Well, I’ve spent so much time here at the Podcast Expo bumping into people that remember the show and want to know when it’s coming back.  Looking back now, I dread just how tired I was during the Tour days… but being in San Francisco now is giving me a renewed interest in getting the show up and running again.

So, to get the ball rolling again, we’ll be doing the first Beercast in ages at noon – right here at the Expo.  We’ll be the guys with plastic cups and microphones.  Stop by if you’re there.

While I was out in Portland last week, I had a chance to re-connect with Brian Oberkirch and Jeremiah Owyang. I had previously met them both on past trips out to the Bay Area. Brian is a nomad-in-training, much like myself (still aspiring to the true zen my cohort Stowe has achieved).

Brian had some interesting news about his future – which he revealed only after peeling away at the layers that are SocialRoots. Jeremiah has a wonderful mission as well and it was good to hear again.

The ironic thing – I actually missed working around the mic from the Beercasting days. Sometimes I wish I had the time to podcast more often. Usually, though, that’s followed by sweeping pains as I reconsider everything else I haven’t quite yet finished.

More over at the guy’s blogs: Brian, Jeremiah.

Yesterday, I posted about Social Podcasting and the version that we started things out with. In the e-mail channel, I received a well-intentioned, but snarky, message from a friend of many years now. I won’t quote the message, it’s not important but the story is.

I’ve written a very lengthy response – too long for one post. I’ll be posting it over the next few days in chunks, hopefully to help convey the points I need to make.

So here’s today’s installment:

Essentially, my buddy was coming down on me for changing direction. In his opinion I don’t deserve credit for “social podcasting” since I didn’t commercialize it. That’s quite simply a load of manure – an idea need not be commercialized to exist. In fact, I would offer as evidence almost no one who’s using the term now has officially commercialized it (since I count as part of commercialization to be monetization). Granted, I am on a bus in Toronto right now heading to a conference that I will be providing podcasting services for (based on the fact that I have the Beercasting experience under my belt) but I digress.

One of the problems with ideas is that everyone thinks they have one. I’ve written on this many times before. It’s knowing which ideas are worth exploring, either personally or financially, that separates thinkers from doers. I’m a thinker for sure, but I also really like doing things with my ideas.

When I wrote my post on social podcasting, I was only half seeking some sense of acknowledgment. The reality is that I’ve met hundreds of people that have listened to a beercast in one method or another. I’ve also been asked my many, many folks to continue the project. At the moment, that’s easier said than done. That doesn’t change the fact that there are 70 people still subscribed to the feed – a whole year since my last publication through that channel.

The point? Innovation has nothing to do with commericalization – except if money is your only metric for success. I’m more than content with both the work I did, the recognition I’ve received in the process, and the leverage it’s given me in other situations.

In closing, contribute something and be proud of it. If you can’t, don’t deride others who have.

In the next segment, I’ll deal with the statements that I think are valid and worthy of explanation.

Over the past week or so, I’ve heard quite a bit about “social podcasting”. I wasn’t quite sure what people meant by it, though I am pretty sure I used the term way before anyone else did. Seeking truth, I turned to Wikipedia:

Social Podcasting is a form of podcasting that allows more than one author to upload an mp3 show or episode into a podcast feed. The concept limits contributions from authors invited by the podcast’s owner.

Is it just me or does this definition sound more like a collaborative effort – perhaps Collaborative Podcasting? In the radio version, shows are either interactive or not – depending on if they allow for phone calls and other forms of feedback from a live audience. Would that make it Interactive Podcasting?

When I first started using the term Social Podcasting I was applying it to what I was doing with Beercasting. It’s been so long that I might need to refresh people a bit. In November of 2004, I set out on a mini adventure in podcasting. I toured the country, visiting something like 11 cities and recording 300+ podcasts on close to 100 different topics. This was called Beercasting. I even tried to get a company off the ground called Sparkcasting.com where we clearly stated: “SparkCasting™ is the cornerstone of the social podcasting movement.”
In fact, my bio in the Podcasting Hacks book even mentions social podcasting.

