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Digital RSS FeedsPodSpam the new Vile of the Podcast Space - Recently we have begun to see a whole new marketing ploy made by those that have largely been running websites that try to sell you something that you supposedly cannot get anyplace else. We have all seen these sites that will sell you the secrets of real estate, money markets, stock market etc etc etc. Well these sites are now not only using the old school templates that have been recycled for 10 years they are also creating media. Usually the media is produced YouTube style and the person does his best to pitch his or her skills and tries to encourage you to visit their webpage which usually has a offer you cannot refuse. Well now they are wrapping that content in a RSS feed and applying at podcasting sites to be listed. They are pretty easy to spot. The show title goes something like this. “Best Stock Market Advice” followed by a description that has a embedded URL and some other cheesy Google enhancing keywords. They then produce in quick ...Feed Source: www.geeknewscentral.com GNC-2008-05-16 #374 Mini Rant on Social Media Spammers - Back in Honolulu today and I cover a trend we are seeing with spammers of social media sites that is lowering content value at one of our online properties.
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... Here's my jetpack! - This news story has been all over TV today, words cannot adequately express how much I want one of these.
I doubt there is a geek in the world that has not dreamed of their own jetpack, and the key disapointments of the turn of the millenium where that there were no jet packs or flying cars. While the Moller flying car has been a disapointment so far but at least there is now an actual working jet pack that will gives me hope that I might get to try one.
This particular model required that he go into freefall from a plane to get started, and he landed by parachute, but he was travelling at one stage at almost 200mph (over 300kph) which is seriously cool! The inventor and pilot is Swiss man Yves Rossy who is my new hero, at least for this week.
Story on Yahoo
Yves site... The Smart Car vs. My Toyota - I read an article this morning touting the safety of the Smart Car, the tiny two-person, just shy of 9-foot car in production by Daimler. The Smart twofer did well in crash tests, achieving an overall rating of "good."
But that's not what caught my attention about the article. No, what caught my eye was the touted gas mileage the Smart twofer gets. "Up to" 31 mpg in the city, and 40 on the highway. We all know those factory-touted numbers are inflated; actual mileage is usually 3-5 points less. This means the Smart twofer, in reality, probably gets about 28 or 29 mpg city, and 37 or 38 highway.
Color me not impressed. My 1989 Toyota Corolla Wagon regularly gets 30 mpg in the city, and 40 on the highway. That's with the air conditioner running! And I can fit four people easily in my Toyota, and carry cargo as well. I'm not sure what my Toyota is supposed to get in mileage, I just know that in the year and a half I've owned it I've been happy with the mileage ... Hundreds of Press Releases a Day - I literally receive well over 100 press releases each that are addressed directly to me and seem to all have a semi-private note attached. So a tact I have begun to take lately is sending them a little note back to them.
It says in part, Thank You for contacting Geek News Central, and while I understand that your excited about your clients product have you ever considered Podcast Advertising to get the word out on your product?
I send them over to this page at RawVoice. I just want the PR people to understand that this site is not just a press release recycling center. I delete 99% of this sort of email. If the PR agent had thought it really important they would have called me first to tell me about the product or service they are representing.
So why do these companies not do some basic marketing and build a quick reaction awareness campaign with us to reach the consumers ... The HP HDX Dragon Giveaway Continues! - I hope all of you that do not listen to my Podcast have been at least reading the blog post associated with the show as I have been providing links to the schedule of contest and giveaways to the participating sites.
In case you haven't I wanted to provide a updated list of sites that are now holding contest and are about to give away these machines with a retail value up to $5000.00 dollars.
Geek News Central kicks off our giveaway campaign at the end of the month and we will make it real easy to apply. Some of the sites have made entering the contest a bit difficult but that will not be the case here. For now head over to these sites to win a HP HDX Dragon Notebook
31 Days of the HDX Dragon Notebook Giveaway 07 May - 14 May www.bostonpocketpc.com and www.techronical.com08 May - 15 May ... Problems with XP SP3 - There have been a few reports of people having reboots after upgrading their XP systems to SP3. Considering the frequency with which this occurance seems to be observed, particularly amongst those with AMD processors it does beg the question whether Microsoft applied the proper rigor to their pre-release testing. While we have come to expect that new software releases from MS have been a little less than bug-free, there has been an expectation that service packs offer a greater degree of reliability.
