Help! I Need a New Co-Host for The Global Geek Podcast!

My current co-host, Sebastian and I had a discussion this last week gone and after an agonising decision he has decided to leave the podcast. This was not because of any conflict or disagreement rather the fact that Sebastian did not think he had the time to dedicate to it because of his own circumstances and also what he wants to focus his efforts on.

So that leaves me here with two weeks to find a new host! You might be asking is that for me? Well the first thing you have to do is head on over to The Podcast Network and The Global Geek Podcast Homepage and have a listen to the show. If you like it or think that you could make it better or are interested in being a part of it, here is what I want you to do:

1. Click the Odeo Button , it is the green button. It is not the usual type you would see, it is a custom one unique to The Podcast Network.



2. Leave an audio message when prompted to do so, preferably with the mic that you would be potentially using for the show.
3. Send me an email by clicking here. In this email I want you to tell me why you think you would make a good co-host. Or if that is too hard then just tell me a bit about yourself!

This may seem like a silly process but it will tell me a lot about you, your ability and some other stuff that I will let the successful person in on ;).

I need your help! So get to it! This is a great opportunity. Consider this in your decision:

• You are in on an existing, growing show.
• You become a part of The Podcast Network, of over 70 Podcasts and 250,000 regular listeners and growing.

I will also inform anyone thinking about this prospect, the show that is a regular weekly podcast that goes for about an hour. But; there are important regular collaborations during the week and especially about two days before when the main body of the podcast is worked out.

If you think you have what it takes then get in touch with me and we can talk. I would also invite anyone that has queries or questions to leave a comment with a valid email address (so I can reply) or contact me via the contact details in the right side bar on this page. I am only too happy to clarify anything here.

Podcasting is a blast; we will have great fun and the result is very satisfying that you have been a part of the growing “citizen media” network that is podcasting and the Internet.

UPDATE: Position filled. Thank you to everyone that expressed an interest.

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Odeo Cripples Functionality

Odeo seem to be updating and improving their services every other day of late. However, it is not every day that you see such a great service actually remove a feature and make it harder for users to utilise their service. They have indeed done so and perhaps in doing so shooting themselves in the foot.

One of the great features that is available to Odeo users is to have an "inbox". If you were to place a button on your website, be it blog or some other site you have enabled your readers to leave you audio comments by clicking the link. They get taken to a page that has a recording interface, which is simple and easy to use and the result is great audio. You as the user of Odeo get that recorded audio in your inbox once it is sent to you. You are notified of this by an email.

Another great feature is that you can subscribe to an RSS feed of your own inbox! So this is a great way to receive feedback on anything. Including podcasts. Seb and I saw it as a great way to get feedback for Global Geek Podcast, so we set up an account. The advantage of getting audio as feedback is that you could go to your inbox once you were notified and click the new Odeo comment that was left for you. You can listen to it. But the biggest feature was that you could click a "download as MP3" button and download the audio comment and insert it into a podcast! The result was excellent and we loved it.

The ability to download the MP3 has been removed from the play window! So what the hell is Odeo thinking in removing this key functionality. It means that it is impossible to download the audio from the page to your local machine. Rather it makes it a pain in the butt to do it.

I found that there is a work-around but it is messy: Open Audacity, set the source to "stereo mix" get ready to hit record… Open the Odeo message that you want to record. Flip back to Audacity and hit record, nip over to the Odeo page and click play. Go back and hit stop on the recording when it has finished. As I said messy. In addition the audio that you end up with is less than ideal and requires a bit of editing.

I am utterly dismayed as to why Odeo have removed this from their site. The only thing that I can think of is that they want users to listen to audio, only from them and not from another source. Perhaps they were not aware that the service was being utilized in this way and they have done it ignorantly, I just don't know. Sebastian has suggested that perhaps they are beginning to think about implementing a pay service and this has something to do with it. But since when has any site reduced their services as opposed to offering more. We are not the only podcast doing this. I can honestly say that if this situation remains as it is; the blogging and podcasting community could deliver some negative press, big time.

Global Geek Podcast has mentioned Odeo on every show that we have done. Not only that there is a link on the Global Geek Podcast website to Odeo, there is a link to Odeo on Rooster's Rail, Seb's Random Thoughts and we have plugged them for their service and functionality since utilizing their service. It is not like we have not given back to Odeo. This I feel is the thanks that we get.

Global Geek Podcast have sent off an email to Odeo in regards to this issue and we await a response, I will let you know what we get back from them when and if we do.

