I had the pleasure and privilege to be included as the second co-host in today’s episode of CNet’s Buzz Out Loud – Buzz Out Loud 877: Listener co-host show No. 1. I have long been a listener and sometimes a contributor of the show.

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Just for context, on the show I am known as Chris the Podcaster. There is a mention made on the show about how I will trick them into plugging the Amateur Traveler next time. I had contributed to the show a few times before mention was made of what podcast I actual made. A funny series of events lead to the first time they mentioned the Amateur Traveler on the show.

• I had met Tom, Jason and Molly at last years Podcast and New Media Expo. Specifically since Molly left a day earlier I had a chance to hang out with Tom and Jason and to introduce them to other podcasters. We also had lunch on the last day and I took them to the airport.
• Shortly thereafter I called into the show to make another contribution and completely biffed the call. You know how it is when you are trying to leave a voicemail sometimes. I called again and left a coherent message but I was quite sure they would mock me and play the first call which they did. I think after that they felt a little guilty so they mentioned what my show was.
• After they mentioned the show I sent this email:
  

  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is to have a thankless technology podcaster triumvirate.

  I bet you think you are so smart. But as you sit there in your smug smugliness drinking your half-caf-mocha-latte-frapa-chino and thinking how you have powned me, know this.

  It was in fact I who did the powning.

  And now is the time to reveal my sinister plan.

  Clearly the Buzz Out Loud show has an enviably larger audience than the Amateur Traveler. So how to get the Amateur Traveler promoted on the air. Clearly this was against BOL policy so the plan must be intricate, ingenious, diabolical.

  1. Invent the character of “Chris the podcaster” and establish it with some familiar regular contributions to the show.
  2. Convince the CNET management to send the cast of Buzz Out Loud to the Podcast and New Media Episode. This was accomplished through a series of incriminating photos taken at last year’s company Christmas party. Eggnog? I think not.
  3. Send a brilliant piece of audio feedback the week of the show so that “Chris the podcaster” is fresh in everyone’s memory.
  4. Arrange for a speaker at the show to have an untimely accident so that Tom gets a speaking slot.
  5. Hand deliver fake schedules to almost all the conference attendants that mislabels Tom’s talk as “A Case for Cooperating with the RIAA… with root kits” so that most of the attendees are dissuaded from attending Tom’s talk.
  6. Offer “helpful” comments during the talk to establish a rapport.
  7. Casually use hypnosis so that Tom and Jason invite me to lunch and think it is their idea and that they are simply “hungry”.
  8. Cement the relationship with casual banter and a ride to the airport.
  9. Wait
  10. Submit a very badly done audio clip for the show that is too painfully funny not to use but will instill enough guilt that Tom will feel the need to plug the Amateur Traveler in return.

  Pownage

  I cannot believe you could fall for such a simple plot. And now the next time someone is craving the voice of a well spoken, erudite, prepared podcaster they will… oh wait! … oh no! Oh crap. Back to the drawing board.

  P.S. Thanks for the plug

As I was recording and editing the Amateur Traveler podcast this week I took the opportunity to document the process using the new ScreenFlow application on the Mac. I skipped a bit as I spend 6-8 hours creating the show and the total video here is 15 minutes long but it should be long enough to give you an idea of the work flow.

The Amateur Traveler is a weekly audio travel podcast that is heavily edited (for polish usually not for content). This particular episode was Episode 131 – Walt Disney World. I use 4 main programs to create the show: Skype, CallRecorder, Levelator and GarageBand. The choice of GarageBand will clue you in that this show is created on a Mac, specifically on a MacBook Pro. This episode was a little more work, not just because I was trying to record it and ScreenFlow was unstable (with my experience I would say that ScreenFlow is Alpha quality software, it caused my whole computer to crash a couple of times) but because I had significant audio problems with Skype including one hang up.

part 1:

part 2:

equipment:

Plantronics DSP-400 Digitally-Enhanced USB Foldable Stereo Headset

Apple MacBook Pro

software:

Skype (free)

CallRecorder ($15)

Levelator (free)

GarageBand (free with Mac or $70)

I found this speech by Barak Obama to support my impression that he is an interesting candidate. I continue to see him as someone who sounds reasonable. I wish that were not such a rare quality in a polititian. In this speech he talks somewhat about his personal faith but more about the role of faith in politics. He charts a course in between the left and the right extremes.

