Tag: podcasting

Adam Curry's Keynote at Gnomedex

Post ImageAdam Curry is on the stage, here’s my notes as the keynote progresses:

  • He’s recording episode #200 of the Daily Source Code right here at Gnomedex.
  • That’s going to be a very historical opening for the DSC, the entire auditorium loud with applause to open the show.
  • Adam just played a mashup, and Scoble started a big party with dancing and goofiness featuring his infamous red couch.
  • Woodstock was 20 years ago today, and Adam says that today we’re jamming with new instruments, and the world is listening.
  • It’s been said at Gnomedex that we’re not the early adopters, we’re the “lunatic fringe”.
  • Adam: We need fuel. From Microsoft, Apple, Audible, etc. We’ve got things we want to accomplish.
  • Adam: The magic really happened when him and Dave Winer switched places, when Adam became the developer and Dave became the user.
  • Adam: “Here’s what I learned as a developer. This shit is hard work! Its an art form, it is 100% art.”
  • Adam: “This power of subscription is really changing everything.”
  • Sounds like Adam is a big advocate of aggregators and other applications just supporting all of the feeds and moving forward. No squabbling, just do it and go, because the end users don’t care.
  • Adam announces that he fully intends to support and use BitTorrent.
  • Music today has the advantage of promotion through radio, though it started to be less of an advantage as radio has become so encumbered by marketing and packaging, etc.
  • Adam is playing a track by Rob Coslo that he thinks is really beautiful, and it is. I turned to Dickson, the piano expert, and he says “pretty good tune.” Apparently Rob has been booked in large venues and is selling his music, and has been asked to do movie scores. The revolution is that we’re sharing, and as a result, generating revenue for Rob. He didn’t need a record label.
  • Time is up for the source code, so Adam shouts out to the developers, to Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Chris and Ponzi.
  • Now Chris says that he and Ponzi might be doing something for Podshow, that should be interesting.

If you’re going to listen to a single Daily Source Code episode, definitely treat your ears to number 200, recorded at Gnomedex 5 in Seattle, Washington on June 25th, 2005.

Read: Gnomedex

Today's Citizen Media

Post ImageThere was obviously lots to talk about in this session hosted by David Geller, John Battelle, and Dan Gillmor, but I took one specific thing away from it. Dan Gillmor, in answering a question posed by Darren Barefoot about how the average citizen can become important enough when big media is around, said that what we’re talking about is “mass media” and NOT “mainstream media”.

For some reason, that statement really resonates. Mainstream is quite relative when you think about it. If you read a dozen different publications every day, that’s mainstream for you, even if no one else reads the same publications. Mass media is a much better way to describe the organizations that normally come to mind – the big newspapers, television and radio stations, and websites.

When you think about it, the defintion makes a difference when you try to figure out how joe average can make a successful podcast. It doesn’t matter if that podcast becomes “mass media”, what’s more important is that it becomes “mainstream media” for a group of people. If you’ve got something you’re passionate about and something you want to say, and there are people who want to listen, I’d define that as success.

Podcasting will almost definitely become another technology used by mass media. What will truly decide whether or not it has staying power, is if podcasting becomes mainstream media too. And based on the growth we’ve seen so far, I think it’s a safe bet.

Read: Gnomedex

Announcing the Podbot!

Post ImageI’ve been waiting to post this for quite some time now. I am very happy to introduce to you, the Podcast Wizard Robot, or Podbot for short. You may have heard rumblings about a podcasting robot already, and if so, you heard correctly!

The Podbot is exactly that, a podcasting robot. It moves around like a mini car, and is controlled wirelessly. It’s equipped with a webcam and of course, a microphone. The Podbot has a Tablet PC on board, to act as both the interface and brains of the robot. We control movement, recording, and other functionality remotely using another Tablet PC connected over Wi-Fi.

All of the software is written in .NET. The control software which handles communication with the Podbot and functionality like movement was written specifically for the Podbot. The podcasting software is actually Podcast Wizard, our upcoming podcasting tool. Our podcast is hosted at Podcast Spot, and all of our episodes are tagged with Podcast Tags.

As you’ll see from the website, the Podbot was created by myself, Dickson, Andrew and Ashish. Above all, it was a fun project, and we all learned a lot. Thanks to Andrew and Ashish for all of the hard work you did – the Podbot just wouldn’t exist without you!

