Interview #1: Jeff Barr from Syndic8.com [podcast] |

And so we’re off with the first MakeYouGoHmm audio interview (available via podcast naturally). The design of this particular area of MakeYouGoHmm is going to be changed soon, but I wanted to get this first interview posted here ASAP.
Our plan is to publish here interviews over time that we’ve conducted with various webmasters and site owners, CEOs, marketing people on the web and much more. Through our radio show at Script School that has been streaming live every Friday since May 2000 — five years of broadcasting — we’ve accumulated some fantastic content; a lot of which general audiences have likely never heard. Through MakeYouGohmm the plan is to edit and resample some of these interviews as well as provide fresh, new audio interviews like the one being offered here today.
If you would like to be a future MakeYouGoHmm interview, then contact me at tdavid at makeyougohmm.com or phone our office or Skype (TDavid). This isn’t only open to celebrities, a-list bloggers, podcastsrs, and major media types, we’re interested in talking to a wide variety of people conducting business on the web. Or maybe you just have a unique hobby or interesting labor of love on the web that isn’t a business. Contact me and tell me about it and let’s setup a time to talk.
Our first interview is with Jeff Barr from Syndic8.com (pictured above). Readers might remember me talking about Jeff’s recent challenges in this thread: Syndic8 on the hot seat for gaming search engines
I contacted Jeff privately to hear his side of the story because there are always multiple sides to the story and also I had met him before in person and he didn’t seem like the type of guy who would get mixed up with any sort of blackhat search engine tactics. The interview takes listeners chronologically through Syndic8, the financial structure and a whole bunch of things behind the scenes which should paint a much clearer picture to what happened, why it happened, and where Syndic8 will be going in the future. To the best of my knowledge this is the only audio interview Jeff Barr gave concerning this situation — an exclusive!
Syndic8 has grown immensely in the number of RSS feeds they are tracking within the last 18 months. During the interview, I talk with Jeff about the history of Syndic8 leading up to the whole third level domain advertising spam controversy, Jeff’s hospital stay, the power of blogging as a media tool, search engine results quality and much more.
Certain portions of the interview were removed, namely a lot of ums, ahhs, some extended silence, microphone noise as well as some of my extended commentary during the interview. This was done not to alter the content, but to reduce the overall length of the original interview which lasted approximately 70 minutes. Very little of Jeff Barr’s commentary was edited, mostly it was mine.
I think the version that has been edited and resampled here is overall a better, tighter interview than what originally aired live, but that will be up to the listeners to judge. BTW, there is some noticeable feedback in some sections that couldn’t be stripped out because Jeff was talking on a cell phone with a real soft connection and the volume had to be amplified. No double ender, sorry about that.
If folks would like to hear the original aired live show in full where this interview appeared please use the comments to tell us about it. Please keep in mind that the Script School Radio show where this interview originally aired is supported by adult advertisers and certain parts would not be appropriate for all audiences. This is partly why this interview area at MakeYouGoHmm was created so that we could share some of these interesting and often educational audio conversations and edit out the material that is inappropriate for general audience.
You may download the audio in MP3 format below or use your favorite podcast client. Enjoy!
running time: 53:18 download 24.4 MB (64k)- Six Log interviewing people who actually make stuff
- Hmmcast #12: Scoble leaving, Gates going part time, Digg vs. Netscape
- Chris Pirillo launches his own podcast / radio show
- *New Syndic8 blogging energy from Jeff Barr
- Yahoo launches audio search (beta)
- On being interviewed on Webtalk Radio




Syndic8’s Search Engine Spam
Hot on the heels of the recent Wordpress fiasco, it looks like Syndic8.com is doing something very similar. Charles Coxhead…
Trackback by Waxy.org — May 25, 2005 @ 6:47 pm PST
Jeff Barr von Syndic8 im Interview
TDavid hat ein einstündiges Podcast Interview mit Jeff Barr von Syndic8 geführt. Neben den "nicht so netten"
Trackback by poolieBlog — May 27, 2005 @ 4:39 am PST
Absolutely excellent interview.
Found it very informative.
Tried in 1999 to get a successful business model happening but couldn’t, however recently (yep never too late!)I’ve been about to secure 2 businesses that are willing to outsource all their web content to me. One is in the finance industry (lending) and the other is in traditional publishing (community paper). Basically if I can cover my costs I will be happy. A lot of the discussions on sub domains and how they can be leveraged really opened my eyes. My philosophy in life is developers are good people they are by nature creators. It is unfortunate that the business side of IT take full advantage of the good nature in developers. A very special thank you to Jeff Barr.
TDavid, it is comforting that there are passionate developers out there making a real difference in peoples lives this is priceless.
Your work on WebTalk is excellent (just finished hearing your last show), found it entertaining and informative.
Great work, God bless.
Comment by George Shafik — May 28, 2005 @ 10:09 pm PST
Thanks for listening, stopping by and the kind words, George. I deleted the duplicate post. The very first post made here is held for moderation (to help keep the spam down). Thanks again, much appreciated
Comment by TDavid — May 28, 2005 @ 10:28 pm PST
[…] Phil Ringnalda noticed something odd with some advertisements running on various O’reilly sites and blogged about it. It reminded Phil of the Wordpress search enging gaming debacle but this more reminds me — and a few of Phil’s commenters — of the syndic8 advertiser playing the PR game mess. I interviewed Jeff Barr about the Syndic8 ad situation in great detail for those who want to delve deeper into why sites are seduced into advertising deals that they might not fully understand or agree with. It happens to smaller sites and bigger sites and really all types of sites. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » O’reilly’s should hire an Ad Compliance Officer — August 24, 2005 @ 11:53 am PST