G’day World Podcast Reaches 200 Shows!

Rooster’s Rail extends sincere congratulations and a slap on the back to Cameron Reilly on reaching 200 episodes of G’day World on The Podcast Network.

Incidentally The Podcast Network turned 2 this week as well. Have a look at The Podcast Network two years ago using the Wayback Machine courtesy of Internet Archive. Great effort Cam and a huge achievement. Looking forward to the next 100.

Cam has put a show out nearly every day for the last two years, is CEO of The Podcast Network and has a firm conviction for the success and love of the medium that is podcasting.

Cam’s 200th show features the best of G’day World Guests since it has started.

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An Irreverent Podcast

There has been a discussion going on in the latest podcast from Cameron Reilly of G’day World. It is about how can we promote podcasts and podcasting. There have been a few responses from listeners about what they think. Such as giving away a Wii. This to us podcasters would be great… as long as you are providing it! So I made the suggestion that people blog about a podcast that they listen to on The Podcast Network. Here is my take on G’day World and me “putting my money where my mouth is”.

G’day World is hosted by Cameron Reilly, CEO of The Podcast Network and pretty much the flagship show of the Network. Generally has a show every week day unless he has an Xbox night with his mates…

“G’DAY WORLD, the very first Australian podcast, is an irreverent rant about technology, science, politics and the arts by Cameron Reilly, CEO of The Podcast Network.”

Cam is opinionated, blunt and at times argumentative. His latest show talks in part about the fact that it was pointed out to him that he was abrasive when talking about certain topics. It was an interesting reflection that he had about himself in response to that. It is partly true as Cam believes he is right and you can get totally owned being on the show. Is that a good thing? In some respects yes. To be that self assured and certain about what you believe in is great. To be so at the expense of someone else nope. So it was good to hear Cam reflect on that, it showed his listeners another side of him. Something I thought I would never hear from Cam.

One thing that I respect about Cam is the fact that he is very well read and has wide and varied interests. This is reflected in the topics he covers on the show. He is a passionate movie buff and also co-hosts The Movie Show. Cam is into science and technology although does not consider himself a geek. History on the other hand is also an interest and is reflected in his hosting of Napoleon 101. He is also very passionate about online media and podcasting and what it means to be a podcaster.

So why does that make a good podcast? You Never know what you are going to get for one. I enjoy listening to Cam’s perspectives on life and everything. I don’t agree with him all the time but I think he is a deep thinker and has the unique ability to put that thinking into words. That is hard to do. I start putting what I think into words and it never comes out the way I expected or intended.

G’day World is also very funny. I remember one time I was listening in the car and almost ran off the road I laughed so hard. Can not remeber for the life of me what that was about now. But yes the show is also funny. Maybe another unexpected bonus that makes it a good listen.

Why do I listen to it. Not sure. I think it is because sometimes you can not help but to listen. I was a bit like that with one of the latest things Cam has been about: “Curing Christians“. I have not got into the argument, but I disagree with what he is doing. Cam doesn’t want Christians influencing politics and decision making as much as he perceives it does. His answer: Cure some Christians. I believe that a belief system is part of being human and part of who we are. Destroy that and you take some of the person away. I think Cam should attack the thing he has the beef with and that in my opinion is the influence that a minority have over the majority on public policy. He will disagree with that. But I listened and I respect his view, at least he has one and isn’t afraid to say it.

Cam is currently running a competition where you could win a $50 Amazon voucher. What do you have to do? Just register with the online form and send some referrals Cam’s way! Currently he has zero takers so if you are the only one to register then you’ll get the prize. For the record I have not registered nor a part of this competition.

G’day World is entertaining, period. Why? Even myself I am not sure why; but it is. I would recommend G’day World for a listen, it might not be your cup of tea but then you won’t know if it is or not unless you do. While you are there check out some of the other great shows on The Podcast Network you will find something you like. Please remember to leave a comment on the podcaster’s blog, just to let them know what you think or just your opinion. As podcasters we value that and it means a lot to us. Easy for you and invaluable to us. Keep up the good work Cam.

DISCLOSURE: G’day World is part of The Podcast Network where The Global Geek Podcast is also a part, of which I am one of the hosts. I have in no way been offered any incentive or been requested to write this post. These are my opinions and original ideas and not those of The Podcast Network or Cameron Reilly.

