The joys of live webcasting....

Just spent a few frustrating minutes at Sofia Talvik's webcast, having logged in an hour early as the message on her site said it would be "Live at 8pm", without specifying a time zone. As it's in Sweden, I guessed two hours ahead of BST, but was wrong.

Then, having picked up the gig a few minutes late (as I wandered elsewhere on the web), I found an over-exposed, slightly wonky camera position, a few dropouts and, after two melodious, acoustic songs.... Nothing. The feed went dead. Oh, well. That's live. Ba-dum-bum.

Ah, but it's back now. And she's speaking Swedish. No subtitles, unfortunately. But something about "acoustic Florida" (her record). Despite that sunny title, the songs are quite wintry in feel, albeit delivered in summery, al fresco fashion--acoustic guitar in hand, before an audience that seems to be chatting away, rather obliviously.

Amanda Palmer live webcast

So, here's a bit of post-modern multi-tasking in the digital age. As I type this, I am passively participating (i.e., lurking) in the latest Amanda Palmer cosy fireside webcast. Quite by accident, as I saw her status update on MySpace mentioning it. I haven't actually figured out how to actively participate by commenting without handing over the shreds of my online security to some unknown company. But, at least I can see other people's (1453 viewers at last count!) comments.

So, far she's not saying anything of burning interest, but is sporting a cool T-shirt (Antihausfrau, with an umlaut over the i for some reason), and I am hoping she will expand on her Tweeted reports from the Golden Globes that I found highly amusing as they appeared, alongside Twitpics, especially the one from the ladies room, packed with young thin, blonde things I didn't recognise but are apparently really famous.

Ah, the ukulele has made an appearance! Yes, that gets an immediate response from the commenters. Odd, Amanda hasn't really responded to any of the comments that are appearing. Surely, this is the point of webcasts--interactivity. Now Amanda is taking a moment out to Twitter during her own live webcast. This must be the ultimate in self-reflexivity. What did we all do before the web, eh?