This week the Geek Dads at Home wander through topics of live streaming on the web, to collectibles and family heirlooms, around Google and Twitter again (don’t we all), and finally finish off with everyone’s favorite segment “I can’t believe I did that to my child”.

Podcasting is one of our favorite topics, and Sam’s success this past week using Rogue Amoeba Nicecast has allowed Thinking.fm to stream live on the web.  He is building the community where listeners will be able to participate directly in the show via listening live and commenting on Twitter.

All of us who are looking to push for greater applications of web technology, we are at a stage of trial and testing to find the best approaches for moving into this next dimension of the web……  The live web.  Live streaming and direct interaction will enhance relevancy for niche audiences.

Following up on a theme that had begun earlier in the week, we were talking about baseball cards and how each of us had collections. There are unfortunate tales of collections getting tossed via yard sales and moms (grandmas).

It morphed into a conversation between Daniel and Sam about the state of comic book collecting and how as kids they would think about value and growth potential of their acquisitions.

Some collectible titles included:

Hawkman

Wildcats

Spawn

Shadowhawk

Savage Dragon

And of course, Aquaman

Daniel points out the Mike Buechele from 1115 Media is going to be doing a comics podcast.

As we make the case to Daniel about using GMail and other Google apps, an unfortunate search term puts Joe in jeopardy of appearing on a Federal watch list. If his tweets stop appearing … call the authorities!

Among other nefarious characters this week who are disappearing from the twitterverse are someone named Martin Boling and an employee of Jason Calacanis at Mahalo who wasn’t correctly vetted until he was recently convicted of  releasing a bot in his youth.

@Jangro and @SamHarrelson are going through the process of trimming down the followers list again. Both agree that the use of a mobile app with massive follower numbers is unrealistic and hinders the ability to have meaningful conversations.

Tweetie, Tweetsville and Twitterific are the suggested IPhone apps.

Sam points to a great Mashable post The Twitter Followholic: An Epidemic. The author points out the quality of the audience deteriorates at a certain large number.

Remember .. Follow Ideas not People!

And we send you on your way with Dads being Dads …

This week, the Geek Dads @Home analyze the cost of finding good baby sitters, Geek attractions in Las Vegas, and the ultimate question of where Google fits in the big scheme of things.

Before embarking on the topics of the day we congratulate Scott Jangro for getting the award for Best Blogger at the Affiliate Summit West.  Plus ..  he gets our own GD@H award for the most awkward plane mate so far during 2009.

We all share a variety of experiences using baby sitters, or a nanny in Sam’s case. The best case scenario is when Scott is able to rely on his current daycare workers who freelance for specific occasions. This allows for a sense of familiarity and comfort for both parents and children.  Although the cost may be slightly higher than the $4 per hour that Daniel gets away with in Albuquerque, there is the peace of mind that these professionals have been trained in CPR and are capable of handling challenging situations.

Offering daycare as an employee perk has become a significant factor in recruiting and retaining employees.  However, this benefit is getting taken off the table .. so what will it mean for parents who have previously relied on having on-site daycare services?

Transitioning to a discussion about excellent places to work, where the environment contributes to the enthusiasm of the workforce, Scott was welcomed on a tour of the Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas as a guest of Kim Rowley. He witnessed first hand the welcoming receptions that all tours recieve from the various work groups throughout the Zappos offices.

Cable television subscriptions seem to be on the chopping block in the Geek Dad’s households as more content is available on demand or streaming through a social networking media center like Boxee or on destination sites such as Hulu.  Our children are already very much on demand consumers of media, and our devices are representative of this transition.

We have varying opinions about how much information is acceptable to go up on the cloud. Will the web be entirely streaming, real time access to everything we need (with an inherent quality degradation for rich media currently) .. or will some level of privacy be required to keep some aspects on local hard drives?

As we transition to a real time web with information stored in the cloud, how will the next generations feel about having a single source solution for everything from medical records to email communications, especially if that single source is Google.  Will it matter to them that Google’s medical records initiative contains all of their private health information .. or are they willing to exchange that information in order to have a quality user experience?

These are the types of questions that will be revealed as this fully net enabled generation directs the dialogue and ascends into policy and decision making positions.

Although Google does set the rules for how web sites should function through their algorithm, Gary Vaynerchuk points out in the keynote address at Affiliate Summit that if your business relies solely on Google to give you traffic, then you are ultimately dead.  The best solution is developing quality, relevant content to be discovered by an audience.

Finally, is this device the precursor of the Google RFID chip planted in your child?

Let us know what you think.  If you have a child at home, where do you see the cloud trade off between privacy and user experience, now and into the future?