If you are having trouble with the XP SP3 upgrade, blogger Jesper Johansson has a great page detailing some of the problems that have been encountered and how they can be circumvented. It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out over the coming weeks. I would expect MS to be fairly quick with a patch.... GNC-2008-05-12 #373 Live from Silicon Valley - Quick trip out to Silicon Valley more on that in the show. Little bit shorter show tonight due to the timezone change but lots to talk about..
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... Headed for the West Coast! - I am very unexpectedly sitting in the Airport tonight headed for the West Coast. While I would not normally travel on Mothers Day I need to be where I am headed by tomorrow morning and in meetings starting tomorrow afternoon.Tags: Podcast... Geek News Central Ohana Forum Is Open! - Last year I closed the forum I had here on Geek News Central but by popular demand of my listeners of my podcast, I have put one back online and hopefully we will be able to get some traction on it.
I am hosting it off site with the folks from Lefora. So feel free to get involved on the forum today at forum.geeknewscentral.com... GNC-2008-05-09 #372 Recording while you Sleep - I swear I was half asleep recording this show. If nothing else it should be funny, send me time hacks to anything wacky I may have said.
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... A Interview with PodcastingNews.com - Those of you following the Podcasting Space and User Generated Content, will want to check out the Interview I did with Elisabeth McLaury Lewin of [PodcastingNews.com]Tags: Todd+Cochrane, Podcast, Podcast+Advertising... Firefox Viewing Add-Ons - If you're a Firefox geek, like I am, you are always looking for ways to make it work better for you. It is one of the advantages of having something open source that lots of developers can work on. I know, the majority of the world still runs on Microsoft Internet Explorer, but like a good Firefox evangelist, I'm continually trying to convert people to the lighter side of the browser world. If you've not been converted, what are you waiting for? Go visit Mozilla today and get your very own copy! It's FREE! It's easy to use! It's reasonably safe from spyware and adware and all kinds of other nasty beasts. Really, there's nothing to be afraid of! Go on! Do it today!
Er. Sorry. I think I got off track there for a minute.
Anyway, I have daily contact with plenty of people that use Firefox add-ons to enhance their use of the browser. I'd like to point out a few of these add-ons today that my visually imp... Sprint advertising iPhones - Unfortunately what they are actually trying to advertise is their own competing phone. The series of Internet ads being planned by Sprint could end up costing them a lot of actual money. And as each of them show the competing product. Sometimes the way to create a buzz in marketing is to break the rules. The unwritten rule that mentioning the competitors product in your advertising causes your audience compare when they might not have. This is generally to your detriment so is usually a risk not taken by marketers.
I am being a bit glib here, in this case this might be one of those exceptions to the rule. When a particular product is so dominant within a market that it becomes a defacto choice, then aligning your product with that competitors name gets you into the perception of customers that might not have even looked elsewhere. In this case the iPhone is so much part of the geek zeitgeist that there have been many that have bought it without considering anything el... Free Forum Hosting by Lefora - As you all know for a long time I ran my own forums here at Geek News Central. In all honesty it was a pain because every time I turned around we had an issue with the application. Either there was a security issue or some spammer had dropped in a bunch of post.
Today I discovered Lefora via an Article on Robert Scobles Website and went over and setup a new forum, the podcast audience has been asking for one so I decided to put it up for them. More on that on the next podcast but if you are looking for a way free forum. The folks over their are offering free forum hosting by lefora.Tags: Forum, Lefora... Scheduled to Speak on Podcasting in Second Life - I will be giving a presentation on Podcasting in Second Life on Monday May 12th at 6pm PST or 6PM SL time on Podcast Island.
I will be presenting a talk on, Securing a Sponsor in the New Media Space, which will include invaluable tips on how to build your show and it’s brand even if you are not seeking a sponsor.