Cameron Needs a Floor

Just a short note to head over to Cameron Reilly’s Blog for G’day World. Cam as I said in a previous post is heading over to the US to see about some VC (venture capital) for The Podcast Network.

Cam is traveling light and on what he calls an “extreme budget”, which sounds worse than a backpackers budget. So in that light he is looking for a “floor” in San Fransisco with WiFi, from the 25th of October to the 15th of November. He does not state a preference for the type of floor. But the WiFi is a must as he will still be running The Podcast Network. So if you think you or someone you know might be able to help Cam out then see his blog for details.

Also check out the latest Bulletin Magazine for this week (Australian Publication) as it talks about the investment situation here in Australia. It sums up the questions that I have been asking. They also chat with some other Aussie entrepreneurs talking about similar circumstances, interesting read.

Cameron Reilly Heads to San Fransisco

So I was talking to the Cameron Reilly CEO of The Podcast Network very breifly this morning and I find out that Cam is heading off to San Fransisco later this month. I was gob-smacked, then by coincidence heard the podcast where he speaks about it on the way to town after I spoke to him. Came out a few days ago so I guess he expected that I had heard it… sorry Cam been busy, but I have now!

Cam talks about his reasons for the move in his own special way on the latest edition of G’day World. Great show and worth the listen.

What I find the most depressing about the whole saga is the fact that Cam has to “out-source” investment in The Podcast Network. What a load of crap to think that Australian investors have their heads so far up their own arses that they either A will not or B can not invest in quality Australian Internet start-ups. In addition to this it would be investing in what is the future of media, the rest of the bloody world can see that. Why do you think PodShow received 15 million. Ignorant fools. This is just typical of investment in Australia, period. So many of our great inventions and ideas are lost overseas due to this very thing, when will it stop?

I would dare anyone to doubt Cams commitment to the podcasting medium. Cameron is leaving his partner and kids here in Australia while living in San Francisco. He is leaving his much beloved Melbourne for the bigger smoke and a forign country to live in one of the “Tech Mecca’s” of the world… hang on… Bastard!

Seriously though this is a sacrifice for him and in that he has my 100% support and trust and even greater respect. I have every faith that Cam will succeed, why?… Because if there is one thing I have learned about Cam it is that he gets what he is after and if you are not on board then see you later. He grabs life by the throat and chokes what he wants out of it. He believes passionately in what he is doing and feels he has a responsibility to further podcasting and citizen media. Bloody minded.

So Cam The Rooster wishes you the best fortunes in the world mate. I am sure your job will be easy, The Podcast Network is a quality company with class. I am proud to be a part of The Podcast Network as a host and sharing the ride with you all.

Just don’t go all American on us OK. Mind you he is calling himself:

“… the Steve Irwin of podcasting”

Apparently he is going to sport an Akubra, Driza-Bone and get RM Williams as a sponsor. So no, not much hope of “Americanizing” the Cam.

Podcasting History… It is Short

The last two days in the car; I have been listening to a podcast from IT Conversations. It was an interview with Doug Kaye the founder of IT Conversations by Michael Geoghegan on the Podcast Academy Channel. Doug talks about the history of podcasting on IT Conversations. If you have listened to podcasts from IT Conversations you will enjoy the interview. But I was thinking about my current predicament of trying to replace a co-host for The Global Geek Podcast and the history of podcasting.

A History Lesson

As mentioned in the interview the first “podcast” was accomplished by Dave Weiner the developer of the RSS format. He demonstrated the concept on his blog on the 11th of January 2001 after defining a new element called an “enclosure“. By the way he did this by “enclosing” a song by Grateful Dead on his blog feed of Scripting News.

For the first two years there were very few users of enclosures in RSS feeds. In September 2003 Weiner gradually released to his feed a series of 25 interviews with bloggers, futurists and political figures. Weiner announced these audio features on his blog as they were released. This threw out the challenge to other aggregator developers to support enclosures. As up until this point most feeds were text only.

