Happy 5th Birthday to Podcasting!

With the word “podcasting” firmly entrenched in the English language it’s a bit hard to believe that the medium is only five years old. Wired’s This Day in Tech marked yesterday, Aug. 13 as the fifth anniversary of the start of Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, the first widely popular podcast.

This Day in Tech dutifully notes that the first actual podcast came one day earlier in the form of RSS pioneer Dave Winer’s Morning Coffee Notes, but that it was Curry’s podcast that quickly popularized the idea.

And what was that idea in the first place? The notion of having a regular radio program online was not remotely new by 2004. It was no problem listening to popular public radio programs like This American Life online. Even my little old radioshow was posted for download before Curry and Winer coined the term “podcast.”

The key innovation of podcasting was to make it easy to subscribe to a feed so that the programs would be downloaded to your computer automatically. No more checking a site over and over to see if a new show was posted. Simple, but effective.

The interesting thing about podcasting is that this little bit of tech has become so ingrained in our culture already that “podcast” has become pretty much synonymous with “online radio program.” When podcasting became a hot trend in educational media, ’round about 2005 and 2006, I presented several workshops on the topic. My first order of business was always to point out the simplicity of the concept and also clarify the fact that a podcast, by definition, refers to a series of audio programs that one can subscribe to, not just an audio program posted online.

The reason I felt the need to clarify so strongly is that as an educational media producer I started having many clients come asking for us to podcast a lecture. I would always ask if they were planning to have a series of lectures or other programs. And more than half the time, the answer was “no, we’re just having this one.” My response would be, “so what you really want is to record this lecture and make it available on a webpage?” And the typical answer would be, “Yes, that’s right, we want a podcast.”

Ugh.

Of course, it was no problem to record the lecture and post the MP3 online (nevermind the clients who didn’t want their “podcast” to be downloaded–just streamed). But there was no reason anyone would subscribe to this “podcast” since there would never be episode #2. It was also a little frustrating because clients would act as if it had never been possible to post audio programs online before, despite the fact that my department had been offering it as a service for at least five years by that point.

Eventually I gave up on explaining the difference because it became obvious that nobody cared, and the difference didn’t really cause any problems.

The very positive legacy of podcasting is that the idea greatly revitalized and popularized online radio, spawning thousands, if not millions, of new audio programs created by amateurs, professionals and creative people of all types. But make no mistake, radio producers had been posting their audio online since the invention of the web. In fact, one the pioneering archives of online community radio content, the A-Info Radio Project, started in 1996–eight years before podcasting–and continues to go strong today.

So, Happy Birthday to the podcast, and may a million more be born and syndicated.

On Tonight’s Radio Show: The Value of Retro & Vintage Technology

On tonight’s radioshow my guest with be Bohus Blahut, one of the bloggers behind the popular Retro Thing blog which tracks vintage gadgets and technology. It’s a site I’ve been reading for a couple of years not just because I have my own love for vintage tech, but because I think there’s value in holding on to, preserving and finding continual usefulness in the tools and gadgets which the mainstream consumer products industry would have us believe need to be tossed out and replaced.

Bohus lives in Chicago, so he’ll be live in the studio which gives us an opportunity to take some calls in the second half of the show. If you’re in the Chicago area, listen live at 9 PM CST on WNUR 89.3 FM, or tune in online (live stream). The studio line is 847-866-WNUR (9687). If you miss the live airing, catch it online at the radioshow website, or any of the show’s affiliate stations like WRFA, Jamestown, NY and WTND, Macomb, IL.

Catching Up

It seems like all of my available mediageek energy has been poured into the radioshow lately, the result of having a firm weekly commitment to dozen stations. Were the radioshow a non-broadcast podcast I’m not so certain I would be so diligent.

At least I can say that I’ve had a couple of great guests recently that you really should check out if you haven’t already listened to the shows.

Faythe Levine was my guest on August 22 where we talked about her upcoming documentary film and book, both named Handmade Nation. The project’s nice new website just went online. Faythe was also featured in today’s New York Times Home section in an article looking at the DIY craft phenomenon and connecting it to her own home design. She scanned in the print article to her Flickr site.

One of the hardest working folks in the media reform, Gigi Sohn, was last week’s guest. Gigi is the executive director of Public Knowledge, a public interest group that does great work on issues like spectrum use and preservation, intellectual property and broadcast ownership. On this show we talked about the FCC’s recent sanctions against Comcast, and why that decision deserves recognition as an historical moment in the modern media reform movement.