The podcaster meetups take place in the Blogger and Podcaster Magazine building on Podcast Island. IM Itazura Radio, Chugabug Goodnight, or Radar Masukami in-world for more information. [More Information]
Note: I will likely stream this on Ustream as well.Tags: Podcast, Second+Life, ... Comcast 250gb Limit - Comcast is looking to put in place transfer limits of 250gb a month. Even more distressing is that they are considering charging users $15.00 for every 10gb that they go over that limit.
This will change the Internet as we know it. I shudder to think about having to deal with those types of transfer limits. For people who live in areas where Comcast is a monopoly they will really be screwed.
My family of 4 consumes a great deal more than 250gb a month. I use Amazon Unbox, I subscribe to nearly 100 podcast, I have a Apple TV and a myriad of other bandwidth using boxes.
This would essentially mean the death of streaming audio, podcasting, Apple TV, IPTV and a number of other services. Users are going to protest wildly but this may for once and for all create some competition in the market place. [DSL Reports]Tags: ... Improvements to the RawVoice Podcast Stats Service - Over the past several weeks our lead developer at RawVoice has been working on updates to the RawVoice Podcast Statistics Service. Those that are currently using the service will notice some changes to the free offering that greatly improves improves the user experience. [Details Here]
My team is also very close to introducing a premium service that will offer greater detail to existing data, along with more reports that will extend the bar even further allowing the RawVoice Podcast Statistics service to continue to be the most feature rich podcast statistics service in the industry.
We will continue to make available&nb... GNC-2008-05-06 #371 Live from Honolulu - Back in Hawaii a great deal cooking including more HDX Dragon Giveaways $4500.00 value and 31 chances to win one of your very own. Listen to Win!
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... Geek News Central 16th Most Popular Podcast for April! - The folks at Podcast.com have been tracking which podcast are listened to the most over at their site. We have been in their Top 25 list each month this year. In April we were ranked 16th, which we feel pretty good about considering that 15 of the Top 25 are mainstream media shows, and that 3 of the remaining 10 are sex shows.
Only one other podcast in the Top 25 was a tech show. While we never get any love from iTunes we do get a lot of love from other sites. Geek News Central Podcast continues to grow and have an amazing listnership. Top 25 Podcast for AprilTags: Top+25+Podcast, Podcast... Of Copyrights and Fair Use - J.K. Rowling, author of the arguably iconic Harry Potter series of books, has recently been in the news for suing Steve Vander Ark, the author of the online Harry Potter Lexicon guidebook, for infringement. The Lexicon was a labor of love for Vander Ark, who is a zealous fan of the Harry Potter books. He produced and maintains the Lexicon as a free resource for Harry Potter readers everywhere. He also made zero, zip, zilch dollars on this labor of love.
Rowling believed his work was infringement, so sued Vander Ark. Who can blame Vander Ark for feeling like he's been slapped in the face by someone he'd held in high regard.
As the lawsuit progresses (it is still undecided as of this writing), several authors have come forward to add their opposing literary two cents to what is going on. What makes this remarkable is that two of these authors are extremely popular, well-known icons themselves. The first was Neil Gaiman, author of a truckload of graphic novels an... Unplanned outage - I unexpectedly discovered I could go a week without the Internet and survive. I had a conference last week and decided to take the family and extend it into a mini break. Moderately remote location in wine country, but advertised to have broadband connection so all good, no special planning required. The best laid plans of mice and men though. After a couple of busy days and nights conferencing, I started to catch up on a couple of things only to have my laptop die most completely.
While it was good to have the time with less distraction, going cold turkey in an unplanned way doesn't do good things for the stress levels. So back home now for a Monday of catching up with work emails, personal emails, I am completely behind in the news, missed getting my football tips in, lost an ebay sale because I didn't answer a question in time.
While its good to get some time away from the world it is preferable to do so in a planned way. Hope all of your weeks went well. I... Yahoo is Toast and Yang needs to be Fired - If were a Yahoo stockholder I would be in a mild panic today, with Yahoo walking away from a ridiculous amount of money the stock is going to headed to pre-offer levels and then some tomorrow morning.
I just hope all the employees were able to dump their vested shares last week because after tomorrow the stock is going to drop like a sinking ship.
Reports are all over the place discussing stockholder lawsuits. Greed caused the Yahoo board of Directors to demand to high a price for a company that is already getting smoked in the online marketplace by Google.
