Over the last two years I’ve become a follower of several of the popular Podcast that emanate from the Bay Area.
As someone interested in the Mac Scene, I started listening to the Your Mac Life show which was a conventional web cast available by download or a live Internet stream. A couple years ago Your Mac Life stopped allowing downloads of their show, only giving the option of purchasing the show through Audible.com a web stream. Since I like to listen at my convenience and didn’t want to pay for the show, I listened less and less as it wasn’t a Podcast.
Annually, the Your Mac Life show would hype up their party at Macworld San Francisco, thinking it would be a great way to meet the community of listeners and the show hosts. I would request how I could attend, but instead of getting an invite, I would get a pitch from YML to have my company buy into being a sponsor for the event in order to attend. So much for the YML community aspect…
Then along came This Week in Tech, or better known as Twit. Hosted by Leo LaPorte and other alumni of TechTV, he started a weekly podcast taking his idea of a lively roundtable of people in the tech field to discuss a range of topics. From this show, I learned of Kevin Rose and his The Broken series and the then new, Diggnation show and Merlin Mann’s 43Folders.com.
What helped catapult these shows to the forefront of the scene and surpassing Your Mac Life, was using RSS to ‘Podcast’ the content for free. This is the best format for me and a lot of other listeners as you can listen when you want on your iPod; riding to work, jogging or on your stereo. And the biggest aspect that makes these shows a success, is the community that was started around the shows. Leo started taping the shows at various spots around SF and invited the listeners to participate. A few shows were done at the SF Apple store and a few were done at local cafes or beer joints.
The Diggnation shows have also taken on a life of their own. Their Podcast started with just co-hosts, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht sitting on a couch, drinking some beers with their laptops on their laps. They discuss top news stories from the reader selected top stories on digg.com. They also had a brilliant idea to help build their community – to record some of their podcasts in public at a local brewpub. Entry into the party event was free! Recently they recorded at the Beach House brewpub in San Francisco. Beer + geeks = good times!
Digg.com recently had a big party for their listeners at Club Mezzanine in San Francisco. They generously gave away two drink tickets and a t-shirt! I even got to meet my organization/life-hack hero, Merlin Mann.
I’m posting some of the pics I’ve taken from the many public shows I went too in the last couple years.