Both James and Elisabeth Lewin participated in a discussion on the future of media (mp3) at the 2005 Gnomedex conference in Seattle.Rob Greenlee of WebTalk Radio led the discussion with Mitch Ratcliffe, Gnomedex organizer Chris Pirillo, Ratcliffe, Todd Cochrane of GeekNewsCentral, Andy McCaskey of SlahDotReview, John Wall of TheMShow and Rob Walch of podCast411.

The Lewin Group’s Elisabeth Lewin was interviewed recently about the “godcasting” trend for an article in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinal.

Elisabeth Lewin, 40, who operates Podcastingnews.com from an 1886 house with a view of downtown Des Moines, Iowa, ranks religion/spiritualty among the five most popular topics in podcasting.

“It’s like a sleeper hit,” Lewin said. “People are hungry for connection.”

In case dealing with Internet security issues and staying current with Internet technology is not enough to worry about, a new study out of the UK suggests that using the Internet can reduce your intelligence.

The study, sponsored by Hewlett Packard, finds that two-thirds of adults are “addicted” to checking their email and electronic messages, even outside office hours and on holidays. Half of those surveyed will respond to email within 60 minutes, and one in five are happy to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to email or phone messages.

The study characterizes this messaging addition as “info-mania”. The most worrisome finding of the study, though, is the effect that “info-mania” has on workers’ measured intelligence.

Offsite Link: Does using the Internet reduce your intelligence?

Phishing and other cyber attacks are undermining consumer confidence in online commerce, according to a recent Gartner report. These cyber attacks may also have a direct effect on the growth of ecommerce.

Three out of every four online shoppers surveyed said they are more cautious about where they buy goods online, and one out of three reports buying fewer items than they otherwise would, because of security concerns.

“Companies need to take steps quickly to beef up online security,” states Gartner’s Avivah Litan. “Businesses cannot rely on the Internet to lower costs and improve marketing efforts indefinitely if consumer trust continues to decline.”

Offsite Link: Cyber attacks hindering growth of ecommerce

Podcasting is moving from being a niche technology for the tech-savvy to being a mainstream way of accessing Internet content. More than 6 million American adults have listened to podcasts, according to Pew Internet.

Podcasting is a technology for synchronizing content between a server and computers and portable media players. The term “podcasting” was popularized by former MTV VJ Adam Curry, who, along with RSS innovator Dave Winer, acted as a catalyst in the growth of podcasting. Most podcasts are audio shows in MP3 format, but many people are experimenting with using podcasting technology to distribute and synchronize video content and other types of electronic documents.

Just as blogging was a threshold technology that brought web publishing to anyone with an Internet connection, podcasting promises to let Internet users deliver audio, video and other content to portable media player owners around the world.

Offsite Link: Podcasting takes off

Every month, it seems like the Internet brings a new word or phrase into the language. Tech writers typically try and explain the meanings of these terms the first few times they are used in an article. Nevertheless, it’s not uncommon to find yourself reading a tech article and wondering just what the heck a blog, podcast, mash-up, or the word-of-the-month really is.

2004 has been an especially rich year for new techno-jargon. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here’s a guide to some of the terms that made it big this year.

If you already know all these strange words and phrases, do yourself a favor and pass this list onto the people you know and love. Then they’ll have some idea just what the heck you’re talking about!

Offsite Link: 10 Tech Terms from 2004

Lewin Group President, James Lewin, lends his expertise in content syndication to IBM’s developerWorks website. This article covers the latest format for content syndication, RSS 2.0.

Offsite Link: Content feeds with RSS 2.0

The issue of people distributing and reusing digital media is a problem for many businesses. It may also be a hidden opportunity. Just as open source licensing has opened up new possibilities in the world of technology, it promises to do the same in the area of creative content.

Offsite Link: The Future of Content

For several years, one of the hottest topics in ebusiness has been what will happen with online music.

A generation of young people has grown up downloading and listening to music through unauthorized services. The mainstream music industry has responded with lawsuits and anti file-sharing advertising campaigns. It’s left a lot of people wondering if the world of music and the Internet would ever get along.

Magnatune is an interesting new ebusiness that is taking its cues from the success of open source software distribution. Magnatune is applying ideas from the world of open source software development to the world of music. They are doing this by licensing music with a Creative Commons license that lets people freely copy and share songs over the Internet.

Offsite Link: New music service sings a different tune

The dot-com world can be a strange one. It’s a world where people wonder what their cookies know about them. It’s a world where privacy policies tell you how companies are going to use your personal information. It’s even a place where your backend does all the work!

One of the strangest things in the strange world of e-business, though, is the concept of sticky web sites. Why would anybody want their site to be “sticky”?

Offsite Link: Is your site sticky?