Podcast Zeitgeist, Jan. 1

There has been a lot of chatter about the podcasting business model, and whether it has been a failure. That talk intensified when a major commercial podcaster, Podango, warned recently that its death seemed to be near. None of this is of concern to me: I leave business models to the money people. My interest is content.I had more free time than usual this week, so the list is longer than usual (in the order I listened). [See all lists.]

Grammar Girl 149: Top Five Pet Peeves of 2008 Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) has a business model, or, at least, some regular advertisers and a dedicated audience of grammar enforcers. The top peeves suggested by her listeners: carelessness with language, misuse of "myself," overuse of the word "tapped," the phrase "baby bump," and the use of "slay" as a noun, particularly in New York Daily News headlines. It's an idiosyncratic list, to be sure, but all these targets are worthy of scorn. (I also listened to the slightly less interesting Episode 150, about podcasting a book. I doubt I would ever listen to a book in serialized podcast form.) Length: 8:33 minutes. Released: Dec. 19.

Make-It-Green Girl 34: The Story of Stuff A sister podcast to the one from Grammar Girl, with the same "quick and dirty" preaching to the converted. Anna Elzeftaway suggests you stop buying so much stuff and suggests holiday gifts that require no products, packaging or other waste. "Make it special without making a footprint." The smug message grates a bit. Length: 5:06 minutes. Released: Dec. 24.

The Futile Podcast: "It's Christmas!" and 2008 in Review Part 1 and Part 2 Some guys sitting around talking about action movies. The Christmas episode focused on the original "Lethal Weapon," with Mel Gibson as a grieving cop with a death wish. I gather it hasn't aged well. What set it apart from the other buddy cop movies of the 1980s was its nihilism. The Gibson character had nothing to lose, while his partner, Danny Glover, close to retirement with a big family, had everything to lose and was indeed "too old for this shit." The sequel was OK but later installments drove this franchise into the ground. Movie buffs may find the two year-in-review episodes of entertaining, with discussions of "Speed Racer," Heath Ledger's final performance in "Dark Knight," "Wall-E"'s sci-fi failures and some picks for best and worst. Lengths: 32 minutes to an hour each. Released: Dec. 23, 27 and 30.

Buddhist Geeks 101: Hollow Bones Zen "Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky." The podcast is part of the Personal Life Media family, whichcame up in an earlier installment that touched on podcast ads.. The episode opens with an ad for a meditation gong, an Audible.com pitch and a request for donations, but then gets down to business with part 2 of a good interview with Jun Po Roshi, a teacher in the Rinzai zen tradition who is the first dharma heir of Eido Shimano Roshi. Part 1 is here. Buddhism is not necessarily a religion, nor is it Japanese, or Chinese or Indian, and translating its practice into western culture is tricky. Key question: what's in your fridge? With a Buddhist knock-knock joke that is amusing if not a knee-slapper. Length: 19:50. Released: Dec. 22.

David's Coffee Stains: Crybaby I downloaded a bunch of podcasts with "coffee" in the title this week, given my interest in that particular addiction. It turns out that "coffee" is a fairly popular word in podcast titles for religious and music shows. So I found myself listening to this one from David Porter, an evangelist (yes, the slash seems to be part of the title). He started out with some interesting observations about the economic crisis that could have been mistaken for a Buddhist explanation of compassion and karma, or a liberal critique of the western economy, but it turned into a more traditional sermon with asides about abortion, same-sex marriage and sin. Length: 18:22 minutes. Released: Dec. 13.

Your Psychic Connection with Jorianne the Coffee Psychic This is also a radio show, apparently. Jorianne uses coffee and cream to divine the future, as her Web site explains: “My connection to reading coffee psychically began early in my paranormal explorations. I was discussing different methods of divination with my sister-in-law’s cousin, who is Hispanic, and she introduced me to the use of reading coffee this way – which is traditional in Hispanic cultures. Being a ‘coffeeholic’ myself, this seemed a natural for me and was my first attempt at learning how to access information psychically.” Listeners call in for readings. The audio quality is not great. The first caller is Wendy, who has several questions. Jorianne: "When I'm looking the coffee here, Wendy, on the question of your marriage, has it been a little stressful? Because the coffee's going backwards here..." Wendy: "Very." Oh my. Gift certificates available. Length: 55:21 minutes. Released: Dec. 17.

