Here’s the podcast from the other evening. I haven’t listened yet — but it was one of the more interesting webcasting experiences I’ve had — lots of people coming and going — which made it rather hard to follow the flow of conversation, or even to make it to the topic the hosts had chosen. Controlled chaos. Or chaotic control — you choose. It was certainly fun to attempt to trade ideas with folks — hope to join them again, soon.
Here’s a little Christmas present for any of you into reading, writing, and conversations about either. Denver’s Tattered Cover Bookstore is now podcasting.
According to New West Network (via Neil Gaiman’s blog:
Thanks to a new partnership between the legendary independent and a
local firm called BurstMarketing, podcasts are now being prepared with
Colorado readings from these and other big-name authors. The
collaboration, called Authors On Tour — Live!, will generate
free weekly weekly downloads featuring recently published authors
reading from and discussing their works while at the Tattered Cover.
The first of these 30-45 minute shows, with J.R. Moehringer, author of
the acclaimed memoir "The Tender Bar," an introduction by store owner Joyce Meskis, and thoughts by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, is available now.In coming weeks, the program will be expanded to include podcasts with
(Al) Franken, Didion, Susanna Clarke, Robert Hicks, Neil Gaiman, Lemony
Snicket, Clive Barker, Andrew Weil, Monty Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, Dan
Savage, Zadie Smith, Michael Connelly, and others.
I’m subscribed. Sounds exciting.
It’s the day before Christmas in my neck of the woods, which means that tonight is the night before Christmas. Thanks, Lisa and Rowan, for the reading.
Merry Christmas, y’all.
I was doing some house cleaning tonight, and wanted something non-too heavy for listening. I discovered that They Might Be Giants are now podcasting. Well worth a listen — their first podcast features several songs, including a re-visioning of "Particle Man" that sounds very Beatles-esque.
Man, that sounded way cooler in my head than it does in print, but, if you’re a fan of TMBG, then it’ll make sense.
If you’re not, you’ll get a real flavor of the band in the podcast.
Been a crazy week back after Thanksgiving. I’ve been busy with grading, writing a couple of assignments, catching up on the wiki relocation, and sharing a cold with my daughter. A few brief thoughts:
NPR is now pushing 194 podcast feeds. One that’s particularly intriguing is the "Most E-Mailed Stories" feed. Each day, the folks over there edit together a collection of the stuff that others are recommending through e-mail. That’s a neat way to select the "winner" stories. I like it because they have so much good programming — and I have so little time.
Today’s first story was amazing. Here’s a snippet:
"If you saw me you’d never know I’d had a lobotomy," Dully says. "The
only thing you’d notice is that I’m very tall and weigh about 350
pounds. But I’ve always felt
different — wondered if
something’s missing from my soul. I have no memory of the operation,
and never had the courage to ask my family about it. So two years ago I
set out on a journey to learn everything I could about my lobotomy."
Breathtaking.
I’ve been enjoying the Edtechtalk podcasts for a few weeks now, ever since I stumbled on to them quite by accident. My favorites are the brainstorms, where different crews of folks get together to shoot the proverbial breeze about the tech and projects that they are working on. The shows have no set agenda, and the hosts are very good at letting everyone into the conversation. Pretty much everyone is welcome, very reflective and conversational — an awful lot like this blog.
Thursday night, I had the pleasure of joining in on the conversation. What great fun, and how cool to do, via Skype, a conversation with other educators from all over the place.
I learned a lot. Hope I didn’t overstay my welcome. Oh — as a bonus, I was doing a search for one of my favorite podcasters and discovered that the guys from Edtechtalk did an interview with him back in May. The podcast is very informative if you’re interesting in the history of radio and where podcasting might be going.
A regular helping of podcast Shakespeare. Very cool.
I like free stuff. I also like books. And I drive a lot. Those’re several reasons why I enjoyed Earthcore so much, and why I’m listening to Ancestor now. Both are books that were podcast by the author. I liked the first so much, I intend to buy a paperback copy. (Warning — the books are for adults only, and because I’ve just said that, every teenager that comes across this post will rush to download them. You’ve been warned.)
How cool would it be someone were to collect a group of volunteers to read, record and podcast all of the really great, public-doman books that are out there? Wouldn’t that be a great idea?
Someone thinks so, and I agree.
Of course, these guys are also sharing books via podcast. Cool stuff.
On Tuesday, Apple released iTunes 4.9, which added podcasting to the iTunes Music Store. I was excited to download the software and see how wonderful the "new world" of iTunes-enhanced podcasting would be.
So far, it’s not doing anything for me.
I’ve attempted to publish my feeds in the iTunes directory — nothing.
I’ve attempted to subscribe to podcasts in their directory — and that works. Sometimes.
Sure, I’m excited that more people are going to be exposed to podcasting and podcasters — but with the featured podcasters at iTunes being ESPN and Disney (oops — they’re the same people, aren’t they), is this really a media revolution? Are the people still driving podcasting?
Or did we just lose it?
I don’t know — but I’m certainly concerned.
Your thoughts?
