June, 2008

Podcast Guide Reviews 06.09

Monday, June 9th, 2008
 
icon for podpress  Podcast Guide Reviews 06.09 [7:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hi, and thanks for checking out today’s podcast guide! On Mondays we review as many podcasts as we can in 5 minutes, so hopefully you’ll find one or two new shows to check out. This week we are going to try something new… to not record so many podcasts! We love doing shows every day, and we know you love listening, but we’ve decided to cut 2 of our days. We’ll still be releasing our popular interviews on Wednesday, and following up with a spotlight on Friday. Let us know what you think of the new plan! This week we’ve got an interview with History According to Bob, so be sure to check in again on Wednesday for that. Here are some links to the shows we talked about today:

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If you have any suggestions for this podcast, please feel free to leave a comment on our blog or email us at info [at] dailysplice.com. If you’d like to find these podcasts and thousands of others in our directory go to DailySplice.com. You can add all your podcasts to your list of favorites and have new episodes delivered to you daily in a convenient package either by email or RSS. If you have a podcast and you’d like to promote it on DailySplice, the best way to do this is to link directly to your podcast’s page in the DailySplice directory and encourage your listeners to add it to their favorites. You can always email us with any questions or requests!

Celebreties Starting to Use Podlebrety Star Power

Friday, June 6th, 2008

I wrote a bit about my take on the podlebrety industry a few weeks ago and since them I’ve been seeing it even more. I recently saw Jessica Alba participate in a contest started on YouTube and made popular by one of the biggest YouTube stars. Now this week, Weezer has released a new video featuring all sorts of scenes from popular youtube videos. Could there be a future where YouTubes star power is even greater than that of traditional silver screen stars?

Why do People Podcast?

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

podcaster motivation

Well, for the moment very few people podcast for money. I think people have dreams of podcasting for money or to increase their business traffic, but that’s not why the bulk of podcasters are doing it.

Podcasting is an art. Some people are very very good at it, and they make a decent living from it. Some people are not so good at it and they make a decent living at it. But the people who are making a decent living at it represent perhaps a percent of a percent of a percent (or .0001% in laymans terms) of the total people doing it and it in no way represents what it really means to be an artist.

There are some absolutely fantastic podcasts out there that absolutely nobody knows about, and in most cases the hosts probably don’t even really care. Podcaster’s podcast because they want to. They are passionate about something and they want to talk about it, its as simple as that.

How do I know this? I know from experience that it is very difficult to make a podcast that will generate revenue. But lately I’ve been getting some new insights into the average joe podcaster’s mind. I’ve been talking to a lot of them. You can find a lot of the interviews we’ve been doing on the podcast guide on Tuesdays.

I haven’t been approaching the money makers yet, but I have approached a number of vetran podcasters. Hosts of podcasts like 100 Word Stories (the podcast with the most episodes out there) and History According to Bob (soon to have 1000 high quality history lessons under his podcast belt). These guys don’t care if they ever make a dime. Lawrence from 100 Word Stories says “I’m going to do a podcast every day until the day I die, so when I miss one you can check the papers.” That pretty much sums up the vibe I get from almost everyone I talk to.

Of course, I also get the vibe from most of these guys that if they did get a big advertising offer they wouldnt hestitate to snach it up… but so would any artist who’d been painting pictures and storing them in his basement. The point is, if those paitings were to stay in the basement their entire lives the artist would just keep adding to the pile, and so will podcasters.

Geek Podcasts

Thursday, June 5th, 2008
 
icon for podpress  Geek Podcasts [7:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There are thousands of geek podcasts out there, but sadly we only have time to cover three on today’s theme Thursday podcast for “Geek.” Be sure to check all these out if you haven’t already, and leave a comment if you want to tell the world about your other favorites!!