I guess my underwear got bunched up a bit when I start hearing other people claim that they coined the phrase. Mike Arrington points to Waxxi. It seems like an interesting enough a service to give it a try – I know I have clients that are seeking this type of solution. What stood out, however, was the attribution up to PodServe (I don’t know these folks but it looks like a cool service). I checked out their site and they have their own definition about Social Podcasts:

Social podcasts are created by small (invitation only) groups. Don’t have time to podcast on a regular basis? Start a social podcast with a small group of friends on a particular topic. A small group can create a compelling podcast and generate an active following. Want to join an existing social podcast? Just ask for an invitation.

Ultimately, the purpose of this post is to clarify what I think Social Podcasting is, since neither of these use cases really seems to get it right. In January of this year, I put out the beginnings of a whitepaper I wrote for the event industry. I defined Social Podcasting as such:

With Social Podcasting, we engage the participants in dialog. This dialog is designed to surface the comments, questions and concerns that were raised throughout the event, from the seats in the presentations to the tables during the reception.

Open dialog with an open audience. That’s what I was in pursuit of when Beercasting started. That, to me, is Social Podcasting.

It’s not often that I get to link to something that’s not only scary but pleasant. Back in June I attended Gnomedex and had the opportunity to meet Bre Petis. Bre is really one of the coolest people I met at the conference and I’m really glad I had the chance to learn more about him and what he’s up to.

At the same time, it was my first extended exposure to a videoblogger :) Bre popped a comment the other day to let me know that he had posted a video he and I made while on the escalators at the public library. So here it is. The camera really does add 20 pounds ;)

What’s also interesting to me, of course, is that Bre is hosting his video on blip.tv. Blip is one of the leading videoblogger destinations for lots of reasons. I like to think it’s because of the super-talented guys behind it – close personal friends of mine. I remember going one of the first meetings when the Pokkari guys were getting ready to move towards Blip. Some time ago I came close to becoming a full-timer with Pokkari, but opportunities pulled us in different directions. I’m still close to the gang and meet with them from time to time to see how they’re doing.

So check them both out, you’ll enjoy it!

Several months ago I wrote a couple of chapters for the O’Reilly Hacks Series. I was surprised when I returned home last night to find a book waiting. Much to my surprise, the Podcasting Hacks book is now out.

If you turn to Hack #30 (Page 177), you’ll find a quick chapter on how to get your own Beercast off of the ground, joyfully written by yours truly. Sure it’s just one hack, but heck it’s cool to see!

The book is thick, to say the least, and it covers so many different interesting angles on podcasting – everything from how and where to record all the way down to when and what.

Check it out!

We’re in the process of formalizing the SparkCasting software/hardware setup. The software coding gets underway in earnest on Monday. The hardware is something I’ve been working on for a very long time (it keeps me up at night).

In the past, we’ve used a simple combination of bits that included an iRiver MP3 recorder and some low-end microphones. Personally, I’m not an audio engineer so it never hurt my ears too bad to listen to previous shows we’ve done (being clever about how and when you record is the secret to turning a hostile environment into a friendly one).

Of course, we’ve had our share of complaints, bad experiences, and unusable audio. To that end, we’ve upped the ante quite a bit now and we’re sailing with a whole new batch of hardware that we can quickly destroy in a spill.

The top dog in this expensive new rig is the Edirol R-1. This is one of the best recorders I have seen for what we want to do that doesn’t cost a small fortune (don’t get me wrong these puppies are expensive enough). I’ve just acquired our first 2 for shows we’re planning for next month. We’ll still be using our old standby, the iRiver, when we’re short on equipment, but it feels good to start getting the things we know we need.

For anyone that’s been waiting/looking for one of these, B&H now has them in stock. Grab it here. They’re the cheapest I found anywhere to top it off.