I really thought Yahoo would play ball but instead they have lost in extended innings. At least Microsoft will not have to deal with the deals Yang was putting in place to make it as painful as possible. [Idiots]
Tags: Yahoo... GNC-2008-05-01 #370 Headed for Honolulu and Home - Headed for Honolulu four shows on the road is enough for me for a while and I am looking forward to getting back to the studio.
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... Sunrgi to Bring Solar Power to the Masses - I have for years hoped for a large-scale and economical solution to our fossil fuel woes. One of the biggest problems with solar is the cost to produce it. While coal-fired power plants can make electric at a cost of about five to seven cents a kilowatt hour, solar costs between fifteen and twenty cents per kilowatt hour to produce. This means that large-scale adoption of solar is limited, and there is absolutely no reason for utility companies to even consider solar as part of their production method.
Sunrgi (pronounced sun-er-gee) means to change all that. Part of the problem with producing cost-effective solar is that getting enough production from normal photo cells means having acres and acres of solar panels. If too much sun is concentrated on photo cells, they overheat and are destroyed, thus the need for having so many panels to capture small bits of solar energy at a time. Sunrg has developed ... 2008 People's Choice Podcast Awards - I am working on my plan for the 2008 People’s Choice Podcast Awards. I am looking at some major changes, part of it has to do that we have no venue at New Media Expo this year.
We have been able to hold the event on a very small budget in the past, and I do not think this is possible this year with the NME being in Vegas the cost are considerably higher. I am open to suggestions.
One thing I thought we could do is have the awards ceremony virtually, while not as glamorous we realized last year that more people watched the awards ceremony via Ustream.tv than actually attended the event.
I will have more information shortly. But don’t fear we will have a great event regardless of the awards venue. Heck I might even consider having the awards ceremony at a Podcamp event. [PodcastAwards.com]Tags: Podcast+Awards... White Label Mac is real - The folks at Psystar have delivered demo units to both Engadget and CNET. The machines are real, and while they have a few issues the most important thing is that their are now White Label Macs available. The Genie is now out of the bottle.
What this should do is encourage hackers to start creating drivers for a variety of devices for OS X. What I expect to happen next is that Apple will patch Leopard in a way that it will close the door on people from doing this. Not to mention the lawyers working overtime to stop the folks at Psystar from selling these units.
While I am not sure how many people will purchase these white label macs, it sure is surprising that it has taken so long for it to happen. [CNET]Tags: White+Label, Mac, ... Microsoft Sweetens the Pot for Yahoo - Microsoft leaked today that it would be willing to pay a maximum of 32–33 a share. My prediction is that Yahoo will take the deal. If they don’t then they Yahoo stock priced is going to go south in a hurry.
Over the past few months, I still don’t see the fit I really don’t. Regardless this merger has a lot of hurdles to clear before we have a “MaHoft” [AlleyInsider]Tags: Yahoo, Microsoft... Website Attack - This morning I noticed that this website was very slow to load, which is very unusual as it sits on a pretty powerful dedicated machine. When I was finally able to SSH into the server what I found surprised me.
This machine was essentially under attack in that bots were trying to submit comments to the site in the 100’s along with that their was a huge number of instances of TrackBack request coming in.
The IP’s were from a couple of machines so I simply added those machines to my firewall IP denial list. Within 30 seconds of doing that a new set of IP’s started hitting the machine.
So I played this game for about 30 minutes and to no relief as soon as I blocked a IP another would pop up. It looks like the comment spam and trackback spam bots are evolving and somewhat out of control.
I would normally be sleeping when this attack happened so I am going to have to go back and look at the log files to determine how long this has been h... GNC-2008-04-29 #369 $160,000 Give Away! - Thirty One chances to win a HP HDX Dragon Notebook a $4500.00 value. I spend some time on a soapbox tonight welcome your feedback.
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... What is Fair Podcast Compensation? - I have been hearing that some podcasters are not making as much money as they were a year ago, even though their shows are growing. My only guess would be the company they work with is keeping a greater share of the Ad revenue. Based on information that I have available to me it appears that some podcasters are only getting paid a 13% share of the Ad revenue.