Urban Coffee 100: Homecoming Dave and Seth are back. I didn't know they were gone. After taking a year off, this discussion of politics, technology, music and other topics is getting a fresh start on live video and live audio as well as this podcast. I was looking for an actual coffee podcast so I only sampled a bit of this episode and a little of #101, released on Dec. 29. More inside jokes about people I don't know, though the account of identity theft held my interest for a bit. I'll check back on this one. Length: 1 hour, 7 minutes. Released: Dec. 10.

Hot Coffee Show, Episode 6: We're Under Attack! "An improv comedy show roller skating through your neurons." They seem to be having a good time, but I didn't find it particularly funny. Maybe it was the material: Hugh Jackman hosting the oscars, the losing Detroit Lions and some kind of musical about cafeteria bullies. There was a lot of hard-to-follow cross-talk. Maybe I'll check back when they get some more episodes under their belts. Length: 21:37 minutes. Released: Dec. 17.

WFMU's Coffee 2 Go With Noah An underground podcast of hip-hop demos. I'm not a big hip-hop fan but this isn't half-bad. Also hard to summarize. There was an interesting one from Datin called "Man Vs. Machine" that sampled Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine." Points for originality. Nothing to do with actual coffee. More info at the links from WFMU and Noah Zark. Length: 39:57. Released: Dec 3.

Audio Coffee Podcast "The following show may contain traces of nuts." An electronic music mix that started out mostly upbeat, fast-paced, unrecognizable (to me, at least). I shut it off around 1:10 when the music got slow and dreary. Not my thing. Some might enjoy it. Length: 2 hours, 27 minutes. Released: Dec. 7.

Bellissimo Coffee Podcast: Barista Exchange Actual podcasts about actual coffee seem to be dying off, (see the CoffeeGeek podcast review last week), and here's another example. Just one episode this year -- this one in March -- after a burst of activity in 2007. This episode promotes the newish Web site, Barista Exchange, discussion forums for professional baristas. I would just go check out that site and skip this episode. Length: 20:09 minutes. Released: March 31, 2008.

Coffee Now Podcast This coffee news podcast one started up in a brief burst, came out every two weeks for six episodes, then vanished in June. In this final episode, the host, Jezza Hardin, reveals some "disappointing news" -- that he has lost a piece of his coffee machine. "You realize we are now two podcasters about coffee that do not have coffee machines at home." His friend and co-host Craig replies: "We've got them, but they just don't work." Followed by a discussion of bad baristas and six-month-old headlines (people who roast their own beans at home -- who knew?). Length: 51:36 minutes. Released: June 20, 2008.

Coffee Convo 48: Reloaded! Another death in the coffee podcast family. After a year of podcasting, Tony Gettig signed off in November: "What started as a joyful expression of my love for coffee has turned into a taskmaster that I simply cannot live with anymore... Go hop on Barista Exchange or CoffeeGeek. There is more happening on those sites than the Convo could ever provide. Go on, try it, you’ll like it. :) You might even see me on one of those sites. Better still, start your own show." Too bad; this was a fairly well-produced podcast with some knowledgeable discussions and anecdotes by coffee professionals. At this point, I got a little down about the state of coffee podcasts, but I did sample these other defunct ones: the Portafilter.net podcast, which ended a long run in March, the Morning Brewcast, an intermittent one with poor audio quality, and something billed as "the Starbucks Podcast" on iTunes that was entirely in German. Length: 1 hour, 25 minutes. Released: Nov. 30.

MacBreak Weekly 120 & 121: "And One Less Thing" & "WWPD" If anyone has a business model for podcasting, it is Leo Laporte, and this is a flagship in his tech talk empire. While Laporte has an outside radio gig for income, he has also built a professional, multimedia webcasting operation that attracts advertisers as diverse as Visa, Audible, Drobo, Cachefly and various software makers. I missed listening to the first of these MacBreak shows last week because I was traveling. Alex Lindsay of Pixelcorps took the helm again, from Japan, joined by the tech journalist Andy Ihnatko near Boston, Scott Bourne (who left Podango earlier this year) from Gig Harbor, and the video podcaster Don McAllister from England, all through the miracle of Skype. Much of the discussion focused on Steve Jobs's decision to skip MacWorld this year, and plans by Apple to pull out of the convention altogether starting in 2010. Jobs and Apple no longer want product announcements to be held hostage by the convention schedule, and its artificial deadlines, Ihnatko argues (expanding on this Sun-Times piece.). There's talk of the Jobs succession as well. For episode #121 this week, Laporte returned from France and the host's seat, with the same lineup of panelists. There's more MacWorld advance talk, where MacBreak will be a live podcast. More about Steve Jobs and the ill health rumors. Consensus on the panel is a) skepticism about the rumors, b) none of this is good for MacWorld's future but c) the show is still a good educational program (of course, all these panelists are MacWorld speakers who get free tickets, loaded swag bags or speaking fees). A lengthy discussion of iFart Mobile, the No. 1 iPhone app. The iPhone Nano rumors. Some of the panel's product picks are listed here, including a cool translator iPhone app, Lingolook, pitched by Lindsay in #120. Length: Ranging from a tidy 52:55 minutes then back to Leo's expansive 1 hour, 20 minutes. Released: Dec. 24 and Dec. 30.

