(Further note: I’ll stick URLs in later. It’s late, and I’m too tired to do it now.)

So I just got back from the 2006 Podcast and Portable Media Expo.

I made it a priority to go this year because, frankly, all of the talk about it last year made me jealous. It sounded like I’d missed the podcasting event of the year — and in 2005, I probably did. There was no PodcasterCon, no PodCamp, and very little at Dragon*Con. This year? It wasn’t the only game in town, but I think it was very much worth the expense to go from a business perspective, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

I went partly to get some business done, and mostly to meet people. I’d call the business part about a 60% success — I’m not going to talk about everything I’ve been involved with, but I had a few important conversations and missed a few others because everyone was busy. No big deal; that’s what e-mail and Skype are about. The biggest accomplishment was the energy behind the Podcast Guild; we got some new gears turning, and it looks like it’s finally on its way to becoming what it needs to be. ¹ More later on that.

The people, though — that was hugely successful. I met most of the people I was hoping to meet, and many more. And it bears out an observation I’ve made from other events: despite our personas online or behind the mic, in person we’re a big circle of friends. I didn’t shake a single hand that wasn’t warm and welcoming. In some cases this surprised me: as much of a smartass as I am much of the time, I expected at least a few cold shoulders or even harsh words, but there were none the entire weekend. Everyone was cool. It was a great vibe.

Was it a deep learning experience? Not to me, though I confess I’m an unfair judge. I don’t know everything, but I know quite a bit already of what was being presented. However, the few program events I sat in on were more slick, corporate-vanilla, and “on the surface” than deep examinations of the issues. I’d even include Evo’s and my own presentation in that. I actually felt better about the panels at PodcasterCon last year, where there was less speechifying and more intimacy between the moderators and the audience. That’s not to say this was a dud; there were some good messages here. I’m just not sure from my own perspective that a session pass would’ve been worth the money, if I hadn’t had a free pass already as a speaker.

The exhibit hall was much the same: a fun place, but little depth and few surprises. Podcast Ready put on a great face as the primary sponsor,² and the Podango mini-conference³ seems to have been a hit. Most of the rest of it was what you’d expect: here’s Shure and M-Audio, there’s LibSyn, over there’s PopCurrent, yonder are a few podcast producers, etc. There were only two gadgets that threw me for a loop:

• Box Populi’s “Podcast in a Box,” a Linux-based recorder that delivers true, no-kidding, automatic podcasting with zero interface. Aimed right now at the university market under the Meedu brand, you don’t even have to push a button: your tech guy either schedules a start and stop time for your lecture and it begins and ends recording (and publishes to their Web host) with no intervention, or you pop in a USB flash key which triggers the recording, and it publishes when you take it out. I have never seen a podcast process with no grunt work before. I think it’s brilliant.

• The iMorphosis “PodcastLink,” a sort of hardware-based podcatcher that will plug directly into your MP3 player (including iPods) and populate it without a computer. ⁴ This reminds me of those old $100 e-mail and Web appliances — the ones they marketed to your grandparents. Like those, it will fail, because it’s a clever solution lacking a problem. Anyone who has the knowledge and desire to listen to a podcast is going to have a computer sitting around. Under what circumstances is it worth real money to avoid plugging your MP3 player into your computer?

What mattered far more than new gizmos was just listening in for the general tone of the Expo. Leo’s keynote, about getting down to business and protecting what we do as a brand and an industry, pretty much set that tone, and I felt it throughout most of the presentations and a lot of the conversations. You had plenty about podcasting for fun, sure, but underneath it, everyone was really focused on success. There was a drive throughout the whole thing. A hunger. I cannot tell you how many times and in how many ways I heard the word “metrics” used, during the day and late into the drunken night. I can’t really criticize — I was saying the same lines as everyone else.

Is attending the Expo important? That’s a complex question. It’s fun to attend regardless of its importance. I’d say it’s moderately important to attend if you’re treating your podcast as a business; and it’s critical to attend if you intend to stake a claim in podcasting beyond your own podcast. Events like this are, in a very real way, the conversation that podcasting has with itself. The sharpest observation I had was that the conversation was entirely about the people and companies who were there. People talked about Podcast Ready. People talked about SwitchPod. People talked about Blubrry and Podcast Pickle, both of whom had successful and fun party suites.

