On Podcasts
I was inspired by @gkneeisme‘s recent blog post about Gadgettes to write about my own experience with podcasts, beginning with the first.
Three years ago, in late December, I was bored. Looking to remedy this particular problem, I started to goof off with my laptop. I installed iTunes out of curiosity, as it seemed to be the de-facto music store at the time, bought a song from it (Starry Eyed Surprise) to try out the service and immediately encountered the horror of DRM. The only way to get it onto my SD card to play on my Pocket PC was to burn a CD and then re-rip it back to the computer. It has been the only iTunes song I have ever bought.
In any case, I saw something I had seen mentioned on a couple of web-sites at the time: Podcasts. I clicked the menu and saw what they were: talk radio for my computer. Not too enticing as I have never been a talk radio fan. But I was still bored, and you do weird things when you’re bored. So I clicked on the Tech News link and looked at the top ten. The first one didn’t seem too enticing: TWiT: tech news from a bunch of twits. Beautiful, I get enough twits on domestic radio. Ignored… Buzz Out Loud however looked interesting. I subscribed and downloaded the latest file. I was blown away. Tom, Molly, and Veronica were amazing! There was news about things I cared about unlike the random stuff the local radio stations threw up. Tom was informative and factual, with a sense of humor that creeps up on you. Molly was loud and engaging, and when she let loose a rant, even if you didn’t know what it was about, you were on her side by then end of it! And Veronica, oh Veronica, was just dang cute. She apparently had just gotten comfortable talking with Tom and Molly and graduated from producer to co-host. She was well informed on every topic, but would introduce random bits of fun into the show. “What sound does a kitten with lasers make? Mew, pew, mew, pew!” (I admit to a little crush.) I was hooked.
Now I have a list of thirty-seven podcasts that I cannot keep up with and it’s all their fault. They made the news too much fun.