As a comparison, let me give you a simple example on how the RawVoice podcast advertising compensation works. Lets say we have secured a sponsor and the sponsor is paying us $20.00 everytime a specific action happens. Our compensation to the podcaster is 70% to the podcaster, 30% to RawVoice. Thus RawVoice keeps $6.00 and the Podcaster gets $14.00.
Here is another key-point, what does RawVoice do with our share? We Sponsor podcamps, deliver free stats, provide podcaster publishing tools, support industry events etc. We invest a large amount of money back into the podcasting space... User Generated Content Still Rules! - Yesterday I wrote a RawVoice affirmation to user generated content and the podcast medium. I want it to be very clear that we believe in podcasting and podcasters.
I was personally shocked by what Ron Bloom of Mevio formally Podshow had to say about podcasters and podcasting. His comments are a hard slap to the face of those media creators associated with the company.
RawVoice believes in the podcasting space, podcast creators, user generated content and will continue to work hard to help shows with our tools, advertising opportunities, statistic and publishing services. RawVoice AffirmationTags: Podcast, Podshow, Mevio, ... What is $29.99 worth to Apple? - This past weekend, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to solve what I thought was a simple problem. I had taken some video with my Kodak EasyShare DX4580 digital camera and because of what I was filming, I'd turned the camera 90 degrees to get the whole shot in the frame. I shot four small videos, ranging in length from one and a half minutes to about five minutes. The videos turned out reasonably well, considering the camera is four years old and well-used. I intended to put the videos up on YouTube for my kids to share with their friends and cousins, like I have with others I've shot. Yeah, we're hokey like that in my family.
So, I tried to rotate the videos 90 degrees so I could post them upright. Not an easy task. I first tried it using the Kodak EasyShare software I already had. I could rotate it for viewing, but it wouldn't save it in the rotated format. So I opened the video in QuickTime and tried to rotate it there. I couldn't do it there, either, u... Want to Win a HP HDX Dragon? - I am very pleased to announce that you have 31 chances to win a HP HDX Dragon. The contest for the machine we are giving away starts on the 28th of May with the Dragon being given away on the 4th of June. You will want to be tuned into my Podcast for updates on how you can win!
Everyone that visits the following sites during their contest period May through June and enter the respective sites contest will have a shot at winning one of the hottest computer being sold today.
As I posted in my last post the machine has a retail value of $4500.00 I will be talking about how you can win on the Geek News Central Podcast. One of the sites on the campaign is Andy McCaskey from Slashdotreview.com he and... We are giving away a HP HDX Dragon Computer! - In the coming weeks I will be giving away the following system, details on how you can win this system will follow. But not only can you have a chance to win one of these systems from us, their are 30 other sites that will be giving away the same exact system. So you will have 31 chances to win one of the hottest computer systems available today. Again Details to Follow!
There will be a wide assortment of eval software also shipped with the systems
Disclosure: This is a prize giveaway sponsored by the fine folks at HP!
Hardware... Video games DO NOT cause violence. - Can we stop with the conjecture and speculation please! There seem to be as many theories about gaming impact on specific incidents and tenuous causal links as there are people that believe there is an intuitive link. The latest is discussed in Cognitive Daily which looks at a study that measures the difference in heart-rate and galvanic skin response when watching a violent video between two groups. The first has played violent video games immediately prior and the second hasn't. The results are used to insinuate a desensitisation to violence from violent video games. To say that this linkage does not hold up to scientific rigour is a gross understatement.
I see no point in deconstructing their argument however, there is data out there that gives a powerful inferred relationship between video games and real world violence. What annoys me greatly about every argument I see a... Live from Podcamp NYC - I will be updating this entry from time to time today with information on day one of Podcamp NYC.
-Opening Remarks were nice introductions were made, ground rules set and off we go
-Roxanne Darling from Beach Walks with Rox is out here in NYC as well, nice to see two of us all the way from Hawaii
-I am in the widget session and they are talking about various widgets that people are using on their sites.Tags: Podcamp+NYC, Podcamp, Podcast... GNC-2008-04-24 #368 Off to Podcamp NYC - Off to Podcamp NYC. Lot's to share in this show along with a great line up of tech content. Big Give details very soon!
