Daily Podcast News

As a child growing up my father would always say to me “You get nothing in life for free”, to which I would also answer what about the free lollipops with the Dandy or the free TV guides in the newspapers, “but you have to buy something to get something back” he would reply. While shopping in Dublin many years back I came across a catalogue in Argos and shouted “Dad, this is free!”. Free it may be, but what’s it for? What can you do with it except pick an item out and pay for it”. So up until 18 months ago I couldn’t think of anything that was “free” until I came across Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. I learned in a lecture that you could actually rip off the cover and put your name on it, imagine how cool that would be? You could be an author and show your Grandmother how amazing you were. The following lectures led us to the Creative Commons which is a place where you can value your work and decide how it should be used. This means that in some cases you can use other peoples work for absolutely free.

Liam, thanks for the kind note. I’m about to launch into the podcasting space myself, so I’m happy to help and learn. It is extremely exciting to hear about how you all are spreading Free Culture. Have you seen the Free Culture movement (not related to me) started by students at Swarthmore (http://freeculture.org)? Also, it would be great if you used CC music in your podcast — to again, reinforce the point you make in the beginning of your post.

Now people can choose to either pay for songs from iTunes or get free content on their MP3 players (Podcasts). Podcasting will get many artists noticed in the future (just like Bradsucks.net) who gets played in many Podcasts – even mine once it gets underway. Podcasting is free to listen to, if you don’t like it you can stop listening and subscribe to another. Many people are now looking at ways to make money from podcasting which could mean having to pay to listen to your favourite shows. This was an idea discussed by Dawn and Drew who already have a sponsored advert from msmobiles.com and appears at the end of the show so it doesn’t get it the way. Adverts in Podcasts can work if they are done in a fun way much like what Dawn and Drew do: you get the message but are entertained at the same time.

Having an iPod means alot to me, I can store my entire collection of CD’s and over 80 podcasts (many of which from openpodcast) that are updated daily. An MP3 player to most people means you are listening to music, expect this becomes a problem when you’re listening to Dawn and Drew or Armando and Sara and you start laughing out loud in public as people watch in dismay and wonder “How could a song be so funny?”.

We need some company to build a MP3 player dedicated to Podcasting (a great market ploy to get new podcast enthusiasts thinking: “Do I need one of these to listen to podcasts?”) The publicity would help podcasting grow and also warn people that if someone is laughing out loud it doesn’t mean they are mental.