Why are you not listening to Podcasts?

If you don't know what podcasts are, just imagine you and your siblings talking on a tape recorder, then listening to it back and laughing real hard, wishing the world could hear how awesome you are. My wife used to do that with her sister when she was a kid. They would pretend to be soldiers' wives during Desert Storm calling in talking about their husbands in the war.

Imagine millions of people are making tapes like this, some serious, some not. Now imagine being able to somehow discover tapes that you might like from other people, and then set something up such that every time a new tape came out from someone who's tapes you've liked before, you were just sent a copy.

It's just like that, except, without the tapes. You just get some free software to check these people's sites to see if they've updated their audio files (ITunes or the Zune Software will do this for you).

Breaking it down further, it's amateur radio that everyone can do and listen to. And it's free. (Except for a very few weird folks that charge . . . but they'll stop eventually. Remember how news sites used to make you pay to read their articles? How long did that last?)

So why isn't it crap? Volume and diversity, my friend. For example, I listen to podcasts about Northwest gardening, Consumer Computer Security, American Political History and Astronomy. I've tried out maybe a hundred different podcasts, but listen to about 15 or so with any regularity.

The pros are getting in on this now too. Many of the weekend news programs put their programs out as podcasts. Meet the Press, for example, puts out audio and video on Sundarys. NPR offers virtually everything as a podcast now.

You don't need an ipod. I've only ever listened to Podcasts on my Zune, for example. You just need something that plays mp3 files, and you're done.

The content, of course, varies in quality. It's best when you can find podcasts done by folks that have done actual radio or still do, but want some looser format that they can put out there for practically nothing. There are other folks that have no business on radio, but end up making great audio podcasts.

There are also video podcasts, which are the same deal, just instead of mp3 files, they are in some video format (often mp4).

I always think that people I associate with must know what podcasts are, and I bring them up in casual conversation, and I get blank stares. This post is my attempt and reaching those sorry souls. I'll offer some recommendations in further posts.