Update: Please check out the Follow-up Story

Global Geek Podcast 004 is Out Now: Go Get Some Geek

Well I am very happy with the end result of the published podcast. If you have not listened to it before now then please give it a go.

I was very, very peeved that I initially lost two and a half hours worth of editing work. I am not sure what I did in Audacity but I think in blaming myself I am blaming the right person and "thing". So tonight I sat down and started again, from the beginning. Now I am very pleased to be finished. I had a lot of editing and splicing of tracks to do in this one, which was a challenge but well rewarded in the end product. I am leaning heaps as I go.

The one thing that I was absolutely stoked about was the fact that the audio levels were spot on, I had to do very little stuffing around using the compressor. I did normalize the final edit and amplify it and that's it. Setting our levels is always tricky with the methods that we are employing to record as I might have said before. But the attention to detail has been worth it.

One thing that has irritated me is the fact that when I uploaded the podcast tonight the LibSyn player in the top right of the page did not update! So please if you listen to it using this method please either download it, or click the symbol next to the post with "POD" on it. Alternatively the widget here has been updated so that you can listen to it from here! I have shot off an email to LibSyn and await a response from them. I do know though that over the last couple of days they have been working on their servers so this might be the reason. Also because of this, if you can not connect to the website please try in an hour, as LibSyn believe that this is the only length of down-time to expect.

Other than that, enjoy the show! 

Global Geek Podcast 003 is OUT NOW!

I just finished editing and uploading the Global Geek Podcast, check it out and have a listen.

Sebastian and I are still trying to find our feet with the whole thing. For me this has been difficult as I have higher expectations of myself than I should. But I am happy with the show and I hope that you like it. I am finding the editing challenging but as you can see I am getting them out without too much difficulty.

I will be happier when we can find a better recording solution. The most frustrating thing is that we do a test and to us our audio sounds great. But then in comes the record. The recorded file has some problems. That said; the podcast is not bad quality. Rather there are small issues that affect quality that I have no control over. The issues that are apparent to us are not there "live" but are added in the recording. But hey we are doing our best and I am sure that Skype will come good with the record… eventually. The other thing is that I have heard podasts with shocking quality in comparison to ours, so I suppose we are OK. It is just frustrating.

So there goes another one, we are looking forward to the next and are learning all the time. Having fun as well 🙂

Hey we still need a logo, so please if you are a budding artist then send us any suggestions!

Updated the Webpage

Nothing major today, I have made a few changes to the Global Geek Podcast Homepage.

Because the web-page for the Global Geek Podcast was such hard work I have avoided changing anything for fear it would all be ruined. But I can say that now it is all set and basically the way it will be for a while, editing it in a minor way was easy. I just cut and paste the HTML our and into Nvu which is an open source WYSIWYG editor for web pages. It is excellent because as you would know from the podcast Sebastian and I do not try to pass ourselves off as HTML guru’s at all. Quite the opposite; we suck! Nvu is highly recommended by myself, especially if you don’t want to spend any money – it works!

As you might know from Sebastian’s blog, he purchased a domain name: sebrt.com for his blog page, which he has “masked” with that domain. So I thought it only fair that the link to his blog be that, so that done he should now be happy.

The other change is that you will notice that there is a link to The Knightsite. There is a bit of a story behind this one. Another great story of networking, Skype and the community of podcasters, bloggers. Turns out that this Belgian dude called Joe (a.k.a Knightwise) was cruising around the Skype “search for contacts” option in Skype. I don’t know what for but eh, he was there. He happened across Sebastian’s Skype id which detailed his podcasting involvement. So Joe called him up, as it happens Sebastian and I were talking at the time and we invited the Knight into the conversation and we all hit it off. Joe is a top bloke and he has a podcast called the Knightcast. It is a great quality podcast; hell he uses VBR encoding at high bit rates – bandwidth must be cheap in Belgum! Plus I think his accent is cool.

So Knightwise should have a place on our Podcast Homepage. We often talk now and encourage each other with our projects and we are planning some joint ones coming up so that will be fun. It is true that the internet does not know borders or nationality. I am stoked that I have yet another person added to my own community that is mutually moving towards bettering our “space”. There is no way in the world that my own universe would have opened up as much as it has without this wonderful medium called the internet, which is starting to reflect real world interactions and ways of meeting new friends. And that is just plain cool.

By the way please have a listen to the Knightcast, great quality and very impressive editing, he deserves a bigger audience and he is a top bloke.

So that’s about it for the web-page update, but as usual I can talk about anything for too long!