Category: Blogging

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Podcasting and the Meta Argument

At BarCampVancouver, Ryan Cousineau[wiredcola] led a session called “Sturgeon’s Revelation”[wiki]. The idea that “ninety percent of everything is crud” was the center piece of this session, applying it to pretty much everything that exists in the world of Web 2.0[wiki]. The main topic of focus, however, was podcasting[wiki].

Darren Barefoot made a recent post regarding social networks and podcasting, citing that the resources are not there for the medium as there is for photo, video, or link sharing. This idea speaks a lot to what Cousineau was getting at with his session, and much of his thoughts on the topic is posted on his blog.

When it comes down to it, there is not an easy way to share content within a podcast unless you listen to it. You can’t Google search for information that can be found in a podcast. There are such things as show notes and tags that people apply to the material that they publish, but not everyone does it, nor does everyone do it the same way.

The only solution to this problem is to transcribe podcasts in their entirty so that anyone searching for a topic can locate it in your podcast as well as anywhere else on the web. Quite often, this is where people with low opinions about podcasting derive their argument, and I’ve heard this thought propelled by a lot of bloggers. Yes, blogging is a very quick way of publishing information for the world to read in nearly real time. It is instantly indexed, searchable, and archived.

Generating audio for a podcast can be done in the same way, but often is delayed and ineffective with being timely. The podcast itself, in its raw form, is a bunch of ones and zeros, and no one has developed a way to index the contents of a podcast so that it is searchable across the internet. No matter how great of material that you have in a podcast, some one finding that gem of information inside forty minutes of a mp3 won’t happen unless they download it and listen.

This is where I start to agree with the point that Cousineau is saying and the thoughts presented in Barefoot’s post. The conversation that you can get from podcasting is vastly different for the ones that happen through blogging, Flickr, or YouTube. “Feedback” is the better word for what goes on with a podcast. Continue reading “Podcasting and the Meta Argument”

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Here, there, and I swear I’m forgetting something

This week has been full of various projects and events. For starters, the concert at the former home of Matthew Good is still having some ripple effects. More so, the podcast Rebecca and I did to document the occassion after the fact is still going strong in terms of downloads. It was the most downloaded episode that I have released in a single day, on the day that it was published. A lot of that is in part from Good linking RZ#109 that from his website. Can’t thank him enough.

The Flickr Vandigicam meetup was a resounding success, and it appears that many of the past meetups are just as much so. There was nearly 30 people who showed up for the Portrait Throw Down III, and Rebecca even got in on the fun[miss604:post] while I recorded audio for a podcast to released next week. Lots of really fun people and just as many pieces of camera equipment. Be watching the RadioZoom website for that episode on Tuesday.

Darren Barefoot also put a call out to Vancouver bloggers to go check out his play[db:post], Bolloxed, during the Vancouver Fringe Festival. I sent him an email, and he graciously put Rebecca and I on the list. Being that we’re getting in for free, Barefoot is asking that we blog a review of the play. Of course, I offered to do some podcasting about it as well. I’ll take the mobile rig along with, capture what audio I can during the play, and even try to get Darren, the playwriter himself, on the mic.

I also want to encourage people to check out the “Fringecast” that is being put on by xpodradio.com. It’s a podcast about, you guessed it, the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Darren sent me a quick note to also inform me that he’d be appearing on there.

I’m also in the process of planning a new podcast, and that’s, once again, another hint drop. We hope to launch the project in the next few weeks, but everything is still in the planning stages. Listeners of RZ won’t be too surprised when it does land, but the scope of the podcast goes a little beyond what many podcasts are doing. Keep checking back as we get things off the ground.

Needless to say, without having any source of income coming from anything of what I just listed, I’m keeping busy.

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That’s the impression that I get

Living in close quarters with a fellow, Vancouver blogger, aka my wife[miss604], we tend to get the same spam. Take the Matchstick stuff for example. We both got that email and have slick, mobile phones at no charge. And then there is email from this guy, who shall remain nameless.

Hey There,

My name is —– and I’m a Vancouverite trying to get more involved in the
local blogging community.

My blog is —————- and I blog about what I’m passionate about,
Reality TV, Politics and Vancouver, an odd combination, but it seems to work
fairly well, at least so far. I update everyday and usually multiple times, so
my blog isn’t going to get stale anytime soon.

Anyways, as I’m trying to get into the Vancouver blogging scene I was
wondering if there would be anyway to get my site added onto your Blogroll? I
would, of course, be more than happy to add Audihertz to my blogroll as well.

Thanks for taking the time out to read this, let me know if you have any
questions for me. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Rebecca got the same email, with a minor change, of course.

Hey There,

My name is —– and I’m a Vancouverite trying to get more involved in the
local blogging community.

My blog is —————- and I blog about what I’m passionate about,
Reality TV, Politics and Vancouver, an odd combination, but it seems to work
fairly well, at least so far. I update everyday and usually multiple times, so
my blog isn’t going to get stale anytime soon.

Anyways, as I’m trying to get into the Vancouver blogging scene I was
wondering if there would be anyway to get my site added onto your Blogroll? I
would, of course, be more than happy to add Miss 604 to my blogroll as well.

Thanks for taking the time out to read this, let me know if you have any
questions for me. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Now, please don’t think I’m trying to be a snob here because yesterday, the same dude emailed me with this thing about free coffee from Starbucks. Certainly enough, Rebecca got the same thing in her inbox. Yes, I’m all about free stuff. However, I never responded after the first email, but it was something I was considering. I’m thinking twice now that I’ve been told that there is a way to get free coffee by clicking on some link in an email that takes me to said dude’s site.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines “spam”[m-w] as “unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses.” Two people, meaning Rebecca and I, isn’t really a “large number,” but I would have to put this solicitation on the spam side of the fence. And if the guy actually read our blogs, he’d know that she gets a lot more traffic than I do, at least in terms of comments. Our writing is different from each other and is not an important topic to get into right now.

I’ve always found that blogger etiquette is to check out other people’s sites, read them, comment on posts, and create an interactive relationship in that manner. This method makes me tend to believe that this guy might be one of those poser blogs. Just a way to get you there to click on the Google Ads which litter his site. Even if you’re not, then this is the impression that you have given me.

“And for the future? You came on a little strong.“