Steve Ball runs the audio team at Microsoft. Buzz and I were comparing notes the other day of all the people we’ve met at Microsoft. We both agree that Steve’s our favorite guy and the guy who we’d most like to hang out with.

I think this video explains why without even trying. He’s creative. Nice. Soft spoken. Never says a bad word about people (even when I know they’ve given him cause).

This video is NOT an interview. It’s just him playing guitar to his daughter — he’s quite an accomplished guitarist and he’s studied with some of the greats (Robert Fripp, for instance). I’ve played this dozens of times over the past few months since I recorded it and it just makes me happy. His daughter is an angel baby. Can’t wait to go to Seattle again to meet up.

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You’ve seen Hugh Macleod’s cartoons that he draws on the backs of business cards.

Well, I filmed him drawing my next business card. They’ll be ready in a week or two.

We talk about how he came up with his little characters and such. He also talks about how he came up with the Blue Monster. Among other things.

I filmed this with my cell phone in the Palo Alto Taxis (a hamburger joint) so it’s a bit noisy.

Cool. Just saw that Pownce released an API (pownce is a micro blogging/presence/micromedia tool similar to Twitter).

Twitter still has a LOT more flow. This will be interesting to watch and see what happens now.

Pownce is a better system for sharing media with your friends than Twitter or Jaiku, though. I like the UI better too, although the UI really doesn’t matter anymore. I am using a tool called “snitter” to read my Twitter stuff. It’s cooler than Pownce is.

That’s the power of an API.

UPDATE: Pownce’s founder, Leah Culver, has more details on her blog and Dave Winer has a first review up. Dave says the API is only about 1/3rd complete.