Diggnation (site)

Geek Brief (site)

Galacticast (site)

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If you have any suggestions for this podcast, please feel free to leave a comment on our blog or email us at info [at] dailysplice.com. If you’d like to find these podcasts and thousands of others in our directory go to DailySplice.com. You can add all your podcasts to your list of favorites and have new episodes delivered to you daily in a convenient package either by email or RSS. If you have a podcast and you’d like to promote it on DailySplice, the best way to do this is to link directly to your podcast’s page in the DailySplice directory and encourage your listeners to add it to their favorites. You can always email us with any questions or requests!

The Monkey Box

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Last week we did a “sketch comedy” theme. I’m gonna step into the wayback machine and add The Monkey Box, a hilarious video podcast, to that esteemed group. The Monkey Box is comparable to Saturday Night Live or Mad TV, except you won’t want to watch this one with the kids. Many of the sketches are about sex, alcohol or some form of debauchery. Love it. These guys and gals have a great show going over there and have set the scene for other podcasters like them.

Your Geek News Spotlight

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
 
icon for podpress  Your Geek News Spotlight [7:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yesterday we had a great chat with Matt and Nat from Your Geek News over in Toronto. We had a blast talking with them and have lots to say ourselves about their fantastic show. These guys are real experts in both all sorts of geek stuff and in podcasting. So whether your a geek or a podcaster or both, be sure to add Your Geek News to your favorites! Also, check out Matt’s new movie Six Reasons Why, which promises to be a healthy addition to any geeks library! Check out Matt and Nats other podcast BSGcast if your a Battle Star Galactica fan too…
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If you have any suggestions for this podcast, please feel free to leave a comment on our blog or email us at info [at] dailysplice.com. If you’d like to find these podcasts and thousands of others in our directory go to DailySplice.com. You can add all your podcasts to your list of favorites and have new episodes delivered to you daily in a convenient package either by email or RSS. If you have a podcast and you’d like to promote it on DailySplice, the best way to do this is to link directly to your podcast’s page in the DailySplice directory and encourage your listeners to add it to their favorites. You can always email us with any questions or requests!

Wired Magazine Podcast

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Hi, I’ve been listening to this podcast from Wired Magazine lately and just wanted to share it with you. It’s great! 1 minute long and they release 5 on fridays. They are just little short points of interest. One of the most interesting minutes in podcasting.

Your Geek News Interview

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
 
icon for podpress  Your Geek News Interview [7:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On this weeks intertuesday we had a great chat with Matt and Nat from Your Geek News, a fantastic geek movie review video podcast. Unfortunately the audio quality just didn’t work out for us dispite tries on multiple phonelines… but the content was so good we decided to transcribe it for you. So have a listen if you dare, or just read the transcript here. Hope you enjoy, and be sure to check in tomorrow when Lewis and I chat a bit more about this great podcast! And make sure you add this one to your favorites on DailySplice!

Your Geek News Interview Transcript

Rian: What are you’re guys’ favorite podcasts?

Nat: One of my favorite video podcasts is Galacticast.com. They do this really funny sci-fi parody show where they make a parody of, I guess anything out there. The writing is brilliant. It’s sweet! I really enjoy it.

Matt: And as far as what we like to listen to, Ronald D. Moore is one of the producers of Battle Star Galactica, and he has his own audio podcast for the show. And on it he goes into some of the cool whatifs that the episode could have had and extended scenes. It’s just a dream 45 minutes sit down, watch the episode, and listen to him.

Nat: It’s like he’s telling you all his secrets.

Matt: Like sitting beside him in the theatre watching the show.

Nat: And then of course Galactica Forum’s got another audio podcast that we enjoy listening to just because, I guess similar to our BSGcast show it’s just cool to see what people are thinking out there and trying to figure out what the heck is going on in that storyline.

Rian: And we’ll put up some links on the site for those as well. So tell us a little bit about behind the scenes in Your Geek News.

Matt: Ok, well basically the way we do you’re geek news, it’s actually just the two of us. There’s nobody else that works on the show with us. We simultaneously shoot, direct, produce, run the teleprompter. We run the teleprompter with our feet.

Nat: In the past we used to use our hands.

Nat: It’s like a sewing machine.