Apple was discussed very little except in regard to the recent fracas with Podcast Ready. And I barely heard Podshow mentioned at all. Even the Podshow podcasters who attended weren’t talking about Podshow. The ridiculous Hummer limo, running guests to their anti-conference or whatever it was, only got rolled eyes. I’m pretty sure they have no idea how much it’s hurting them to detach themselves from podcasting’s conversation. They weren’t there, so they weren’t on the radar. And a company that survives on the creativity of individuals can’t afford that.

Besides, they’re missing the fun.

I didn’t miss the fun. I had lots of it. All businesses, priorities, and importances aside, I’ll be going again next year.

And I hope to see you there.

1. That “industry consortium” Leo mentioned in his keynote speech? He was talking about the Guild. I’d mentioned it to him the night before. ↩
2. I don’t just say that because I work for them. ↩
3. They called it an “unconference,” but they’re wrong by all usual definitions. ↩
4. Except it’s configured from their Web site. For which you need a computer. ↩

2006 Podcast Awards Promo

If you want an uncompressed version for your podcast, you can find the AIFF file here.

Listen to it. If you agree with me, then play it in your podcast.

The reasons in this promo are just part of why Todd Cochrane’s “People’s Choice Podcast Awards” piss me off. My problem isn’t with Todd,¹ it’s with the categories that don’t really represent podcasting and the nomination/voting system that’s absolutely guaranteed to to wear down the patience of every participant. So what if it drives traffic to look at the ads? Are you celebrating advertisers or podcasts?

The concept of a “popular vote” award is inherently flawed. It’s not flawed because of technical issues; it’s flawed because merit is not decided by popularity contests. There’s a reason why everyone goes nuts over the Oscars and not the Golden Globes. There are other awards gearing up now with juried systems which look much better to me — the Podcast Peer Awards for general podcasting and the Parsec Awards for science fiction — and I wish them better luck.

I just hope no one’s getting emotionally invested in this whole awards thing. Podcasting with the intention of winning an award is even sillier than podcasting with the intention of making money.

1. If you’re reading this, Todd, I honestly do think you’re a swell guy who does a lot for podcasting. You have got to get a copyeditor before you ever say anything in public, but that’s not a mortal sin, it’s a venial sin. ↩

1. Have a great idea for a podcast network. To pick a random example:¹ The Sci-Fi Podcast Network. Start with a major name at the head of it, and recruit some early leaders in your category. Make a cute alien mascot. Get a lot of people excited.
2. Once you’ve got a solid base of resources built up, start screwing around with them a little. Message boards popular? Move them to a third-party provider with an inscrutable URL and inferior aesthetics. Wipe the archives. No sense living in the past!
3. Keep experimenting with the stuff that works. Make every change for the worse. Repaint your site in a horrible Day-Glo green and purple that causes physical eyestrain.² Replace the cute alien mascot with…a cow. Defend every decision with “Market testing shows people love this!” Ignore the opinions of members of your network. If people complain too loudly in the forums, delete their posts.
4. Meanwhile, start to erode the brand identity of your network. People are coming to your site to find science fiction podcasts? How limiting! Start two other “networks” on other subject areas. Cross-linking them would be obvious and banal. Instead, make sure the original “Sci-Fi Podcast Network” URL points to a meta-network page, and make people hunt for a smaller link in the text to click through to the list of SF podcasts.
5. Of course, the trouble with that is that there’s still a page somewhere with a list of science fiction podcasts. There are no synergistic cross-brand relational compatibilities to leverage there! So ax that page, and simplify things to much smaller lists on your front page again.
6. Oh, and the name? Gotta go. Make a new name. Something with zazz. Something redundant. Something like… The Podcast Entertainment Network. Or PodcastPEN for short.³
7. Finally, because you’ve probably got a number of pesky science fiction podcasts still hanging around, boot them all and hide their forums, and make them resubmit to your new network under a more restrictive set of guidelines. The new terms of service will require them to promote your non-brand more regularly and consistently, and maintain a show format according to a strict formula that conforms to your “right way” of doing podcasts. Oh, and it will also contain such gems as:

   Each show host should think in terms of a minute of ads per 15 minutes of show. You will keep (to use or sell) one of the 30 second spots and the network will fill the other (with a network show ad or an ad a sponsor has purchased)… PEN offers a generous revenue sharing program (50%) for each audio ad we secure for your show. If you do not wish to participate in our advertising program, please provide your reason on our submissions form. Exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

8. Voilà! You’ve just driven away everyone who thought it might be fun to be listed in a science fiction podcast directory, but doesn’t want to be told how to podcast or how to advertise.