You can check out the website for more information on the Podbot, or if you’re at Gnomedex, come see it in person! You can listen to our first podcast with the robot here.

Read: Podcast Wizard Robot

Edmonton Podcasters Meetup

Post ImageIf you’re into podcasting already or if you want to learn more about it, and you live in Edmonton or nearby, you have to come to the first ever Edmonton Podcasters Meetup! This event is the latest in Tod Maffin’s series of Canadian podcaster roadshows.

It will be Saturday, June 18th at 2:00 PM in the Confederation Lounge of the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald. Bring your favourite podcasting gear and questions. I’ll be talking a bit about how you can participate in The Feed. Please spread the word in your blog or podcast! 🙂

You can bet that Paramagnus will be there, and hopefully we’ll have some goodies to bring along too! We’d be happy to hang out with you if you’re coming – we can show you the office, some Edmonton highlights if you’re new to the city, or whatever you want! Leave a comment or drop me an email.

What are you waiting for? Go RSVP for the event now!

Read: Edmonton Podcasters Meetup

Enough already Dave!

Anyone else sick of Dave Winer complaining about Adam Curry yet? I sure am. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for giving credit where credit is due, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. For those of you new to the situation, Dave is upset that Adam hasn’t given him proper credit for “inventing” podcasting. Thing is, I seem to recall Dave being mentioned in almost every one of the early podcasting articles. Why hasn’t he been mentioned since? Well what have you done for podcasting lately, Dave? No, podcatch doesn’t count. And statistics on audio.weblogs.com is quite un-podcast-ish, actually.

I hope Adam keeps doing whatever it is that he’s doing, and doesn’t waste time stopping to reply to Dave. I mean, I agree with Dave, the new PodShow on Sirius is not podcasting, but at least Adam is out there trying to build an audience, doing some interesting new things. And when it comes right down to it, as long as the conversation is enabled, I don’t care what you call it.

I realize I have wasted time writing about this, but it was on my mind. Now, back to work on some cool podcasting stuff!

Read: Dave Winer

Podcast Radio Station?

You’d think I would be excited about the launch of the world’s first “all-podcast radio station,” but instead I’m disappointed. San Francisco’s 1550 KYCY will now become KYOURadio and will feature content submitted by listeners. The problem? It’s not podcasting at all:

In part because of licensing requirements, which usually cover only broadcast and streaming, the company has no plans to provide downloadable program archives.

More and more, individuals and organizations are attaching the term “podcast” to their audio endeavours, trying to jump on the bandwagon. This is very clearly one such example, and it’s disappointing. KYOURadio is not a podcast radio station – they simply play content submitted by listeners.

Read: Podcast Wizard

See you at Gnomedex!

Earlier this week Dickson and I registered for Gnomedex 5.0, taking place in Seattle from June 23rd to 25th. We’re really excited about the conference, and we’re looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people! If the conference is anything like Northern Voice, it should be a great time. We’re still working out the travel arrangements, but there’s lots of time left for that.

Julie Leung is listed as one of the many speakers, and I am really looking forward to her session. I missed her talk at Northern Voice, but it seemed to be one of the favorites. This year’s Gnomedex definitely has the podcasting vibe, with Adam Curry and Dave Winer keynoting, and a bunch of podcasters attending. I can’t wait to see what people are doing with podcasting in two months, it should be amazing.

If you’re going to be at Gnomedex (or in Seattle at the same time) and want to get together, let me know!

Why I AM Smoking the Podcasting Dope

Recently, Darren Barefoot posted that he isn’t smoking the podcasting dope – he’s skeptical of, well, everything to do with podcasting. Like anything worth talking about, there are those that agree and those that do not (and in Canada, the vast majority sit on the fence). Here’s why I AM smoking the podcasting dope, and like Darren’s post, its a rhetorical discussion:

You need a radio voice.

Why does your podcast have to be professional radio quality? I think many people will enjoy creating podcasts simply so that their friends and family can listen – that doesn’t require advanced audio or a professional radio sounding voice. Um and uh away!

Think back to the early days of the web. Did all websites look great? Nope. There was crap then and there’s crap now. The difference is that the amount of crap has been reduced. I don’t come across a flashing neon web page as often as I used to. I don’t think podcasting will be any different.

