Ken Hess | ZDNet

Gene Simmons and Ken Hess get together to discuss the Ortsbo communications software program.

Listen to the Gene Simmons podcast interview here.

A few days ago, I had the rare pleasure of interviewing Gene Simmons: Father, husband, entrepreneur, musician, businessman extraordinaire and Ortsbo partner along with Ortsbo President, David Lucatch. Ortsbo is an exciting new service that translates, in real time, your tweets, Facebook updates, chats, texts and more into whatever language you need to communicate with. You may remember my previous post, “Ortsbo: Return to Shinar,” where I described the Ortsbo service and what it can do for you.

There’s no doubt that Ortsbo is a game-changer in the world of social media and in international communications. We’ve waited a very long time for this written-word service and, as you will hear for yourself in the interview, the service has expanded to voice.

The edited interview is just over 15 minutes long but captures the essence of Ortsbo and Gene Simmons’ excitement about the company and its far-reaching potential.

I’ve been a Gene Simmons fan for many years and I watch his reality series, Family Jewels on A&E, at my leisure thanks to DVR technology. He’s most famous for his role in the rock band, KISS. Yes, I was and am a KISS fan. I still remember most of the lyrics from not just their megahits but their more obscure songs like, “God of Thunder,” “2000 Man” and “Do you love me?” But, probably my all-time favorite is, “Heaven’s on Fire.” I think it was the first “unmasked” hit but I can’t remember for sure–it was a long time ago.

These days, I’m more impressed with Gene’s business savvy, workaloholicism and his awesome family. I never was able to see a KISS concert because of my perennially-unfortunate financial situation but now, if they have a show within 100 miles of me, I’m there. I wonder if I can use my ZDNet credentials to get a backstage pass?

I hope you enjoy listening to the interview as much as I did conducting it.

Rock on, Gene Simmons.