This Week in Tech 175: Highlights and Lowlifes 2008 More from Leo Laporte. Is podcasting ready for clip shows? I'm not sure it works for something as ephemeral as a tech news show, but that's what this is. I wouldn't really recommend this for anyone not familiar with the topics or the hosts. Leo is clownish, John C. Dvorak is grumpy, Jason Calacanis is full of know-it-all bravado. And so forth. Length: 1 hour, 31 minutes. Released: Dec. 28.

Uhh, Yeah Dude, Episode 147 In the comedy news category, it's back to my old standbys, Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette, who were working overtime before Christmas to get episodes out through the end of the year. This is the last episode of 2008. High points include Jonathan's account of getting a ticket for driving while holding a cellphone, the human nose as a sex organ, a discussion of modern pinball technology, PETA's person of the year and Doc Ellis's no-hitter on LSD. They have 150 more episodes to go before the world ends under the 2012 Mayan prophecy. I saw it in my coffee cup. Seatbelts. Length: 1 hour, 7 minutes. Released: Dec. 29.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Dec. 19

Here are more quick takes on podcasts that caught my attention this week, in the order I listened. [See previous lists.]

• Night of the Living Podcast 122. A cast of men and women discuss all things horror around a table in Cinncinnati. Not that you would know that is their focus for the first 15 minutes or so of the episodes I've heard. They tend to open with off-color, off-topic discussions. For example, this week featured recordings of farts, birthday messages to people you probably don't know and Andy Rooney impressions. Fifteen minutes in, the horror discussion started, with news about VH1's "Scream Queens" reality show, a riff on surviving zombie attacks, an extended negative review for the straight to video flick "Primal," about a killer sasquatch, then some reader voicemails. They crack themselves up a lot, and I'm sure someone finds it fascinating, but I'm not enough of a horror fan to stick with it. Length: 1 hour, 52 minutes. Released: Dec. 14.
• The Bob Thurman Podcast #66 The Tibetan scholar riffs in another dharma talk aimed straight for your hypothalamus, with some discussion about the Indian demon Mara, who is a tempter, the god of pleasure, "sort of a superdude cupid" as Thurman puts it, and how Mara is in some sense a Bodhisattva sent to test other Bodhisattvas. Thurman tells a story about an enlightened king giving away his eyes to be transplanted to a beggar -- it turns out to be a test, and he the king's sight is not lost. Thurman says his Sanskrit teacher couldn't stand Buddhists -- "they're a bunch of damn goody-goodies." He relates the Buddhist story of the king to the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Bible. Sacrificing the firstborn. One way to break the cycle of attachment, he says, is to be willing to give up what is most precious in your life. At the end of parables, even the Buddhist ones, all is saved when you pass the test with your willingness to forgo attachment -- "usually." Good advice for print journalists in hard times, perhaps. Length: 14:24 minutes. Released: Dec. 13.
• Uhh Yeah Dude, Episode 145 Intro: M83. A solid hour of riffing on weird news, like items from the world of horrifying science: Poor children's brain activity resembles that of stroke victims. Fat people eat more and get seconds at Chinese buffets. "Thanks, science." Top baby names of 2008. Gavin? Bryce? The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles has banned smiling in driver's license photos. They urge listeners to watch the late-night TV shows, which have been particularly bad lately, and mock the latest laughable Burger King ad campaign: Whopper virgins. Getting plastic surgery to look good at your funeral. Fox apologizes for full-frontal NFL shot. Why is gasoline, which was $4 a gallon, now cheaper than orange juice? "It'd be like you went into Starbucks and you ordered your drink and they said that'll be 50 cents." Complaints about the post office. Jonathan is scammed by a credit agency collection guy. A discussion of H. Salt, a SoCal fish and chips place. Jonathan: "As a vegetarian, it is one of the few things I get a hankering for." That's why I went back to eating fish a few years ago. Sorry, fish. Outro: Peter Tosh. Length: 1 hour, 32minutes. Released: Dec. 13.