I have another interesting interview slated for this week’s radioshow, too. My friend Sarah Kanouse will tell us about Voices of America, a participatory radio remix project she put together along with Lee Azzarello of free103point9. You can listen live to the show when it first airs on community radio WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign, IL on Friday at 5:30 PM CDT, either over the airwaves or over the internet. It will be available online at the radioshow page shortly thereafter.

Goodbye minidisc, Hello Zoom H2

I’ve finally broken down and abandoned my beloved minidisc for mobile audio recording. I held out for as long as I could, which wasn’t hard. Until recently the format that never caught on (in the US) was the best portable digital audio recording format, especially when Sony finally unveiled Hi-MD four years ago finally allowing us to upload our recordings directly to our computers, not just download from them.

Then, about three years ago, recorders using memory cards came on the scene offering more convenience and equivalent sound quality, although for more money. Already invested in minidisc gear going back to 1997 I was tempted, but the continued good service of my MD recorders kept me from straying.

But things change. Come 2008 my most recent (circa 2006), and most expensive minidisc recorder has developed issues, and as far as I can tell Sony has no plans to release any new minidisc recorders. However, new ones are still available.

With a trip to NYC planned along with an appointment to do an interview at Neighborhood Public Radio I broke down and bought a Zoom H2 “Handy Recorder.” I’m not going back.

Because of my professional occupation in educational media I’ve had the luxury of messing around with flash memory audio recorders from Marantz, M-Audio and Zoom, so I’ve had a chance to try out features and get to know their benefits and problems.

I was especially intrigued by Zoom’s first recorder, the H4, for it’s comparatively low cost, but inclusion of such pro features as XLR balanced mic jacks. The most interesting things about the H4 is the quality of its built-in stereo microphones. Unlike any under-$1000 recorder that came before, these mics are clearly not afterthoughts and meant to be used.

Then, last year Zoom came out with an even less expensive model, the H2. While you give up some pro features, like the XLR jacks, you gain two additional microphones and the ability to record surround sound. At first I thought this arrangement represented a hollow bit of bling-bling at the expense of quality. But then I read reviews that found the quality to be quite good. I also started talking to other folks who adopted early and sang its praises.

While I like the XLR jacks on the H4, my prior experience left me feeling lukewarm about the actual quality of the mic preamps. Using a basic dynamic mic (like a Shure SM58) the level runs low on the H4, with a fair amount of hiss. Condensers work better, but aren’t always a good fit for field recording. On top of that, the H4 looks like a tazer, which makes me wonder if anyone ever gets harassed at airport security with one in their carry-on.

So, I ordered the H2 for under $200 and put it to the test with an interview. I am impressed. I can barely believe that four decent quality mics are mated to a good digital audio recorder in a package the size of two iPods can work so well at that price. I do have to admit that the construction feels light and cheap — the plastic isn’t too different from what you’d find on a $19 CD discman at the discount store. By comparison, my minidisc recorders have metal cases that inspire more confidence.

The killer feature for me is the ability to record the four mics separately into two two-channel stereo pairs. These two stereo pairs are recorded into two separate files that are otherwise completely sync’d. This is great for doing interviews in the field where you want to record both yourself and your subject without having to move the mic around like you’d have to do with a handheld microphone.

For the interview features on last week’s radioshow, I positioned the mic on the table between myself and the interviewee — we sat on opposite sides. What I ended up with is two stereo .wav files, one in which I was closer and louder, and another where the interviewee was more prominent. I sync’d them both up in multitrack software (er… GarageBand) and mixed them together, muting my file when I wasn’t talking.

I had to produce the entire show on the road. So instead of lugging a mixer and mic with me as I’ve done in the past I just used the H2 to record all my voiceovers, too. The overall quality isn’t as nice as my large-diaphragm condenser mic through a mixer, but it’s so damn close.

All the better, now that SD memory cards with 2 – 4 GB run $15 – $20 the price-per-minute for storage is even competitive with Hi-MD, where 1 GB blanks cost about $5. With a 4 GB card I have 6 hours of full uncompressed CD-quality recording available to me — great for conferences or other events. If I’m willing to live with MP3 compression, that 4 gig card will deliver 20 – 60 hours of record time.

The age of direct-memory recording is here and truly feasible for audio. Video is just starting to become reasonable, depending on how patient you’re willing to be. A little part of me will always love minidisc, just not the part that likes dragging and dropping 60 minute audio files in less than a minute.

May 2 Radioshow Notes & Links

Links and notes related to the May 2 mediageek radioshow:

• FCC Proceeding on localism: http://www.fcc.gov/localism
• Public Knowledge’s Orphan Works Act page: http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/ow
• Matthew Lasar’s Ars Technica article: NPR’s war on Low Power FM: the laws of physics vs. politics

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