Podcasting Stuff

Podcasting is a relatively new phenomemon, and I’ve only had time to listen to a few so far.

It reminds me of AM talk radio for some reason. Back in the 80′s, newly married and house-poor, I bought a Dodge Dart from my father-in-law for something like $200. The radio was AM-only, and I had to use needle-nosed pliers to tune it. Once I found a good station I tended to stick with it. I used to listen to Bruce Williams, Dr. Gabe Merkin, and others. Later, I got a better car, and was able to tune into Bruce (again), and Art Bell.

Ok, so now back to the present. Podcast brings together cheap storage, high-bandwidth connections, portable MP3 players, and people with something to say.

For example, my onetime co-worker Dave Schappell recently did his “Early Retirement Dot-Com Guy Podcast“. The sound quality is high, and Dave is focused yet informal, and quite entertaining. When his wife calls in mid-cast, Dave answers, talks to her, promises to edit it out, but doesn’t. He doesn’t say “call me back, I’m podcasting,” or anything like that. His recitation of the email from overstock.com is worth the 14 MB download all by itself.

Dave recently created a Seattle Podcasting Meet-Up, and I’ll try to get to one soon.

Finally, Syndic8 has been tracking RSS enclosures for a long time. I recently added a “River of Podcasts” page, featuring the newest podcasts in 6 languages (English, Spanish, French, Japanese, German, and Dutch). Some people are casting things besides audio, such as images, video, and even PowerPoint presentations.