SNL did a sketch last night about a couple of guys who do a video podcast called “Joplin: Alive”. It was pretty okay, but it really could have been a lot funnier. The fact that they were doing the podcast live from Bennigan’s was enough to make me laugh. The only true gag here was the amount of people walking through the frame, but I’m not sure that the audience really caught what the joke was. There wasn’t much to distinguish the sketch from being too different from public access television, but I think that’s been done before. There was just so much more that you could have made fun of, but I’m not sure that people would understand unless you knew more about podcasting itself.
Oddly enough, the Vancouver Sun came out with quite the spread on podcasting this past Saturday in the arts section. Rebecca’s mom saved the paper edition and passed it off to me this morning. Tod Maffin had quite the feature in it as well as highlights on a lot of other things going on in and around Vancouver. The article is a really good read. There were a total of about five articles, but only the following two are available to non-subscribers of the online edition.
“Now hear this!: PODCASTS | Millions plug into downloaded audio files — to listen and communicate”
“Is podculture just a return to the past?”
Next week should have a follow up with more podcasting related content.