Matt: but now we’ve figured out a snazzy little method to scroll with our feet.

Matt: So basically, we have our green screen, and the way we light the thing the same way that I’d light any other special effects. And because our background is from radio and television and journalism, there was a certain amount of kind of knowing what we were doing going into it.

Nat: Ya exactly, we kind of know the ins and outs of a production but it’s kind of trying to figure out how to use the minimum number of people create something really cool. So that’s essentially what we’ve been doing.

Matt: Ya, and it’s gotten to a point that two people can simultaneously be on screen while the show is being shot and we’re making edit decisions while we’re speaking. We have to call cut on each other and basically just say “ya, that was a bad take we have to re-do it.”

Nat: But you know, in comparison to a regular television product, things go by very quickly, surprisingly, because ya we’re doing all the work but it’s just so much easier. It’s simplified.

Matt: Ya, since we do the writing in the morning and then we’ll shoot by the evening, and basically I’ll edit all through the night, hit render and go to sleep, and usually we’ll wake up the next morning with an episode ready to put on the web. It winds up being a really slick, streamlined program with just just the two of us. It’s basically what we would rather be doing with our skill than our real jobs because its a neat way to combine what we do and do something totally different with it.

Rian: So what’s the coolest thing you’ve got to do on Your Geek News?

Nat: I love getting that press kit before anyone else gets it and I love getting to see those little trailers an scenes and you got to do that interview with Malcom McDowell and I wanted to die! It was too fricking cool!

Matt: You know what, for me I think the coolest thing we ever did was get that first press kit in the mail. It was for 300 back in the spring of last year and when that came to the door I was in such disbelief that we were about to watch like five scenes from a movie that I had bee looking forward to for a year and a half we were just so excited to sit down a hear what Gerard Butler and what Jack Schneider had to say about that film. And now, I mean when we get one from Paramount that has Steven Spielberg and Harison Ford it just doesn’t have that same excitement as when we got that first, that absolute first press kit.

Nat: You know, and you were pretty excited when we got Iron Man.

Matt: I was very excited about Iron Man.

Rian: So let me ask you, who’s the bigger geek, Matt or Nat?

Nat: I think it depends a lot on the topic. I’m honestly going to say that off the bat, Matt’s the more pure sci-fi geek.

Matt: Ya, I think it comes down to the idea that a geek is kind of like an unpaid expert in a field.

Nat: Ya, Matt and I discuss this quite often. The definition of geek really has evolved you know from what it was maybe 10 years ago, because Geek kind of used to have a negative connotation. But these days you can be about anything it just means your kind of, you know, like Vaynerchuk is a wine geek. You can be a geek about pretty much anything.

Matt: So as far as movies go, it also varies on the movie. Like if it’s a Harry Potter film than Nat definitely gets the geekier hat on. But if it’s an 80’s cartoon that I grew up watching.

Nat: Well Transformers…

Matt: Oh, exactly! I was obsessed with that thing and how incorrect it was. And then the next week Nat was completely obsessed with how it wasn’t quite the way it should of, wasn’t quite right, bla bla bla. So we both have a tendency to kind of trade geeky hats from week to week.

Rian: So if there’s one there’s one geek movie to see this summer what is that?

Matt: You know if someone asked me that question in April, my answer would have been Batman. And then Marvel John Favreau came out with Iron Man.

Nat: Oh goodness that’s exactly what I was thinking! Ironman, it was the movie.

Matt: Ya! You know for me, the fact that that movie was made so expertly on every level with a cast of nothing but hollywood oscar A-class everything, I just thought that was the movie of the summer. They, Marvel kicked it off exactly the way they should have with that one.

Rian: And what’s in store for Your Geek News in the future?

Matt: Basically just to see if we can get it into more places to see. Like we’ve been talking to some movie theaters in and around Toronto about putting it on as something to watch before the show which is kind of a neat move. We’ve been talking to computer companies and computer stores and they’ve been kind of keen to have Your Geek News playing on a loop. It’s kind of an opportunity to take Your Geek News into some other neat places because it’s definitely catching people’s eye and they like what they’re seeing.

