Category: Life

First time Podcast listener

I haven’t written about Podcasting just because I wanted to get a feel for it. So far, it’s been pretty neat. (Don’t be intimidated by the long scrollbar on that Wikipedia definition. There’s a lot of external links.)

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve started listening to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code. I guess the very first podcast I heard from him was when he just arrived in South Beach, Florida, and he was doing the podcast from his hotel bed.

Jumping ahead to today, I listened to the DSC for yesterday and today (while I was getting ready for work, plus during the drive). Adam Curry got ticked because Podcasting was described incorrectly. Wikipedia is your friend. Then again, Dave Winer has a more simple definition. In any case, it’s all quite new. Until I scrutinized the Wikipedia definition, I didn’t realize it was developed in August 2004.

How do I feel about it? I like that you can listen to it whenever you want. I can pause, fast forward, rewind. It’s an MP3, and on my iPod, I can treat it as such. I like how Adam Curry has show notes. When he was talking about this one podcaster, “Madge Weinstein”, she was pretty – grotesque. Not for the kids. Some people don’t mind – I do, and I skipped later into the podcast. He might swear occasionally, or more when he gets into a deep rant, but at least it’s not like music where it sticks in my head.

I like the fact that he’s just talking. It sounds personal, he doesn’t have to promote anybody, and if he feels a topic needs to be discussed more in depth, he’ll dive into it. Once in South Beach and in today’s podcast, he did a podcast sound-seeing. He got his mic, plugged in, and went about part of his day to do his podcast. Today was pretty funny because he was going to Starbucks to get his Cappuccino Grande and go online (his broadband connection isn’t up at home). He talked about parking, and how he got a ticket for touching one of the lines. It’s really funny because in a meeting last Friday at work, someone mentioned to watch how you park next to a handicap spot, because you can get a ticket if you’re on their line.

In any case, if you:

  • have any type of MP3 player
  • can listen to that MP3 player in your car
  • have a commute to work or school

…you should give listening to podcasts a shot. Really. Not just a geek thing – maybe a little bit.

Note: Podcast doesn’t mean it’s for the iPod only. That’s a misconception. It’s just derived from the name of the iPod.

I think the 2+ hours that went into this post should be enough, don’t you think? 🙂

Oh yeah, I use iPodder.