I had the privilege of being on This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte, John Dvorak, and Baratunde Thurston right after appearing on This Week in Google with the aforementioned Leo, Gina Trapani, and Mary Hodder. Much fun.
Posts Tagged ‘podcasts’
Podcast madness
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009Podcast mania
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009Podcasts, podcasts, everywhere…..
This month’s MediaTalkUSA for the Guardian is up with guests Jay Rosen of NYU and Michael Tomasky of the Guardian. We talk about Politico’s rear-guard action against the Washington Post with its new local service; the election; the White House and Fox; and government support of journalism.
Here’s the latest This Week in Google with Leo Laporte and Gina Trapani (in which she announces her new book about Wave)
But that’s not all… I was also privileged to be a guest on last week’s Rebooting the News with Jay and Dave Winer.
And if you’re not sick of hearing me, see the post below for two more audios.
The week I couldn’t shut up…
This Week in Google #3
Monday, August 17th, 2009Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009I have two podcasts to plug this week:
* The latest Guardian Media Talk USA podcast is up. David Folkenflik, NPR correspondent, and John Temple, ex editor of the Rocky Mountain News and now a damned fine media blogger, and I talk about the AP, the TechCrunch/Twitter affair, and news as charity. I also interview Josh Cohen, product manager of Google News.
* Leo Laporte, Gina Trapani, and I recorded the inaugural edition of This Week in Google (TWiG). You can watch it in video here and listen to the podcast here. We discuss all kinds of things: Apple (AT&T) blocking Google Voice; the importance of Google Wave and the live web; the AP (again); Gmail getting rid of that damned “on behalf of”; Microsoft Office (finally) going into the cloud. Great fun.
I wish I could embed both of them here (hint, hint) but go take a listen and please subscribe.
A ‘cast by any other name
Saturday, September 30th, 2006Leo Laporte wants to change the name of “podcasts” to “netcasts” because “pod” makes people think they need an iPod. I’m afraid that once names stick, they stick. How many times have we heard people wish for different names than “blog,” “blogosphere,” “RSS,” “HTML,” and all that. When you think about it, “elevator” is a silly and rather haughty word; “lift” is much better. But here we elevate. We blog. We podcast.
Auf wiedersehen
Saturday, September 23rd, 2006I was saddened to listen to the 400th episode of Schlaflos in Muenchen, for it is the last. Annik Rubens, the Valkyrie-voiced podcaster and princess of German podcasts I wrote about for The Guardian, said she will move onto something new after a two-week hiatus and she has other podcasts, like Filme und So. Still, she just tired of the form of her original podcast.
At the same time, the British prince of podcasting, Ricky Gervais, hangs up his microphone on his record-setting show.
What’s going on here? The death of podcasts? Naw. Step back from the keyboard before you start writing that made-up trend story. I sense that people (Winer aside) don’t flame out on blogs the way they might on podcasts and I think the reason for that is that podscasts are both more of a production and more of a performance. It’s harder. That’s also why fewer will start podcasts — and why I haven’t. It’s easier to blather through a keyboard than a microphone.
Howiecast
Thursday, August 17th, 2006I complained that CNN wasn’t letting me listen to Howie Kurtz’s show on my iPod and on my schedule. But what do I find in iTunes today: the Reliable Sources podcast.
Podcasts get ratings
Thursday, July 20th, 2006Nielsen released a report today on the economics of podcasting with some juicy stats to add to yesterday’s Pew numbers (here’s a only I to a PDF of the press release):
* 6 percent of U.S. adults — 9 million people — have downloaded podcasts in the last 30 days. The same number call themselves regular podcast listeners.
* More than 75 percent of them are male.
* 38 percent of active podcast listeners told Nielsen that they are listening to radio less often.
* The most successful podcasts, Nielsen says, are get two million downloads a month. (I’m curious to hear the stats for Diggnation and other big ones.)
* 60 percent said they always fast-forward past commercials.
* 72 percent of regular downloaders get one to three podcasts a week; heavy users — 10 percent of them — take eight or more.
Nielsen also said it is going to launch an iPod panel with 400 users. That’s good. But I’ll caution that you can’t measure the mass of niches that way you could measure the masses; a sample won’t get the — pardon me — long tail. Still, in a new medium, data is good because it makes the medium real.
‘casting
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006City AM, a new, free paper in London aimed at the financial district, has just started a podcast with a twist or two. First, they call it City PM, which means that they expand their service and brand into another daypart. When they registered that name, some thought they’d producing a second edition of the paper. But, instead, they’re producing a show; they’re thinking past their medium. And instead of just downloading these podcasts (I can’t find the site where I could), they’re ‘casting them through the air via bluetooth:
It is now launching the podcast via mobile using Bluetooth technology targeting homeward-bound business commuters using London’s Liverpool Street and Waterloo stations. Under a deal struck with outdoor specialist Titan, the “transvision” screens in both stations will run a 15-second commercial for the service, every two minutes from 5.30pm to 7.30pm daily. The ad will air 45 times a day.
The five-minute podcast can be delivered to 150 mobile phones simultaneously.
That may be geekgimmick or it may be a sensible way to distribute ‘cast content in an unwired world.
Another overdue recommendation: Filme und So
Sunday, April 16th, 2006Here’s another overdue recommendation: One of my favorite podcasts from two of my favorite podcasters — Filme und So (translation: movies and stuff) — is now in video, as I hoped it would be. Fans of Annik Rubins and her most charming voice from her other podcast, Schlaflos in München, can now see her award-winning dimpled smile. Cohost Timo Hetzel has produced a simple and shorter versin of the audio podcast and I like the added connection it gives us with both of them. They know how to podcast well by being informative and casual but still professional and just slick enough. OK, so most of you won’t be able to understand a word (and I can’t understand every word) but I use them as a model for what podcasts and vlogs can be.
: I also just saw that Annik Rubins has a podcasting book from O’Reilly (auf Deutsch).
: And more: Annik held a contest to come up with a podcasting logo. I like it.
Geek Martha
Sunday, March 26th, 2006Alex Albrecht, costar of Diggnation, has just premiered his new cooking show for geeks with the greatest title alive: Ctrl+Alt+Chicken (download it there or watch it, free, via iTunes).
It’s a hoot and a half. He and his girlfriend (I think), Heather Stewart, try to make chicken cordon bleu but fail spectacularly. It ends up burned on the outside and perilously raw on the inside. But it’s still fun watching them and, if you care, you do get the recipe. The show goes just a touch over the top when actors must act in a sketch moment near the start. It’s best when they’re just having fun in the kitchen and, in the great tradition of the Galloping Gourmet before he found the wagon, they’re getting sloshed on wine. The couple thing works. So does the honesty. As they’re melting fat and more fat in a pot and they get rather disgusted at this, Alex says in a cooking show, “This is why people don’t cook. Becuase you look at it while it’s cooking and you don’t want to eat it.” Heather says, “It takes forever and my pizza would have already been here.” They’re planning an episode when they just eat the cold pizza. Now that is cooking for geeks.
Note well that this isn’t just people sitting and talking to the camera. They’re actually doing something. They’re entertaining. They made a show. And they showed the world. They did it without studios or executives or networks. Welcome to the future of TV. I like it.
Media on media in media
Friday, March 24th, 2006Media Guardian, where I am proud to write a column, has started a podcast. Here’s the first episode (MP3), with my editor, Matt Wells, as host. I’ll be listening in the car in the a.m.
