baby's first podcast
Yeah, I know, big deal, your dog has a podcast, too. But can your dog do this? Okay, you can’t see what I just did, ‘cause you’re reading a web page and I don’t have a webcam, but trust me, it was really cool.
Where were we? Wait, podcasting. Yeah. Podcasting is a buzzword that all the genuinely cool people are sick of, but you and I are going to have a nice little chat about it.
Those of you who know what RSS is should skip to the next chapter, which is a good bit and has Marvin in it. The rest of you, follow me.
Podcasting is waaaaaaaaaay overhyped, but under all the cheese, there are a couple of good ideas in there. These two ideas aren’t new, but they’re only just now getting popular, for a number of reasons I won’t cover here. Anyway—podcasting is:- TiVo for radio. That is, you tell your computer what your favorite radio shows are, and then listen to the shows at your own convenience (including fast-forwarding through the boring bits). The computer takes care of the boring part of poring obsessively over the schedules, finding the latest episodes, downloading the audio/video, and organizing everything.
- Do-It-Yourself broadcasting. Any old chump with access to the Internet (if you have a library card, you have this) and a telephone can start his own radio show. As proof of this truth, I humbly submit my own podcast. True, to sound like something more than “any old chump,” you’ll probably want to record the audio yourself with a decent microphone, add intro music, throw in a few fancy-schmancy sound effects, and generally do boring professional-DJ-like stuff such as practicing and writing up show notes. But you can add all that other stuff later, once you’re famous.
And I’m doin’ this thing, too, now. What I’m hoping is that you friend ‘n’ family types and I can share our voices with one another when the time zones don’t work out right for us to do it in real time with a live telephone call.