The Podcast Pedant

…Yeah. So people are starting to ask me why I haven’t blogged about Podshow yet, or the episode of Keith and the Girl where they take apart an anonymous Podshow contract. It’s well known that I have opinions on the subject,¹ and I’ve gone on at some length before on the Yahoo! Podcasters list and on Podcast Alley.

That’s probably why I haven’t brought it up yet. I’ve talked about it so much elsewhere that I’m getting more easily tired. That, and I’m afraid if I get started I’ll keep going ad nauseum. I don’t want this to become the Anti-Podshow Blog. There’s a lot of other stuff to talk about. Like, you know, making podcasts.

But I seem to be expected to say something, so I’ll say this in brief: Long-term exclusivity sucks. I’m not suggesting that it sucks for me, and it might not suck for you. It sucks for everyone.

A man whose last name is synonymous with a popular Indian food dish² has contacted me directly to tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about, and that everything I seem to think about Podshow is wrong. He has been unable to tell me what specifically I’m wrong about, which is a shame because I can’t correct my statements. Being right is a whole lot more fun than being wrong. So to cover my hindquarters: if I’m wrong that Podshow puts its podcasters into long-term exclusive distribution deals with no termination option on the podcaster’s side, then obviously all my complaining is groundless and nobody should worry about what I say.

But if they do, they suck. And you should avoid making such a deal for content that you create and own. With anyone. Ever.

Questions?

1. Many would call that an understatement ↩
2. No, not Eric Rice. The other guy. ↩

Besides being home sick with a stomach virus and sleeping for 16 hours today…

So I’ve just written a PHP script that goes and checks a ton of feeds, extracts  information from them, and saves it into a database.  A fun thing to do.  Life is peachy.

Except that half the feeds I’m checking are failing — not because there’s an error in my script — but because Feedburner is down right now.

My podcast is with Feedburner.  This doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzies.  How about you?

Thanks to the ineffable¹ Mur Lafferty for letting me know that she, I, and several other great SF and literary podcasters are in the current issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, in James Patrick Kelly’s column “On the Net.” Here’s the article online.

Jim Kelly’s a podcaster himself, reading his own fiction, so the article’s a lot more grounded in reality than many podcasting articles. He does find time to be snarky, however:

It’s been my personal experience, alas, that it’s a hell of a lot easier for me to say something stupid than it is to write something stupid; rarely can I listen to an interview I’ve given without cringing. On some podcasts I’ve listened to, the quantity of chatter seems to matter more than the quality of thought. Oftentimes these shows will consist of two or more speakers who seem to be modeling themselves on drivetime shockjocks. They interrupt and insult one another, often in the process losing their train of thought. They crack wise about sex and beer and skiffy flicks and reward each other with guffaws in a kind of grotesque comedic codependency.

Then follows a slightly overURLed summary of the Blogger-to-podcast process, and a list of Jim’s favorite podcasts. Mur, Michael & Evo, Paul Jenkins and Andy Doan get well-deserved props. And he echoes my opinion on Michael Stackpole: a great insider’s view, but sometimes you just want to say “Yes, but…“

Oh, and:

Escape Pod <http://escapepod.org> is one of the most ambitious SF podcasts and probably my current favorite. Produced by Steve Ely, it bills itself as “The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine” and features regular readings of short and flash fiction. Much of what you can hear on Escape Pod are “reprints” previously published in print venues and performed by Steve’s talented stable of readers.

It may be overproud to admit this,² but this is the second time recently I’ve been mentioned in Asimov’s. Jim had a column on online audio fiction in January that also shouted out Escape Pod. He was so nice both times that I don’t think I’ll ever bring myself to tell him how my name is spelled. And does it really matter? He got the URL right. That’s what we should want to tell the world: not who we are, but what we’re creating.

1. You don’t want to eff with her. ‘Cause she’ll eff you up. ↩
2. I.e., “It may be typical of Steve to admit this…” ↩

So the word is that Apple is now shipping the universal binary version of its Final Cut Studio applications. They said they’d have it out in March, and it looks like they made it just under the wire. For those who don’t speak Modern Mac: “universal binary” means it’ll run on the older PowerPC Macs and the new Intel ones.

This is of interest to me because I do my podcast production in Soundtrack Pro on my little Mac Mini in the basement. I have a much nicer dual core Intel iMac¹ but since I haven’t been able to run STP on it, I’ve been using it for everything except podcasting. I’ll still record on the Mini no matter what, but it’d be nice to do some of my editing upstairs where it’s warm and carpeted.

Crossgrade deals are available. The major problem here is, it doesn’t appear that I can get a universal version of just Soundtrack Pro. Instead they’re ditching the standalone applications, and making me an offer to pay two hundred bucks to get the full-blown Final Cut Studio. Now, $200 is a hell of a deal for all those applications. Would I use them? I don’t know. Final Cut would be nice if I ever do video podcasting. Right now I’m neither for nor against that notion. The other programs (3D animation and DVD mastering) just aren’t in my interest set.

So I’m trying to decide. “Crossgrade” or not? I realize this is exactly what Apple’s infamous for — making it very easy for you to spend more money with them to get what you’ve already got — but, well, they do make good stuff. And if I don’t do this, the only way to improve on my current workflow will be to ditch Soundtrack Pro for something else.  I doubt there’s anything for the Mac right now that’s better for fine-grained podcast crafting.

Opinions welcome.

1. Bought it with this year’s tax refund. Hooray for having a baby! ↩