Welcome to Friday’s glance into the week’s stories from the podcasting world on Podcast Guide. Today we’re talking about baldness, HIV’s 25th anniversary, and a sound technology that lets you shoot beams of sound to people without anyone else knowing. Here are the links to the stories we talked about today:
Anyone can pick up a microphone and start podcasting in a matter of minutes. You can podcast about anything, and you can do it on your terms. It’s easy. Podcasting is for everyone.
Sound’s pretty inviting? Well, maybe. It’s one thing to start podcasting, it’s another thing to get accepted.
I’ve been out in the podcasting community under a number of different guises. I’ve been the new guy (as I am now), and I’ve been fortunate enough to see the world thought the eyes of the 500 pound gorilla.
I must say, going in fresh is eye opening. There are a lot of huge egos out there that you’ve got to go up against. It’s not like YouTube, where you’ve got a bunch of little brats running around leaving random hurtful comments (although I this may happen anyway, so be prepared), it’s more like an exclusive club where a you’ve got to run though the gauntlet a few times before you start to earn any respect.
I’ve recently been back at it in the world of online communities. My skin is pretty thick, and I already have a sense of what it’s all about, so it’s generally be pleasent and fun for me. But I’m seeing a lot of new people come in, try to say hello, and get chewed up and spit out by the few most vocal members. I always go and check out the podcasts from new people, and feel bad because it’s usually a couple of high school kids just enjoying life and trying to take an active interest in podcasting. When they get chewed out on their first into an online community, they quickly get their feelings hurt, leave some embarrassing reply, and sometimes run away with their tail between their legs. Does that sound like podcasting is for everyone?
So if you’re new, realize that no matter how good or genuine you are, you are going to get beat up. Think of it as an initiation. Although you probably wont have to deal with many 13 year old boys from trailer parks, you will run up against a lot of massive egos. If you go in with that in mind, you’ll do well just fine.
This week’s theme is bite-sized literature, which are those little shows that produce quick peices of art on a regular basis and release it in audio form. There are hundreds of these out there, and they can be really addicting if you start to explore. Here’s some links to the ones we talked about today:
If you’re one of those people that enjoy celebrity gossip, take a listen to the Daily Dish, produced by the ABC. It’s VERY short, so you won’t end up grumbling about why anyone would care about Suri Cruise’s family doctor. (I just made that up; it’s not a real story.) Each episode features a few stories about the entertainment industry or celebrity debacle. There’s just enough detail to make it interesting and memorable, and it cuts off way before your brain decides it doesn’t care anymore. Example: Wesley Snipes is heading to jail for three years tells only the headline and background behind his financial woes. No extraneous jibber jabber. Terrific for any movie or TV fan.
Today is Spotlight Wednesday, and we’re talking about 100 Word Stories. We interviewed the host, Laurence, on yesturday’s podcast. Today we’ll talk about our own excitement about what he is achieving over there on isfullofcrap.com. We hope you enjoy, and be sure to add 100 Word Stories to your favorites on DailySplice!
Hey, if you’re into biology be sure to add this short little glance into the world of living things to your splice! Microbeworld is a fantastic science podcast that offers a little interesting thought every weekday. Visit their website as well if you want to dig deeper into the kinds of stuff covered in the podcast.
100 Word Stories is a great podcast that has cultivated a little subculture of weird and wonderful short stories. Today we interview the grand master, Laurence, who is every bit as fun in person as he is in his stories. So enjoy the interview, and go swing by his website to check out what he and his minions are doing over at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com.
One of my burning questions is how many podcasts are out there, and how is that number changing on a month-to-month basis? Over the next month or so, I want to put a system in place to maintain an up-to-date estimate of this number.
We are in the process of building a set of services to give newcomers easier access to the massive pool of podcast content (keep reading for actual numbers). To make a scalable service, we need a reasonable estimate of the size of the data set. Running an algorithm for 100 podcasts is one thing, but running that algorithm for 100,000 or more takes some careful technical planning.
I surveyed some of the larger podcast hosts and repositories, and as of May 8, 2008:
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the numbers for libsyn, one of the most prominent podcast hosts on the net. About 30% of DailySplice’s indexed feeds come from feedburner, indicating that the number of podcast feeds out there is approaching 700,000.
The other question I have is what proportion of those are regularly updated. Of DailySplice’s feeds, over 1000 ( 90%) have released an episode within the last 3 months. However, we have a relatively new directory, so many of the podcasts in there are popular and/or recently created. I’ll revisit this question once we’ve indexed more legacy content.
If anyone has more accurate estimates, I’d love to hear them! Stay tuned for updates to this topic.
Welcome to anther Ready, Set, Monday on Podcast Guide. We’ve got a fun week ahead with the theme of bite-sized literature. Here’s the links to the podcasts we mentioned on today’s show:
You may be aware of my opinion of the Zune software. This week they started filling in the gap between the quality and usefulness of Windows Media Player and Zune Software. Unfortunately filling that gap will be like filling an ice cream bucked with sand, with a pair of tweezers. Anyway, here’s what they’re saying. I see nothing intersting here except for some hints that they have maybe thought about 1/10th of the places where Zune software falls very short.
