglines, you click on "Add New Feed" and paste that copied address into the input field. That's it - Bloglines will automate the rest of the process.

So then, for example, you could subscribe to all my Nextfest feeds for this week if you wanted - the main journal's feed, for example, where two or three times I day I'll be posting 500-word text reports; or the Jason Pettus Instant Locator™, where three or four times a day I'll be posting a photo, each time I move to a new venue; or [metafeed], where eight to ten times a day I'll be posting photos and small text explanations of interesting stuff I see during the events, and hopefully once or twice a day posting voice recordings in MP3 form. Or if you're using the Firefox browser, you can set it to display the latest headlines from all these sites whenever you hover your mouse over my bookmark. Or if you're only interested in one of these options but not the others, you can just subscribe to the one you want. This is probably the easiest way to follow along with the three blogs I now maintain, and will actually transfer most of the work onto the software now, instead of yourself - that is, instead of having to stop by a website four times a day yourself to see if it's been updated, your RSS reader simply tells you when it's been updated, and even sends you a copy of what they wrote and what multimedia files they posted, so you can read it straight from your RSS reader if you want and not have to go to the website at all.

But wait, there's more! I also happen to be a fan of a new company out there called Rmail as well, which does nothing but provide a way to have RSS feeds delivered to your email account instead of an RSS reader. So if you're one of those people who prefers email notices whenever a site has updated, you can simply sign up at my site and receive them that way - here's the signup page for the main journal, and here's the one for the Instant Locator. (I haven't set this up for [metafeed] yet, but you can do it yourself if you want - simply go to the Rmail home page, type in the [metafeed] RSS address [http://ilikejason.blogspot.com/atom.xml], and then your email address - that's all there is to it.)

But wait, there's even more! If you're one of those cellphone junkies like me who likes having such notices come to you in real time (via SMS format), you can even enter your cellphone's instant-message address into Rmail and have the entries come that way - and if you're on a cellphone that can accept photos (using the MMS format, that is), even the images will get delivered in real time! Most cellphone companies these days provide an email "avatar" address for your IM capabilities; I'm on T-Mobile, for example, and our IM address is 'yournumber@tmomail.net.' I've listed a number of common American companies' addresses on the signup page, and I'm always looking for more (especially from European, Australian and Asian mobile companies); you can send any you know of to ilikejason at hotmail dot com. Note that I do not necessarily recommend this for European readers, most of whom are still paying an individual fee for each and every instant message they receive; most American companies, though, now offer unlimited messages per month for a flat fee, which should make the Rmail option a much healthier one financially-speaking.

So this should be interesting, I think, to give so much of the delivery power to my readers themselves, and to let you for the first time choose exactly how much information you receive from me during a live event and how you want such information delivered. I'll be interested in hearing about the ways various readers interacted with these feeds this week, and whether their particular method was successful for them; you can send all thoughts to the email address listed above. And like I said, if this turns out to be a hit, then you can pretty much expect me to cover all the special events I attend here in America in the future the same way. (This wouldn't make much sense for the international trips I do once a year, both because I don't have the same technology available to me in other countries, and because my blog for those trips is designed to be turned into a narrative book after the trip is over. And this is just my personal opinion, of course, but I believe that short blog entries posted at random points throughout the day and night just do not make for a very compelling book-length narrative after the whole thing is over, no matter what fans of Wendy McClure might think. That's why I'll still be journaling my international trips via one long entry every 24 hours, like I've already been doing it.)

Oh, what's that you say? You don't know what Nextfest is? Well, it's a big convention held every year by Wired magazine, a different city each time, which is billed as a sort of high-tech world's fair - a place to come check out (and many times play with) all the newest gadgets and gizmos about to take over our lives, in fields as diverse as entertainment and medicine. My hope is that it'll be a good chance as well to meet various high-tech developers, well-known bloggers and other webosphere rockstars, who are in town for the convention as well; but I don't know if Nextfest is actually going to have this indie starfucker element to it, or if it's mostly just a big stupid mainstream thing that will only appeal to the general public. (It's certainly being pushed towards the general public, anyway - Wired's been running big billboard ads for it on the trains and busses all over the city this month.) I'm getting to attend because I volunteered - I'll be doing two four-hour setup blocks on Tuesday and Wednesday, helping to get the exhibition prepared, then working the first three hours of the opening reception on Thursday, and then working a four-hour "docent" block as well while the exhibition is actually open to the general public. And in return for all this? Well, I get a staff all-access pass to the exhibition; something like nine general-admission tickets (let me know if you want one); I get to attend the opening reception as a guest, after I'm done working it; I think I get a free ticket to a special Jeff Tweedy concert at the Vic on Wednesday night, as part of the festivities; I get a free one-year subscription to the paper version of Wired; and I even get a free iPod Shuffle! Man, talk about a great volunteer compensation package!

Anyway, so that's that. I hope you'll get a chance to follow along this week, as I post multimedia entries from all kinds of places where I probably shouldn't - backstage areas, late-night industry parties, and of course all the coolest stuff found at the exhibition itself. And feel free to drop me a line during the middle of the week too, if there's something about the coverage you'd like to see changed during the actual convention. Let the blogging commence!

Oh, that's right, I was going to tell you how to do all this yourself, wasn't I? None of it is really that difficult, actually - it's mostly just a matter of knowing where to turn to get started. For example, anyone with a "type-engine"-powered blog (like Blogger/Blogspot, MovableType/Typepad, WordPress, etc) already has the power to post entries from their mobile device; it's just a matter of actually finding a program for your particular device that will let you do this. (I use the excellent U*Blog, for example, for the palmOne Treo, which is freeware on top of everything else; I have to imagine a similar program exists for PocketPCs/Windows Mobile, and probably even one for RIM/Blackberry as well.) Such programs work the same way as desktop blog clients do as well, which have been around for several years; they basically interact with the type engine's Application Programming Interface (API), allowing them to send information to your blog's database without having to do it through web pages. Remember, the more power your original type engine has (with MT arguably being the most powerful of all the popular services, LiveJournal the least), the more power you'll have on these mobile clients as well. U*Blog in particular even has a file-uploading option for MT and Typepad users, which is how I'm able to send photos from my cellphone straight to my Instant Locator. (Treo owners be warned, there is a slight but nerdy trick you have to do on your device to get your cellphone photos into the right folder for U*Blog - drop me a line if you want the details.)

For sending photos from my mobile device to my Blogger-powered page, I simply use a service the company provides called "Blogger To Go," which automates the entire process for you; once everything is set up, all you have to do is write an instant message like you normally would to a friend (with attached photos, audio or video, depending on what your phone lets you include), except this time send it to your blog instead, with Blogger taking care of all the other steps for you. It couldn't be easier to set up a Blogger To Go account; simply send your first entry to "go@blogger.com" through your instant-message service. Blogger will assign a random name to your new BTG blog, and send a link where you can connect to it on a desktop. At that point there's all kinds of things you can then do with the new blog - you can have future entries be sent to a Blogspot page you already maintain, for example, or beef up that new page Blogger has created for you (changing the name, changing the layout, etc). Blogger may be rapidly falling behind SixApart when it comes to new blog innovations (and they are, let's not kid ourselves), but I'll give them this - whenever they do introduce a new service, almost 100 percent of the time the new service works flawlessly, and without any additional tech knowledge needed.

For posting live audio, I take advantage of another free service Blogger offers - Audioblogger, to be specific. And again, this couldn't be easier - simply register your cellphone and your Blogspot page at that site, then anytime afterwards you can call this telephone number here in the US on your phone 24 hours a day. You simply talk into your phone like normal, for a maximum amount of five minutes, then Blogger will actually convert the voice recording into MP3 format and automatically post the file to your blog, not even 60 seconds after you hang up the phone. Amazing! Anyway, that's how I'm managing all this multimedia capability I have from my Treo these days; if you end up putting some of these options to use at your own blog, let me know and I'll share it with everybody else.