• This Week in Tech 173: Dvoracanis Leo Laporte plays host to Sarah Lane, John C. Dvorak and Jason Calacanis. Topics include: Zinc air batteries from Energizer and battery life in general, bad iPhone battery performance, chargers for the Tesla, Google's use of humans to improve search results, and the top tech stories of 2008. Blu-Ray fails to grab market share. Dvorak and Calacanis disagree about who works harder, Americans or Asians. The Nintendo Wii: a girlie console? Australia cracks down on the Internet, and The Simpsons. Spectrum auction leaves Google a happy loser. And a discussion of the resolution of the Google Books fight causes Calacanis to say: "Google is not evil but lacks empathy." Audible ad around the 1-hour mark kicks off 10 minutes of commercial promotions. But I'm in a forgiving mood for the holidays, and one of the promotions is for a free installment (on Dylan's "Highway 51 Revisited" ) from the Continuum Books 33⅓ pop music series I mentioned here. It is a good series, and nobody paid me to say that. Length: 1 hour, 34 minutes. Released: Dec. 14.
• The Futile Podcast: "Truck drivin' arm breakin' and arm wrestlin'" Is there such a thing as an action-movie nerd? Maybe the right word is geek. Description of podcast: "Deconstructing 80’s & 90’s action movies. Relating them to comics, TV, and cartoons from then and now." They get pretty quickly into the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie "Over the Top" (1987). The two guys say it feels like a made-for-TV movie, with the lesson, you have to take what you want in life. High point of film comes with interviews of actual professional arm wrestlers. It's an amusing enough discussion, but the main hosts seems to be eating and talking with his mouth full. "A really, really awful version of 'The Color of Money.' ... We did the poker movie, and we did the pool movie, what about arm wrestling?" I might listen to this show again, depending on the movie under discussion. It looks like some of the earlier podcasts have more participants, mostly but not exclusively men. On the blog, there's also this apology for excessive misogyny, a common feature of a lot of male-dominated podcasts, as I've mentioned before. On the plus side, it has some of the features of a good podcast: brevity with several engaging personalities talking with expertise about an obscure topic they love, in this case, action films. Length: 23:24 minutes. Released: Dec. 17.
• "60-Second Earth, Santa in Danger: Polar Meltdown" First, I will note again that this show, despite the name, is longer than a minute. Second, I will note that this particular episode is a rapid-acting depression pill from Scientific American. Except that it doesn't cure depression. It makes you feel worse. You see, the icecaps are melting, and there's not a damn thing Santa can do about it, "no matter how green his elves are," children. Aaagh. Sponsored by God. Length: 1 minute, 20 seconds. Released: Dec. 11.
• CommandN Episode 161 Unlike the audio podcasts above, this is video, which means you will hurt yourself or others if you try it while driving or walking to work. It is also Canadian, and the recent episode is inexplicably taped outside, so the hosts, Amber MacArthur and Jeff-somebody look cold. This is their gift guide. Canadians are a little behind the times in technology. They lust for iTunes and Kindles. The show is short, but it moves too fast to really focus on anything. Discussions tend to be superficial. I'd suggest skipping this altogether and listening to Amber's far superior audio podcast with Leo Laporte, Net@Night, which I haven't reviewed yet, though I like it, and nobody paid me to say that. Length: 8:12 minutes. Released: Dec. 6.
• Wired Gadget Lab 20: This Ain't Your Grandma's Motor Home Another video. A couple of 20somethings test-drive a high-tech modified Airstream RV. "Dude, let's take it to L.A." Oh, ha ha ha. Good thing gas prices are dropping. They make the trip, with footage from a pit stop at the world's weirdest urinal. Seriously? What does it have to do with this review? Nothing. They give the vehicle a 6 out of 10. Which is better than the podcast itself. I'm not really sure why I even watched this. Oh, it was short. And now I can put the whole series in the trash bin, because video eats up a lot of hard-drive space. Length: 7:10 minutes. Released: Dec. 5.