And for those individuals or companies that want to produce something more professional, there’s nothing holding them back from acquiring the necessary items.

Podcasting takes too much time.

  • Sure you can skim through 250 blogs a day, and at first glance it may seem impossible to do the same with podcasting. However, while a typical blog may have a new post or two every day, podcasting is much less frequent (unless you’re Adam Curry). I think it’s unreasonable to assume that the volume of podcast episodes will equate to the volume of blog posts.
  • We’ve got tools like Google for the web. We’ve got PubSub, Feedster, Technorati and others for blogs. When the tools exist to help you find podcasts, the task of listening will seem much less daunting. It’s not a barrier, it’s a challenge, and it will be overcome.
  • Who said you have to listen to a podcast on a mobile device? There’s no reason you can’t listen on your computer. Instead of streaming radio at work, many people may start to play podcasts in the background.

There’s no money in podcasting.

As more and more people purchase portable audio devices, the number of hours that people aren’t listening to advertisements grows. Eventually, advertising will find it’s way into podcasting. And as the number of podcasters grows, so too will grow the market for tools and services that help the creators and the listeners. Finally, just as businesses are starting to see the value of blogging, they’ll see the value of podcasting too. There’s a lot of money in podcasting, the trick is to extract it!

Podcasting is hard.

  • Again, think back to the early days of the web. Could everyone make a web page? Definitely not. However, now we have the tools that make it easy for anyone to create a website. When similar tools appear for podcasting, there is no reason that someone can’t podcast very easily.
  • Yes, podcasting does have that extra requirement – hardware. Yet microphones are cheap, and many people already have them. Furthermore, they aren’t hard to use. And if services like Skype already have millions of users with microphones, I don’t see this as a barrier to podcasting.

Podcasting uses a lot of bandwidth/needs a fast connection.

This argument annoys me. How many millions of people download audio and video files from file sharing sites and services? Tons. More than will ever download a podcast probably. And the technology for dealing with such large amounts of data transfer is constantly improving – look at BitTorrent.

Podcasting has a limited audience.

The audience for radio is in decline. The audience for live TV is in decline (just look at the dropping numbers of awards show viewers and the interest in TiVo). Listeners and viewers are changing their habits from conforming to the schedule of the content provider to fitting the content into their own schedule. Podcasting doesn’t require a new audience – the existing audience can use podcasts as just another source of media. In many places, I think podcasting will replace radio.

Podcasting isn’t revolutionary.

Sometimes the best technologies are not revolutionary, but improve on what existed before. Streaming audio simply isn’t a great way to distribute audio on the web – podcasting is an evolution that makes the experience better.

While a writer may show a certain style on their blog, it’s still just text. Podcasting has the ability to reintroduce the human quality to discussions, as your voice is a lot more personal than your writing style. Another benefit of podcasting is that the listener uses their imagination! No text or video to distract from the content, the listener can create the scene in his or her mind.

Podcasting is empowering. It gives the creator a voice and the listener a choice – it doesn’t get much better than that.

I’m sure you can come up with more reasons for both sides of the argument, but that’s why I’m smoking the podcasting dope. What about you?

Skypecasting

Are you a Skypecaster? Apparently there are quite a few of you out there, sharing recordings over the Internet using the freely available Skype:

Some evidence suggests that Skypecasters may be becoming more widespread, even though it requires a high level of technical know-how. The “implications are very disruptive,” according to the SkypeJournal, a well-known Web community that provides Skypecast instructions. “Many Skypers want to record their Skype conversations and turn them into podcasts.”

And right now, it really does require a lot of know-how. Skype doesn’t offer a “record this conversation” feature, which they really should. “We’re aware of [skypecasting] and encourage developers to help facilitate it,” said spokeswoman Kelly Larrabee. Really?! Then add the damn feature already, it’s not that hard!

Read: CNET News.com

Podcasting on CBC News: The Hour

CBC’s new current events news program The Hour recently ran a special segment on podcasting. Dawn and Drew are kindly hosting a video of the segment, so check it out! Among other things, the segment highlights “godcasting”, the so called religious group of podcasts.

[Via Podcast Wizard Blog] [Tags: ]