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... Head-Worn Camera - I wonder if Todd would consider this for his next trip to CES?
Police in the UK are now using a simple, but high-resolution, camera headset for surveillance and other needs. I first read about this on Gizmowatch, and went out looking to see if I could find more information. The device is tiny, wrapping around the back of the head and having a wide-angle view similar to your own eyesight. That alone could make this device about the most fun thing to film with that you'll ever find. It also includes a microphone to capture all the audio within range.
The only place I could find to buy them is the Maplin gadget site in the UK. But I imagine these will hit a bigger market in pretty short order. Can you imagine the videos that would end up on ... GNC-2008-04-22 #367 Jam Packed Tech Podcast - Sorry for the short delay all is explained.. Lots of content hot of the press tonight and some really juicy tech news too sink your ears into..
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... Going Green with Light Bulbs - Being a born-again hippie, I can't let Earth Day pass without saying a few words about going green. Earth Day began in 1970 as a way to recognize that we have a responsibility to at least know what our impact on our earth is. One of the most highly touted ways to "save energy" and "go green" today is the replacement of incandescent lightbulbs with compact florescent bulbs (CFLs).
My distaste for these bulbs is fairly well-known. But manufacturers of CFLs have been listening to the complaints of users like me, and have been making changes. I am glad to see that they are listening to us, rather than taking the stand that we will all have to use them at some point and the users rights didn't matter.
One of my complaints is the inaccurate color of CFLs. They are orange, green, blue, anything but the warm light of an incandescent. The other problem is that CFLs don't always fit into places I need them, like lamps in the living room or ceiling fixtures in the kitchen... The Internet Didn't Kill The Class... - Since my J.O.B. involves working in academic environments, I'm naturally attuned to anything going on in that arena. Techdirt reported today on a new Slashdot article about how professors want to pull the internet plug in classrooms.
This is not new news, at least in my academic world. Some professors, for a long time, have lamented the addition of wireless connections in the classroom that allow students to surf while they are in class. And in computerized classrooms, where a computer sits on every desk, it is an ongoing issue with many instructors.
Of course, there are some instructor-controlled solutions out there for computerized classrooms. There are several products from Altiris to help an instructor control access in the classroom. We use a program from Netsupport that allows an instructor to give or take away internet access on student PC's, as ... Nothing new with shows as advertising - I have seen discussed on a few blogs the recent announcement by NBC that they will be producing television series that are directly financed by advertisers. These essentially take product placement one step further by having the story lines actually revolve around the advertisers product. A common comment I am seeing about this is how it is the "next step in sponsorship", which is not really correct.
Ignoring some of the more interactive product placements where scripts have been change, show like The Apprentice existed solely as a marketing vehicle. A whole class of reality television shows and home improvement, or other lifestyle shows that exist because they are good vehicles ... Second Apple, or Apple Life? - Reported in GigaOm that Apple has a patent aplication out that suggests that it is building a virtual store with an immersive 3d environment that is less "cold and sterile" than othe web stores. The rumour that accompanies this is that they plan to open this store in the near future.
While there are the obvious problems with defending a patent that will likely have many prior art problems, the idea itself could be a really good one if handled properly. I like the idea of virtual world style technologies making their way into the mainstream as a replacement for some types of web interactions.
The issue with some of the current offerings like secondlife is that the experience is contained within an application. I don't mean to deride SL with this analogy, but it is a little like being on AOL when there is an Internet out there. Opening a store in SL is good if your main audience is there, but getting t... Big Giveaway Announcement Coming Soon! - I am awaiting the details, but I am pretty jazzed as Geek News Central is going to be giving away a very cool prize that is worth multiple thousands of dollars.
I cannot talk about the details yet, but you are going to start hearing some things from some other sites as well in a few days. I am still working through how people are gonna qualify to win but it is definitely going to be tied to the podcast.
So if your not subscribed to the show, you will want to subscribe and start listening, for your chance to win! This will be the biggest prize we have ever given away, as many of you know we typically give away two to three thousand dollars worth of stuff on the show each year. But this will be way different.
More details as soon as I have the official info from the giveaway sponsor.
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