Serial Lifts the Podcasts Movement

Today is the final episode of this season's Serial podcast. Along with 5 million other listeners, I'm crazy stoked about discovering how Sarah Koenig manages to wrap up this intriguing story about Adnan.

But unlike watching the final episode of Sons of Anarchy or Breaking Bad, I have very few people in my immediate circle of connections to discuss it with. Sure I can discuss in online in forums and on Twitter and even listen to a podcast about it, but being a podcast junkie, I often can't understand why everyone else isn't listening to podcasts.

Andy Bowers explains his perspective on why in his reflections on 10 years of podcasting:

Podcast technology sucks. It was abysmal 10 years ago, and has evolved to barely adequate today. In those early years, you had to download podcasts to your computer and then sync them through a cable onto your iPod or other MP3 player. It was slow, tedious, and often didn’t work...

The debut of the iPhone in 2007 promised to improve things, but it still took years of app development and faster data networks to get us where we are today: Anyone with a smartphone and the willingness to try can probably, with some help, play a podcast. But if you’ve ever attempted to connect a podcast app to your car’s sound system via Bluetooth, I suspect you’ll agree with me that we aren’t there yet. Podcasting continues to fail my basic technological test—it’s still a lot harder than turning on a radio.

Podcasts are smart, funny, enlightening radio on demand. They are like a DVR for constant learning. So if your interested in joining the podcast movement here's a few tools to get you started:

• How to listen to a podcast tutorial from 85+ year old Mary Ahearn (and Ira Glass)
• The 25 Best Podcast Episodes Ever
• Podcasts recommendations from KCUR Staff

And my current recommendation for new podcast listeners is Working by David Plotz. In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Plotz interviews people of various professions about what they do all day. The conversation with Stephen Colbert is especially entertaining.

I'm off to listen to Serial!

LISTEN TO THIS | Making Up America

I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a quick recap of an recent episode that I can’t quick thinking and talking about.

HERE’S THE THING | Episode #45 Josh Fox

Josh Fox is the filmmaker behind Gasland and now Gasland II. The first noteworthy section to catch is at 29:30 when Fox describes his approach to getting interviews which is the opposite of gotcha journalism.

I don’t pop in the door with a camera. I think it’s rude. Albert Maysles many years later confirmed this with me. Albert Maysles is a great documentarian. He said, ‘Look, the whole process is a friendship. You get to know and then everyone else gets to know.’ I believe in you can get the story and still be respectful for people and have decency for people and understand them and I much rather make a connection based on, ‘I’m a human being and you’re a human being,’ even if that means the gas industry is gonna turn me down again and again and again.

And the second is near the end at 54:20, just before he plays his banjo:

I think I’m gonna play an old bar song from 1814 and I was with Pete Seeger two nights ago. Introduced Pete Seeger and he said, ‘Oh, I know that song you’re gonna play. That’s on old bar song. It was the biggest hit of 1814 and they liked it so much the guy had to sing it twice in the bar and then clip clop, clip clop all the way up and down the east coast, they sold the lyrics. And you know that song, it became the National Anthem.’

If a bar song can become the National Anthem you’re always just in a position just making up America as we go along and that’s what I love about doing this.

Other Podcasts Posts You Might Enjoy:

• Workflow of a PODCAST JUNKIE
• LISTEN TO THIS | Fun in the Sun

photo credit: linh.m.do via photopin cc

LISTEN TO THIS | Fun in the Sun

I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a quick recommendation of an recent episode that I can’t quick thinking and talking about.

GOOD JOB BRAIN | Episode #68 Fun In the Sun

This episode stands out because of three amazing business stories:

• The brilliant marketing of Jaws in 1975 which began the summer blockbuster movie strategy. Starts at 21:25. BONUS: origin of the meaning of the word blockbuster.
• The birth of the Slurpee which is really just a white label of Icee. BONUS: how new flavors get introduced in a way that overcomes resistance to change. Starts at 27:30.
• How the Slip ’N Slide was invented. Starts at 36:20.

Other Podcasts Posts You Might Enjoy:

• Workflow of a PODCAST JUNKIE
• LISTEN TO THIS | Fogarity