It’s a shame. And no, I don’t intend to just bitch about it. There are positive steps that can be taken, ways that it could be done right. The obvious response to my complaint here is, “If you think it could be done better, smartass, you try it!” And I think that’s a good answer. But that’s another post.

1. Okay, so it isn’t. You got me. ↩
2. To be fair, they did back off on the colors after some of us raised a rallying cry for listeners to check out the site and send feedback. The green and purple didn’t go away, but it retreated to the edges. ↩
3. The “P” in “PEN” stands for “Podcast.” Again. So it’s really the Podcast Podcast Entertainment Network, or PPEN. Turtles all the way down. ↩
4. And still do like, honestly, although I suspect that after this blog post they’ll never want to speak to me again. ↩

I’m not kidding. It changes the shape of your mouth, and therefore your tone, in a way that people naturally find more energetic and likeable. You’ll get more brightness and range. It also changes your own frame of mind, and impels you to have more fun, if you don’t fight it. You’ll enjoy yourself more; and therefore you’ll sound like you’re enjoying yourself more; and that predisposes your audience to enjoying themselves more too.

Will you feel stupid making yourself smile and talk? Yeah. You’ll feel like a complete idiot. But when you listen to your podcast a couple days later, you’ll hear the difference; and next time it’ll be a bit easier, and the time after that it’ll be easier yet.

It’s something to try.

Balticon 40 Podcast Panel Schedule

This puts me on six panels, and I’m also playing the title role in the podcast radio play, “Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman,” adapted from a 1950s novel by Mur Lafferty. Oh, and in case none of this is sufficient proof that I’m insane: my friend Ben has talked me into taking the train up with him.

The train. I’d forgotten that we even still had those.

In any case, it will be fun. There will be much to learn during the day and much to drink at night. If you can, join us there!

I have a bad habit of overcommitting myself. No…wait…that’s not quite right. I have a bad habit of committing myself and then mismanaging my time. It’s a character flaw, and one that I’m working to correct. However…one of the inevitable consequences of my time mismanagement is that, sooner or later, I begin to feel as though I am being pecked to death by ducks. Everything piles up, and all I want to do it run and hide until it goes away.

I know what I should do: bear down, shoulder to the grindstone, nose to the wheel…or something like that. Still, when it all feels like the Myth of Sisyphus, I want to slink off to the local Barnes & Noble, buy a coffee, and read graphic novels.

I was starting to feel this way in February of this year. There was work to do on Podiobooks, I had my own solo podcast that was dreadfully late. I was helping Mick Bradley with his two podcasts, and was starting yet another with a friend. All of the activity had shifted from a series of welcome challenges to a collection of large, stinking seabirds hanging around my neck.

I was venting about all of this to a friend, and his question was, “Why don’t you just quit the podcasts?”

I thought about that. I could, of course. Let’s face it, few of us are getting paid to do this. It’s a colossal time-suck at times. It’s endless fiddling with settings, levels, microphones, mixing boards, all to get rid of that low-level hiss that never seems to go away. It’s the late nights, knowing you should be in bed, but you’re just not able to rest until you get the thrice-damned thing edited and posted. Damnable though it may be at 3:30 am, it’s also the coolest thing you’ve recorded to date, and you just can’t wait for people to hear it.

That’s the core of it, isn’t it? The listeners. I remember when I got the first bit of feedback about my podcast. First off, I was stunned that anyone was listening. Secondly, I was thrilled that this individual, a podcaster whom I respected, mentioned me in his show. The clincher was these words, “I’ve been listening to Chris Miller’s Unquiet Desperation. I like it. He’s got some worthwhile things to say.”

Do you recall how you felt when you were told by a fellow podcaster or a listener that they really liked your show, that it meant something to them? Inside your head, weren’t you doing your own personal Sally Field imitation? (You like me! You really like me!)

It’s like a drug, this appreciation thing, and a little goes a long way. As we continue to put out episodes, we all try to hone our craft, shape our message. We try to be a bit more profession, or we try to spice it up, keep it fresh, but still keep our audience. In some arenas, we compete with other podcasts. But at the end of the day, know that people out there like your work it enough to keep a lot of us going.

