Podcasts

The next section in the class I'm taking is about podcasts. I already listen to the podcasts of my favorite NPR shows: Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Radio Lab, and This American Life. Those podcasts are just the normal radio show in podcast form. It's like TiVo for radio.

Recently, I've started listening to a few shows that are made specifically for a podcast audience. These shows are shorter, and perhaps they don't have as exhaustive of a review of a subject, but their very brevity is what makes them interesting. If I've got a 15 minute car ride, I can listen to a story on The Moth instead of trying to remember what was happening on This American Life the last time I listened to it, a couple of weeks ago. I also started listening to Planet Money, which is a fabulous little podcast about the economy. It's a spin-off of This American Life, so it has a similar feel, and they do a very good job explaining specific parts of the economy.

I did a review of some different podcasts for this class, and my new favorite is called Grammar Girl. I just love it. Each episode talks about a different grammar rule - what the rule is, exactly; why the rule is, perhaps the history of the rule... Stupdendous. Oh, and Dad? It IS okay to frivolously split infinitives. HA!

I also watched the beginning of a few different podcasts offered by Stanford University on iTunes. This is a really cool idea, and I wish Colby did it. They have podcasts of guest speakers, podcasts of university performances, podcasts interviewing various academic departments (they feel like little documentaries), and podcasts that are made by and/or for students. I would be very interested if my alma mater posted dance performances online. (Although, that might run afoul of some very tricky music copyright rules...the bane of all podcast producers!) And I remember nights at Colby when a very popular speaker was coming. They televised the speech, and I'm sure the college still has the video in storage somewhere, but a VHS kept in a library box is nowhere near as accessible as a podcast!

So, what makes a good podcast? Well, an interesting subject matter surely helps, of course. More subtly, though, a good podcast involves people who are comfortable in front of a camera (or microphone, for those audio-only podcasts.) It can't sound stilted and scripted. The voice has to have natural pitch, and can be neither too fast nor too slow. Podcasts, no matter how easy or low-tech to produce, are performances. If you are uncomfortable performing for an audience, podcasting is not for you.

Try blogging.