In October of 2003 the first BloggerCon provided the platform for a demonstration by Kevin Marks of a script that enabled RSS feeds and pass the enclosures to iTunes for transfer to an iPod. Marks and Adam Curry discuss collaborating. After the conference Curry offers readers of his blog a script called RSStoiPod a script that moved mp3 files from on-line to iTunes, he encouraged developers to further the concept. Initial efforts were based in the command line. The first podcasting client with a user interface was iPodderX (now Transistr). The name change was due to the threat of legal action by Apple and trademark issues, obviously related to the iPod. From here the development of “podcatchers” or aggrregators was fast and mainly resided in the open source community with the show of Juice, CastPodder and PodNova. There are many aggregators now on offer and go from the simple to the highly sophisticated.

In September 2004 the term “Podcasting” was referred to as one possible; out of multiple terms for to listening to audio blogs, as coined by Ben Hammersley:

“…all the ingredients are there for a new boom in amateur radio. But what to call it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia?”

In the same month Dannie Gregoire used the term to describe the automatic download and syncrinisation of audio content. The name stuck and entered into common usage. Note the absence of anything related to an iPod? No it had nothing to do with iPods or Apple. In hind sight the association of the iPod with podcasting and podcasts has been detrimental in my opinion. As many people still to this day believe that you need an iPod to listen to podcasts and until I investigated the medium I too thought that the case. Or at least an association.

In September 2004 Adam Curry launched the ipodder-dev mailing list. A huge 100+ message conversation on Slashdot resulted in more attention in the development project. October of 2004 saw detailed “how-to-podcast” articles on-line. Then November 2004 saw the launch of Liberated Syndication, which offered storage, bandwidth and RSS creation tools. LibSyn for short, still provides the service to this day at some of the cheapest prices on the Internet.

As a final point, in February 2005 out rolled the first of the podcasting networks. The first was The Podcast Network, created by Cameron Reilly and Mick Stanic. The Podcast Network was and is the first Commercial Network. PodTech was founded in May 2005. Many others have followed and I think this is only the begining! I have every reason to be proud that The Global Geek Podcast lives at The Podcast Network.

So What has that got to do with Me?

Do you notice the dates in our history review? I use the word history very loosely as we can only say that it refers to past tense regarding podcasting and it’s past. Podcasting is a very new technology! In many respects the technology is still rapidly evolving and very dynamically at that. So being new it offers great challengers to the new user.

I would not say that subscribing and listening to podcasts is easy for the average user. In brief the user has to take the following steps:

1. Realise what these strange links called RSS are (in addition to not writing it off immediately after seeing a page of RSS!)
2. Source and install an RSS Aggregator
3. Figure out how to subscribe to a feed, and realise that it is free.
4. Know that not all aggregators are built equal (some support enclosures and some do not)
5. Actually download a podcast using their tricked out aggregator
6. Find some application to listen to it with or
7. Figure out how to transfer the mp3 file to a portable mp3 player
8. Enjoy

Phew! Now that is an effort. In reality most people probably start by right clicking and saving a podcast directly rather than use an aggregator. To try and explain to somebody exactly how to do all of the above is difficult and you generally loose the individual as soon as you mention aggregator. If you keep them that long.

Then I realised today, in light of listening to the interview with Doug Kaye that I can not expect every user that surfs by the Rooster’s Rail to know what podcasting is or what a podcast is. Given that; no wonder I have had bugger all responses to my plea for a new co-host. No wonder they might think that it is hard and intimidating or that they are not cut out for it. Or even that they have any idea what so ever and think I have a screw loose!

I think that the next huge leap in exposure to podcasting will be the simplification of the subscribing, downloading, transferring and listening process. It won’t be long until the manual procedure described above becomes a seamless automated process that the “average” user will be unaware of. Much of this I believe will come about when it is built into something like Windows Media Player. While that might disgust some people, the fact remains that most users use Windows! So it stands to reason. In addition to this factor will be the ever connected Generation Y, podcasts for them will be a thing that they have intergrated into their lives as a part of it rather than something they have to introduce.

So I have resolved myself to my crusade to expose as many people as I can to a medium that while young is transforming the global media landscape. In Cameron Reilly’s words “…this is something I have to do”.

Welcome to the revolution… For the rest of us that means hardcore brain cell re-programming.

[History of Podcasting Sourced from Wikipedia]