It is for me, at least. None of the podcasts that I’m on have more than two hundred listeners. I’m fine with that. I’m not the most recognizable name attached to Podiobooks.com, and I’m fine with that, too. What keeps me going is that, at this time in history, any one of us can pick up a microphone, grab a copy of Audacity, and find those like-minded folk that we would never had a chance to reach otherwise. We get meet other podcasters who have the same struggles that we do, the same self-doubting natures, the same need to speak and be heard. It’s massive, it’s global, and it’s just about the coolest thing I have ever witnessed

So, now I sit and work through my endless piles with GTD. I have my lists and my inbox, my folders and my files. I run like a not-quite finely tuned machine because this has become more than a hobby…it’s a connection to something larger than myself. To give up friends that I’ve made doing this is unthinkable. It’s worth the long hours, the days of prep, the answering of listener questions and subscriber feedback. It’s even worth the occassional argument on the email list. We’re doing something revolutionary here…never doubt it. One day, we’ll look back on all of this: we’ll see how media was changed by a bunch of “amateurs” with laptops and and a couple of microphones. We can say that we were there.

If that’s not worth it, I don’t know what is.

After a few days of obsessive review-reading and wallet-shaking, I settled on the RNC 1773 from FMR Audio:

The RNC literally stands for “Really Nice Compressor.” You’ve got to respect that level of forthrightness. It’s a no-frills stereo compressor: there’s no gate, no limiter, no expander, no dual mono mode with extra knobs. What it does have are two compression modes:

1. Normal Mode, which acts exactly like a compressor should. I played around with this a little, and it sounded okay. The attack is very fast and hard, which I found a little jarring. Doubtless I could adjust it, but I never got that far, because what I really wanted to try was:
2. Super Nice Mode, which chains three compressor circuits in series for a very gentle, very transparent compression effect that still retains all its power.

If you Google on the thing you’ll find a large number of sound engineers who swear that the RNC is the best compressor you can find for less than $2,000. I got mine for $175 (plus state tax, and with some cables thrown in) at Humbucker Music, whom I will attest are a great bunch of folks. I ordered it on Wednesday, and it was at my door Thursday afternoon.

I’ve used it twice now for podcasting. I wish I could say something like, “Wow! All I had to was turn the thing on and nightingales dropped dead from envy at my feet.” Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. New sound gear never works that way. Even on Super Nice mode, I’m still working on tweaking the settings just right. My first attempt (for last week’s Escape Pod intro) used a 6:1 ratio, -8 dB threshold, +6 dB gain. I personally think it came out sounding overpowered, way too flat and pushy. For this week’s intro I used a 4:1 ratio, and made the threshold and gain even at 8 dB (which the manual recommends). It wasn’t flat this time, but I clipped frequently. This could mean I need to make my mic gain part of the equation too.

Don’t take this as criticism of the compressor. The RNC does what it’s supposed to, and it really is beautifully transparent. There’s no change at all in the sound’s tone or noise, just its volume, and that’s rare and lovely. I’m being honest with you about my trials to make the point that there’s no magic bullet. The more gear you have, the more skill you need to develop. Once I learn to use the thing properly, then I believe it will add a volume and clarity to my podcast that will make the investment more than worth it. I can already sense parts of that. It’s just a matter of getting all the pieces into place.



1. I should probably write a post at some point about the finer points of compression and what compressors do. For now, if you didn’t already know, take this for a definition: “A compressor evens out the volume of your signal by making loud sounds quieter.” ↩
]]> http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/18/really-nice-compressor/feed/ http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/18/expo-say/ http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/18/expo-say/#comments Fri, 19 May 2006 04:20:15 +0000 SFEley News Personal http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/18/expo-say/ Thanks to the superior audacity of Evo Terra, the two of us will be speaking at the 2006 Podcast Expo in September. Our topic will be Podcasting the Written Word, which we’ve described as follows:

Combine the huge popularity of audiobooks and the open access of podcasting, shake well, and you get one of the most successful movements in new media today. Scores of authors are podcasting their work - alone or with talented narrators - to reach new audiences and bring their work alive. Two of the leaders in literary podcasting, Evo Terra of Podiobooks.com and Steve Eley of Escape Pod, discuss the joys and challenges of podcasting prose, specific technical considerations, and lessons from podcasts that have drawn thousands of listeners.

Fun? I think so. If there’s one Achilles heel to our presentation it’s that we’re scheduled at the same time as Paul Figgiani’s session on building a podcast production studio.

But you guys already know how to do that, right? So come and listen to us! I guarantee we’re twice as funny as anyone else on at 3:15 PM Friday, and our hair is better than anybody this side of Geoghegan.

