Category: Podcast

Photo of Me at PodcastExpo


(Dave, Victor and myself)


(Me, Kris Smith, Rick Klau, Eric Olson, and many others at Dinner)

Big thanks go out to;

  • Kris Smith – for letting me hang out with him all weekend and running the best session of the conference.
  • Tim Coyne – for some amazing conversation.
  • Dave Slusher – for dropping zen wisdom all weekend (“there is no good and bad – only relevant to you or irrelevant”, “statistically nobody is listening to your podcast”) and hosting a great BBQ.

I completely agree with Tim Elliott’s and impression of the event:

“I was a bit disappointed in the lack of advancement in the podcasting world over the past year.”

Tim’s right, it isn’t just in the vendors. As a community, the most vocal podcasters are still stuck on the same questions: the name of the thing, measuring success/value, justifying their continued involvement. Disheartening.

I made a number of laps around the expo floor over the 2 days – generally stalling out at the LA Podcasters booth and chatting with Tim Coyne. The other booths seemed to be selling one of the following;

  1. Stuff I already have that works great
  2. Stuff I won’t ever use
  3. Stuff that doesn’t make sense
  4. Snake oil

I left thinking there are 3 problems with the expo as it exists currently;

  1. It’s serving 2 separate cultures; those that love podcasting and those that missed the first dot com rush
  2. It’s too niche. As evidence by the expo floor, there’s just not enough innovation happening within the podcasting-specific space year over year to be interesting. Now, if the context was expanded just a hair to anything-RSS we’d start to see far more interesting things. Plus, it’d give larger media brands a better justification for attending.
  3. Too many logos with the word ‘pod’ in a different color than the rest of the company name.

Tim Coyne’s Best Work is Unkempt

Not that I’ve listened to any of the standard fare from the The Hollywood Podcast, but the Unkempt series is superb. Superb.

This series is what podcasting is made for. These stories couldn’t be told in any other form. These stories are more intimate and more entertaining than any of the ‘Your Name Here Show’ podcasts.

Be warned, these stories are not for the easily offended (why they haven’t been added to the Podcast Picks list.)

Thanks Tim – and good luck on the next 2 months.

Published
Categorized as Podcast

New iTunes Podcast Categorization and WP-iPodCatter

On Friday, I received an email from Apple’s iTunes Podcasting team that they’re changing the categories in the iTunes directory. So, I updated the WP-iPodcatter plugin to reflect these changes.

Like their removal of item-level categorization, I’m not crazy about these changes.

  1. There are 2 ‘Other’ categories (in Religion, Games & Hobbies). But not in any of the other categories. ‘Other’, like ‘Miscellaneous’, is an acknowledgment of an unsuccessful categorization scheme. Conceivably, ‘Other’ will have the most things in it – so filtering that category will be the challenge.
  2. These categories feel more like Apple trying to form and mold what’s in the iTunes directory rather than fostering what’s currently being published.
  3. I have no idea where to put the First Crack Podcast. Best I could do was; Business, Technology, Arts:Food. I know. Not accurate.

Then again, iTunes is a pretty worthless interface for finding podcasts, and these category revisions only make the problem worse. While doing nothing to eliminate podcasters gaming their placement with; -, –>, :: , ‘, ‘”, “”””””””””””””””””.

All podcast directories have a similar problem – trying to be the Yahoo of podcasts (hierarchical directory) rather than the Google (really good filtering). If you’re looking for good podcasts – I recommend AmigoFish or a regular web search (Google, Yahoo, etc) with “podcast” added at the end.

Abstruse, I Am

My preferences over at AmigoFish were described as ‘abstruse’ (difficult to comprehend) the other day.

Good word and much nicer than, say, ‘hyper-critical’.

In an effort to provide some clarity, here are a few notes on what I’m looking for in (video) podcast-land.

Podcasts in General

  • Enthusiasm and constructiveness.
  • 2-3 people having an intelligent conversation (no panels).
  • Big, deep, timeless conversations, rather than time-sensitive reactions.
  • Interesting-ness. I’m looking to think about things in new ways.
  • Independent publishers – repurposed audio/video is cut right out (On the Media is the sole exception).

Video-specific

  • Low production values (I don’t want it to feel like television)
  • Delivered as .mpg or something I can easily convert to .mpg – because, ironically – I want these on my Tivo.
  • Actually using the video channel, not just audio with pictures.

If you’ve got a podcast you think I’d like, add it to my Backlog channel at GigaDial.

Thanks, and by the way, abstruse has nothing to do with “overbese”.

Published
Categorized as Podcast

Weblog, Podcast, Videoblog Workshop – March 25, 2006 at Acadia Cafe

If you’re interested in starting a weblog, podcast, or videoblog and don’t know where to start, come by the Acadia Cafe (1931 Nicollet Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403) on March 25th between 2-6pm.

I’ll be there, with (hopefully) many other local bloggers, podcasters, and videobloggers to show you the ropes. Everyone leaves with more knowledge than they left with.

Bring what you have, Learn what you need, Share what you know.

Wanna help or be helped, put your name in the comments and the times you’ll probably be by the Acadia.

See you there.

More on the Uplifter movement at Uplifter.org

So, there isn’t a panel or anything as formal as that. I’ll be near the door saying ‘Hi’ and helping people in search of bloggy knowledge find those with it that are already there.