• "This Week in Media 119: Adverteasing" Back to audio. This proved to be the most though-provoking show of the week, with a disturbing view of podcast advertising practices. Daisy Whitney of TV Week leads a discussion with Alex Lindsay, Susan Bratton of Personal Life Media (35+ podcasts), plus two others with complicated names that nobody spelled out, a media ad buyer and an active podcast sponsor. It starts off with a focus on how so many podcast hosts personally pitch products, as in radio, a practice that advertisers like. Lindsay nods to the church/state wall between content and ads, saying he avoids getting involved in deals and that he only pitches products on his tech podcasts that he uses and likes. I guess we have to trust him on that. He says his advertisers pay on a CPM basis (cost per thousand views), not based on revenue sharing or for favorable content. He does disclose that Scott Bourne, his co-host on This Week in Photography, personally sells ads for that show. Around the 28-minute mark, Bratton reveals even more flexibility: "...We'll also do a program that includes the CPM audio ads, plus things like, we'll post on the blog, we'll Twitter this information, we'll do a review of your product, whatever it might be, and then we're compensated in some way, typically a flat fee" to cover the hourly work for that. So, here is the followup question, which was not asked: Are reviewers free to give the product a bad review? Has it ever happened? Podcasters and bloggers on the Laporte/Lindsay podcasts often talk about how objectivity and fairness are outmoded journalistic ideas, but these practices arose to avoid this kind of problem. How do ad-supported podcasts (and blogs) ensure editorial integrity? If a camera gets a good review on Bratton's Digital Photography Life, how do I know it's an honest review, if the camera is made by an advertiser? I don't. How do I know if I'm getting the real deal, if the content creator is a financial partner with the sponsor or is taking freebies? I don't. Length: 53 minutes. Release date: Dec. 16.
• Digital Photography Life, Episode 5 So, after that discussion on This Week in Media, I listened to one of Personal Life Media's podcasts, on photography, a topic that interests me a little. This episode opens with an ad for Smugmug, a photo-sharing site that the co-hosts Scott Sherman and Michael GW Stein "talk a lot about on the show," according to the ad. (Popularity isn't everything, but for reference, here's how SmugMug compares to competitor Flickr in terms of overall traffic.) Twelve minutes into the show, Scott and Michael were still talking about the podcast's photo contest, which entails e-mailing entries to the show's Smugmug album, where the entries will be displayed. Then they discussed the prizes -- bags donated by another sponsor. Then they asked listeners to leave five-star reviews of the podcast on iTunes. If you actually want to hear about photography, I recommend fast-forwarding to the 18th minute, for the start of a mildly interesting discussion of the new Nikon D3-X, audaciously priced at $8,000, followed by some good tips for taking holiday party pictures. This all seems to be aimed at beginners, with the Nikon discussed for the shock value. The hosts are amiable and sound like nice guys. But Smugmug is certainly getting its money's worth. The hosts slip in another ad toward at the end for a camera bag, then ask listeners to send holiday party shots to them via Smugmug (there's another ad for the site at the end of the show). Then listeners are again urged to write a five-star review on iTunes or to at least go there and rate the positive reviews as helpful. Scott: "Those reviews will move to the top of the list, so the negative reviews are not the first ones people see when they check out the show because that is just not helpful when it comes to building an audience." So I go to iTunes. The first review I see is for two stars: "Posted a lengthier review last week but for some reason it is not showing up here. To summarize, I used to be a huge fan of the old show but over time it became more boring... Shows are long usually due to senseless banter being included. The hosts wander off topic a lot and don't stay focused." Maybe he has an ax to grind. The average rating is 4.5 stars. Length: 59 minutes. Released: Dec. 8.
• Macbreak Weekly 119: MacBreak Mania Alex Lindsay filled in for the traveling Leo Laporte, with guests Andy Ihnatko, Frederick Johnson, Ron Brinkman and Paul Kent of the upcoming MacWorld Expo. Topics: animated "Get a Mac" holiday ads, more Apple netbook speculation, fate of Apple TV and Mac Mini, iTunes vs. Amazon music store, and granular information about the MacWorld Expo, including a discount code (first 100 got a free pass and the rest get $20 off: RIDP1641). Alex read the Audible and Drobo ads, but kept them mercifully short. In the picks segment, Inahtko, a free-lance tech writer for The Chicago Sun-Times, spoke favorably of Slingbox products, which let you play your media library (and DVR content) on any TV, even away from home. Works best with a hard-wired network. More MacBreak picks here. Length: 1 hour, 8 minutes. Released: Dec. 16.