Nat: Your Geek News is essentially like Entertainment Tonight but for geeks.

Matt: With Your Geek News we wanted to show off all the cool stuff that’s on those press kits that people wait a year to get on DVD as a special feature. And we decided why not make those a week before the movie comes out. It’s an opportunity for the people behind the scenes of a film to get their hearts out on the page before people have bums in seats at the theater to see it.

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If you have any suggestions for this podcast, please feel free to leave a comment on our blog or email us at info [at] dailysplice.com. If you’d like to find these podcasts and thousands of others in our directory go to DailySplice.com. You can add all your podcasts to your list of favorites and have new episodes delivered to you daily in a convenient package either by email or RSS. If you have a podcast and you’d like to promote it on DailySplice, the best way to do this is to link directly to your podcast’s page in the DailySplice directory and encourage your listeners to add it to their favorites. You can always email us with any questions or requests!

Emerging genres

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

After doing lots and lots of podcast reviews, it seems like we’re witnessing the beginnings of new media genres on the internet. Podcasting makes it galactically easier to express yourself creatively and distribute it to like-minded viewers.100 Word Stories is a great example of a podcast that has built a community around its theme. The theme is simple: a (very) short story. It’s easy to fall into the groove of this format. If you have a creative mind you can come up with such a story in no time, and it’s easy for people to consume as well.

Sketch comedy is another podcast theme that has broken out. A lot of these seem to be video podcasts, which is probably due to classic shows like Saturday Night Live and Mad TV. As a kid, I used to pretend I was a cast member on SNL. I would come up with my own characters and comedy sketches and act them out. Podcasts like Ask Blackie and The Monkey Box took it a step further than me. This is the kind of stuff I would have done if the technology was available at the time. Am I old?

Let’s look at some aspects of these two formats.

  • Short duration. Short episodes are easier to produce. They don’t require expensive equipment and a lot of time editing. If you’re doing a video podcast, there is certainly more expense and more work to be done during production, but it’s very manageable. For listeners, there is less investment required to sample the podcast and determine whether or not they want more. I favor shorter podcasts in general (unless it’s a topic I’m fascinated with), because in my experience, longer episodes tend to contain less relevant content.
  •  Familiar format. Everyone’s seen Saturday Night Live or some reasonable facsimile. You know what to expect. There is fond nostalgia built in here as well. These podcasts remind me of watching Bill Murray specials and the commerical for Jewess Jeans.
  • Timeless. Content doesn’t get old. It’ll still be as funny and as relevant 5 years from now as it is today.
  • Produces on a consistent schedule. Many popular podcasts don’t produce every day or even every week. There are numerous podcasts that run in seasons, just like TV. They produce a few episodes a month on their on-season. However, the majority seem to release an episode every day or on a specific weekday.

We’re always on the lookout for new podcasts that fit into these genres. There are a ton more that I haven’t mentioned, but we’ll be talking about them over the next few weeks on our podcast. If you know of any, please leave a comment or submit it to our directory, or both!

Podcast Guide Reviews 06.02

Monday, June 2nd, 2008
 
icon for podpress  Podcast Guide Reviews 06.02 [7:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yet another week in the podcast guide has arrived! This week we’re going on the theme of Geek podcasts. We’ve got an interview with Your Geek News, and we’ll be talking about some other great geek podcasts on Thursday. Here are today’s quick podcast reviews:

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If you have any suggestions for this podcast, please feel free to leave a comment on our blog or email us at info [at] dailysplice.com. If you’d like to find these podcasts and thousands of others in our directory go to DailySplice.com. You can add all your podcasts to your list of favorites and have new episodes delivered to you daily in a convenient package either by email or RSS. If you have a podcast and you’d like to promote it on DailySplice, the best way to do this is to link directly to your podcast’s page in the DailySplice directory and encourage your listeners to add it to their favorites. You can always email us with any questions or requests!

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