I am a swing voter (registered Republican) and generally find politics distasteful… ok, let’s say “slimy”. My podcast about faith (The Bible Study Podcast) is particularly labeled as free of politics. So for me to even take the time to listen to a political speech is rare, let alone one almost 40 minutes long.

In particular I share Obama’s view that the value of the separation of church and state is not just for the state. “Folks tend to forget that during our founding it wasn’t the athiests and the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the first ammendment”.

Do I agree with all of Obama’s politics? I doubt it. Do I think having someone who seems intelligent and reasonable in the oval office would be a nice change. I do.

I recently wrapped up a series on the topic of why bad things happen to good people on The Bible Study Podcast. The series was suggested by a listener who was having a difficult time dealing with a particularly horrific local news story. The series ended up being 8 episodes long:

• Episode 34 – Why Do bad Things Happen to Good People? (part 1)
• Episode 35 – Why Did bad Things Happen to Job? (part 2)
• Episode 36 – Well, at least you still have your… oh… nevermind
• Episode 37 – I’ll get by with a little “help” from my friends
• Episode 38 – Job gets answers… sort of
• Episode 39 – Why do good things happen to “bad” people?
• Episode 40 – Where is God? (part 1)
• Episode 41 – Where is God? (part 2)

Starting with Episode 42 The Bible Study Podcast is looking at what the church is and what it is called to be.

A nice surprise with watching the live broadcast from GeekBrief tonight was seeing Cali wear a t-shirt design that I created.

By the way if you have not heard of GeekBrief and you are a fan of gadgets, gizmos, and web wonderfulness, then you owe it to yourself to check out this brief semi-weekly video podcast. Perky Cali and her off camera husband Neal put together a very professional, entertaining, informative show that is a must watch for all gadget geeks.

I got back last Sunday from the PNME conference in Ontario, Californa. This is the biggest conference of the year for podcasters and it is a wonderful combination of smoozing, presentations, hobnobbing, and networking with other people who are also obsessed with podcasting. Tim and Emile Bourquin (The Podcast Brothers) did another wonderful job on the conference.

Some of my thoughts…

Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you who missed it. My Amateur Traveler podcast was nominated for a Podcast Award. Vote early, vote often (every day through August 11).

After listening to the most recent episode of David Pogue’s podcast I may have changed my mind about the next video camera I will buy. My plans were that the next video camera that I buy would be an HD camera, but after hearing about Sanyo’s new underwater camcorder I am intrigued by the possibility of taking a video camera snorkeling with me or down the waterslide.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-E1 6MP Waterproof MPEG4 Camcorder

Technorati Tags: camcorder, digital camcorder, underwater, underwater camera

I was looking at stats for one of my recent episodes of the Amateur Traveler podcast. I think it a good episode and it has had between 29,000 and 30,000 downloads so far. It occurred to me that I had spent a few hours editing the audio for that show. The guest had very interesting things to say but also had a lot of ums, ahhs and some stuttering that I edited out of the show. I recall editing out 5 minutes of content from this particular show that in my opinion did not add value for the audience and did not present my guest in the best light. Much of the editing was of small chunks less than a second, but there were enough chunks that the total time added up.

It occurred to me that assuming an audience of 29,000 and 5 minutes saved (I have edited more out of some shows) that I saved 145,000 minutes or over 2400 hours or 100 days of total listener time. Somehow that seems like a good return on the time I spent on editing. Because I was willing to edit there were 100 days worth of time that were not wasted (when my show gets to 100,000 downloads every 5 minutes I can edit out that don’t add any value would save an entire year of my listeners’ collective time). Just think of all the things that people can do with 100 days. 2400 hours is about 5 years of baseball games (though to be fair that would seem much longer to many of you). 100 days is more than 3 times longer than William Henry Harrison was president. 100 days was enough time for FDR to pass most of the new Deal (although first he had help from congress and second that look odds to see “congress” and “help” in juxtaposition).

And so this week as I edit my show I do so with a renewed sense of hope that the time that I save will be worth it. Please use your 5 minutes wisely.

This is a screencast tutorial that shows you a better way to manage podcasts in iTunes than the one that iTunes provides (podcasts like the Amateur Traveler)