2009-07-05 Podcasts explained
From Walkerpedia
This was originally sent to my email subscribers as part of my Tuesday emails series (which has now settled back into a monthly email ;).
So I'm finally getting into podcasts. It's taken a while. Because it's not immediately obvious how to get into podcasts, or what their purpose is. Is it a radio show? Is it a blog? Where does it fit in my life?
A podcast isn't a radio show. A radio show is broadcast at a certain time, and you tune in either because you know it's going to be a good show or because you want to listen to the radio while you're driving or washing up or cooking.
The way you discover and access podcasts is similar to the way you deal with blogs. But a podcast isn't a blog. It makes a noise, and you have to deal with that. You have to sort out headphones or speakers and put aside a certain block of uninterrupted time to listen to it.
Podcasts are new and different, so you have to develop a new habit. For me, podcasts are starting to replace my radio listening (partly because I no longer have a car, and that was the only place I listened to the radio).
I'm going to tell you about five very different podcasts and show you how to try them out for yourself, so you can decide whether the podcast habit is useful for you.
Contents |
Here are some podcasts I listen to
The Beatles Complete On Ukulele
Every Tuesday Roger and Dave release a Beatles song covered by a different artist with an accompanying essay. The quality of the production is fantastic, the essays are witty, entertaining and inceisive, and the performances are wonderful. They've done 24 out of 185 so far, and they let me sing the latest one (I chose It Won't Be Long, the opening track from With The Beatles, and Roger and Dave made a masterpiece of it ;).
I've been subscribed to this for almost two months, and I find it quite incredible that I'm going to get a great Beatles cover delivered to my iPod every Tuesday until the London Olympics in 2012. For free.
The Collings and Herrin Podcast
Richard Herring is a genius comedian. He was half of Lee and Herring back in the 90s, and he went on to write some amazing shows, books and stand-up (he's the guy who wrote Jerry Springer The Opera). Andrew Collins is another comedian.
Once a week, Herring and Collins sit in Richard Herring's house and record themselves chatting about the topics of the day (usually over a copy of the Daily Mail) for exactly an hour. They are hilarious, peurile, offensive and brilliant. For free.
You Look Nice Today
Merlin Mann is internet famous, which means you've probably never heard of him. He's a blogger and speaker from San Fransisco who gets very excited about time, attention and doing things better.
Merlin records a regular podcast with two friends. It's like having three incredibly witty and fast-talking friends sitting in the pub with you, talking about everything from the latest internet geekery to how clever it would be to cheaply employ actors from developing countries to learn to be you at every single age so they could play you in the film of your life when you're famous. For free.
John Locke Lectures
The University of Oxford (among others) has started putting loads of lectures online. This is unbelievably amazing. I'm slowly working my way through the six 2008 John Locke lectures, in which TK gives an introduction to modern philosophy.
There are lectures and classes on almost any subject you can imagine available as podcasts from some of the best universities in the world. Most of them are on iTunesU. For free.
Poshcast
After Ben's Big Gig, I was really keen to work with Tom Greeves and Xander again (Tom did the stand-up set at the start of the second half, and Xander helped me put the whole gig together). We settled on the idea of a podcast, and spent a few hours talking into a microphone. After a week of editing we had a 45 minute episode which is very promising indeed.
250 people have listened to it in the first week, and we're planning to release it fortnightly from now on. If you listen to it, leave a comment on the website or drop me an email to let me know what you think. The first few episodes are like prototypes - we're figuring out what's entertaining as we go along. ;)
A quick podcast primer
As interesting as all of that sounds, it's useless until you know how podcasts work. Here's how to get into podcasts using iTunes:
- If a podcast is in the iTunes Podcast Directory (You Look Nice Today, Collings and Herring and the John Locke Lectures are) just open the iTunes Store (in iTunes) and search for the name of the podcast. You can also click the 'podcast' category on the left to browse the thousands of podcasts available. Click the 'Subscribe' button.
- If you find a podcast through its website (like Poshcast or The Beatles Complete On Ukulele), you need to copy the podcast feed address. This is usually labelled something like "podcast feed" or "subscribe". Right click the link and choose 'Copy link'. Open iTunes, click the 'Advanced' menu and click 'Subscribe to podcast...'. Paste the podcast feed address into the box (Ctrl+V) and click OK.
Once you're subscribed, iTunes will check for new episodes every time you open it, and automatically download the latest one. If you have an iPod, it will also automatically sync new podcasts to your iPod when you plug it in (you can customize all these behaviours in the settings).
Try it out. You'll magically get new episodes of great shows appearing in your iTunes every week! It's completely free (as in absolutely, completely free forever), and ridiculously easy. And of course, you can always unsubscribe or delete the podcasts whenever you like.
Homework
Subscribe to some or all of the podcasts above, and listen to one. Bonus marks if it's the Poshcast.
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I'm going to be sending monthly emails from now on. I promise I'll make them useful, and not just blather on about the stuff I'm doing (although I might mention it occasionally).
A note for the oldies: I know some of you think all this new-fangled stuff goes right over your heads, but I think it's worth reading anyway, for two reasons. First, because it's always better to understand roughly what's going on around you. Second, because you'll definitely be using some of this stuff in a few years time. It's not going away. Remember when SMS was something the kids did? ;)
See you in August,
Ben
PS. All the old emails (about blogs, RSS, Twitter, PayPal, online video and crowdsourcing) are available on Walkerpedia: http://ben.walkerpedia.org/wiki/Tuesday_emails
PPS. The 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge started again yesterday! I'm going to set 50 Twitter messages to music between now and October. So far I've only made the album art...:
