a. fish

Tipping Point?

My web traffic suddenly quadrupled yesterday. Almost all 16 hits came from Google searches on podcasting.

SFGate Podcast

SFGate's Benny Evangelista does a nice article on podcasting: what it is, and who (in the bay area) is doing it. Evangelista and his editor Tom Abate top off the coverage with an actual podcast. Reporter Benny teaches himself to do a podcast and writes about the learning curve here. "It took me nearly two weeks to finally get the podcast fully functional."

Benny also says The SF Chronicle's book editor David Kipen may do some podcasts. Benny suggests The Chronicle do periodic "story behind the story" podcasts, for example some background on the BALCO case. Go Benny!

Podcasting without an iPod: Tiffany Shlain, iTunes

(Alternative title: listening to podcasts on iTunes for someone new to iTunes)

If this Tech Nation interview with Tiffany Shlain were a song, I wouldn't care about it's broadcast date (sorry "pod"cast date teehee). But in it, where Shlain talks about the upcoming Webby Awards, and mentions they are still taking entries, the recording date is important. Unfortunately the only date listed in iTunes is the last date I, the user, played the cast, which was blank today, Feb 24.  (Update: a web search shows me it was recorded Jan 04 of this year.)

I give this podcast a top rating (probably the first podcast I rated at all, much less the first to earn the full five stars). Now, I've heard about people sharing their playlists over the net, does my rating get uploaded anywhere for podcast perusing folks out there?

Anecdote: if you don't listen, read this transcribed segment factoid about Shlain, who founded the Webbys back in the 1990s when she sported that signature side ponytail: "Im gonna go pretty far back just to give you a context but uh my family's from Russia and they were the enemy in high school you know and I my best friend's family was from Iran and they were also the enemy. And we were both into computers. And we thought: what if we create a computer program with students from these enemy countries and ...hopefully world peace will happen! So this was when I was like seventeen years old in Mill Valley in the 1980s.

Movielet: Four Minutes about Podcasting

Thank you Lisa Williams! For those interested in podcasting but too lazy to read Lisa's iPodder documentation, you now have an alternative: watch the movie. It's a four-minute movie she made herself. It's artistic, entertaining and informative. Just look at these testimonials:

Tech Beat: Technology Blog on BusinessWeek Online
02/07/2005
Everything you wanted to know about podcasting… in four minutes

Curious about podcasting? It does for audio what TiVo does for TV. And it’s easy to get started. Check out this four-minute how-to video by Lisa Williams

Podcasting without an iPod - First Impressions

(Disclaimer: These first impressions, separated into questions and tips, are jotted down as they are experienced. They are not bad or good, just a one-person usability study, documented live.)

Podscribing
We need a word for people who just listen to podcasts. I am not yet a 'caster': not producing anything or casting it in any way, be it broadcasting, narrowcasting, netcasting or podcasting. I am just subscribing - podscribing? (Eh, that term needs work).
Tip. Beginner podscribers should start by just subscribing to just one or two feeds at a time to get the hang of what's going on. I started out with way too many feeds in my iTunes queue. Today I pared down to just one: ITConversations.

iTunes
My first impressions with podcasting (without an iPod) are muddled because I'm also new to iTunes. I just jotted down the question below, but now I notice someone has written a guide for using iPodder with Windows Media Player, will have to give that a try.
Q. (iTunes) How come the playlist "ITConversations" has 5 other "albums" on it? How can I isolate just ITConversations onto one playlist?

Podcasting Primer (for John S.)

For my friend John Sanfilippo who just got an iPod (bastard!)

What podcasting is: John if you listen to NPR today's The World will do a story on podcasting today [link from Tiger Beat].

Get started: John you need to download and install iPodder. Lisa wrote some good documentation for the Windows version.

Podcasts you might like: from what I understand neither Art Bell nor Michael Savage produce podcasts yet (thank god!) Until then you should start with ITConversations. Slashdot Review also looks good, like "Slashdot for busy people" according to Lisa. Also I will keep my eyes peeled for stuff than might interest an Econ professor / standup comedian / (what else?).

PS(John, don't take the opening comment personally. Until I have one, everyone with an iPod is a bastard).

Update: Russell Beattie found he liked listening to podcasts in the car much more than listening at home or at work. Something to consider.