]]> http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/18/expo-say/feed/ http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/listen-to-your-podcast/ http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/listen-to-your-podcast/#comments Thu, 18 May 2006 02:11:06 +0000 SFEley Actually Useful Audio Production http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/listen-to-your-podcast/ Once, long ago, I was subscribed to a podcast. This podcast was a rather prominent member of The Sci-Fi Podcast Network.¹ So at the start of each file, it began with a TSFPN audio tag: “This is TSFPN.com. You’ve found the best podcasts in the universe.“

Which is all wonderful. Except that where the podcast itself sounded smooth and high-quality, the audio tag sounded like Alvin the Android Chipmunk. It was too fast and too high-pitched.

Half of you are nodding now: you’ve seen this happen before. There are a lot of ways to make this mistake, but one of the most common is to combine two sound files of different sample rates in the same Audacity track. It’s easily done, and easily fixed. Just put them in different tracks and then mix down.

But here’s the kicker. I listened to this podcast, and heard the exact same chipmunked tag, every week for four months. It was the very first thing you heard. It sounded terrible, and it was never caught. I eventually lost interest in the subject material and unsubscribed, but for all I know it’s still going on.

That was definitive proof to me that the guy never listened to his own podcast. If he did, he’d have noticed and fixed this easy bug. He didn’t, and he started off on the wrong foot every week, and never knew it.² And that’s today’s lesson:

First, you should always listen to your MP3 file before you upload it. If it’s a long podcast, at least skip through it to make sure all the pieces are there and sound like they should. Never skip this, or you’ll be sure to embarrass yourself with some technical gaffe sooner or later. Even if it’s 6 AM by the time I upload, I always take at least a minute or two to jump through my podcast beginning, section transitions, and ending. Those are where mistakes are likeliest to happen.

Second, you should subscribe to your own podcast feed and listen to it with all your other podcasts. This means you’ll catch any RSS screw-ups without having to have your audience tell you about them; but more than that, it gives you the opportunity to evaluate yourself as a listener and decide if there’s anything from week to week that needs improvement. Are your levels uneven when you listen on your car stereo? Great, now you know. Did you drone on too long about something unexciting? It’s easier to notice that a couple days later, and you’ll be more conscious about it next time. Continuous improvement means continually evaluating your work, and the best way to do that is to listen to yourself the same way everybody else does.

This will seem like common sense to a lot of you. Some of you will find it inconceivable not to listen to your own stuff — after all, if you didn’t like to hear your own voice, why podcast? But in practice it’s very, very common to skip these steps.

You do so at your peril. If not the peril of losing audience and reputation, at least the peril that someday some smartass like me will make a blog post about you. And who wants that?



1. Which, if you click on the link, you will see has lately dissolved into a cheerful puddle of brightly colored goo. But that’s another story. ↩
2. Should I have dropped him a friendly e-mail? Probably, and in most cases I would have. But there were some personality factors, too, and… Well, I didn’t. So. ↩
]]> http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/listen-to-your-podcast/feed/ http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/the-new-phone-book-is-here/ http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/the-new-phone-book-is-here/#comments Wed, 17 May 2006 06:12:06 +0000 SFEley News Personal http://www.podcastpedant.com/2006/05/17/the-new-phone-book-is-here/ So Apple released the iBook replacement today, predictably named the MacBook. It’s a hell of a machine, actually, for the price. Dual core Intel, wireless goodness, camera and Front Row. And of course Garage Band 3. It’s actually a hell of a podcaster’s machine. They’re even hyping podcasting in their tag line:



Of course, being the perverse sort that I am, I took this as the final bit of information I needed to get a MacBook Pro instead. Why? Because the MacBook has a smallish screen and ridiculously bad integrated graphics, and all accounts are that it’s unlikely to do an acceptable job with Final Cut Studio. Simply because of the display, mind you, not the CPU power. This matters to me because Soundtrack Pro is my podcast production tool of choice, and I have several ideas on the back burner which would require getting involved with the video side of things. So I planned forward and put down the extra cash. Heck, even my wife thought the better-equipped laptop would be worth it, and she’s usually the opposing force when it comes to money flow.

But that’s just me. If your comfort level is at Garage Band, or Peak, or some other dedicated sound editor that doesn’t have higher-end graphic requirements, I can’t really say anything against the MacBook. Especially for the price.

(Unless you pay $200 more just to have it in black. If I’m at a podcast con and I see you pull out your black Apple laptop and look smug about it, I will round up a mob to taunt you.)

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