For perspective, we’ve gone from a portable rig that cost $200 to $800. And that’s just for 4 people! We’ll definitely be round-robining guest for a little while, haha.

I’m planning to attend Gnomedex later this month in Seattle. Naturally, I’m interested in the content, but it also seems like a great opportunity to sit down once again with friends from blogs at far off places, throw back a beer, and serve up some stimulating banter.

I’m doing a quick check to see how many people are going and who’d like to jump into the festivities.

Chris, I’m sure this will cross your desk. What do you think? Naturally, we’ll talk about how to store all that cash under your mattress ;)

It’s so strange being home.. really. I’ve been on the road so much lately it almost feels uneasy being back in NYC. But, as usual, there’s never time for rest.

Tonight, to the best of my knowledge, Channel 5 (KPIX) will be airing their piece on Podcasting. I did a good interview with them a couple of weeks ago and I’m suspecting that it will get included in this piece. Naturally, this created a new pressure point for me – the site.

When I did the interview, they were zoomed in on the site for a few parts. Of course, it wasn’t the site, just the local development version I was running (the production site was a sliver of what was planned). Well, it’s one step closer today.

I’ve been working mostly on getting the legacy stuff over (never thought I would be the owner of legacy data). In any event, the previous Beercasts have finally been imported and the site migrated to run on the database.

So what’s new in this version?

• New Home Page – I was forced to throw up a simple page before with just a screenshot. Now, that screenshot has been replaced with the real thing.

  This page has a lot going on, so I’ll name the sections. The right column has a listing of the Recent Casts and Recent Shows. Midway through the page is a listing of the next 3 events. Further down are the more recent news items.

• Show Home Pages – Previously, the shows were hosted on their own pages, but it was quite annoying to deal with to tell the truth. I’ve moved to something that I think is a lot easier to use (and easy on the eyes).

  Down the left, you’ll find the summary of the show. The middle column has a listing of the topics. Clicking on a topic title shows the SparkCasts associated with that topic for the episode. The right column has a navigator to move through episodes of the show as well as links to RSS feeds for both the show and the topic being viewed.

  One nice thing is that now each episode has its own URL. This will make linking to an episode really easy. They all follow the format – http://sparkcasting.com/shows/[showAlias]/episodes/[episodeID]

• Show Guides – RSS – If you’re interested in knowing when a show gets updated, that’s simpler than ever. Each show has it’s own RSS feed that contains each of the episodes associated with that show. Subscribe away!

• Episode Guides – Playlist – If you’ve wanted to listen to everything from a specific episode, it’s pretty simple to do now. Each episode has a M3U playlist located in the root.

  For example, http://sparkcasting.com/shows/nyc-squad/episodes/3/index.m3u will give you all the casts for Episode 3.

• Topic Cards – RSS – SparkCasting is a topic-centric talk show. As a result, we’re more than happy to see our topics shared with others. To make this easier, we’re making it quite simple to get a hold of the full data for a topic.

  If you are looking for the Topic Card, you can point your browser to http://sparkcasting.com/topics/[topicID]/index.xml

• Topic Guides – RSS – This was the promise all along with this system. The idea is that you can build your own show by subscribing to the TOPICS that you like. You don’t have to like an entire show, unless you really do ;)

  The Topic RSS feeds now are connected and contain a blend of the casts that cover the topic across shows. Previously, they only listed the casts from the specific show. To get a Topic Feed, you simply point your browser to http://sparkcasting.com/topics/[topicID]/recent.casts.xml

Well, there’s a ton more to come, but that’s what I got done in the last few days. Version 0.3 will most likely be up some time next week. Have to get some old new shows posted first.

The process of creating the new SparkCasting site continues on. Although this is an interim step, the new Topic Guide finally answers the number one question I get about Beercasting: “What do you talk about?”

The Guide has a listing of all the topics that we’ve covered in the past 4 months. In total there are more than 80 different ideas that you can tune in to. Check it out.