Thx to Denis who took the time to send me a scan of the tech page of Glamour Italy featuring an interview with me about podcasting – something tells me that Steevo should send me a new ipod for the nice advertising i am doing for apple’s products again…
So yeah, as it often happens with mags, you never know how things are gonna turn out, but still, this one’s gonna join the wall of fame.
You can find the page right here, and read the english version of the interview here – it’s basically about my views about podcasting and the how, what and why.
– Why did you decide to start podcasting? And “what” are you podcasting?
Actually, i wanted to get into something like a radio show, on my own, since some years. It was something that figured on my wish-list 3 years ago, so it got loads of time to cogitate in my head.
Thing is, i didn’t wanted to have the restrictions that comes with doing a show on the usual radio stations: having to commit to be at a place at a given time even if i didn’t really felt like doing so and committing to one kind of music. Like in everything that i do, i needed freedom, loads of freeeeedom.
So it stayed there as a wish – ’till the first time i heard about podcasting, this was in october 2004
– http://www.mcturgeon.com/blog/archives/2004/10/podcasting.html
At this time, not having an ipod, i didn’t understood quite well what was all this about, and thought it was something only ipod owners could do (which is still what most of people think – and that’s a shame ‘caus it makes podcasting unavailable to a bunch of people out there).
The podcasting-o-mania was all over the web – fellow bloggers were posting about it and were trying to catch what the new buzz was.
I did too. Less than 2 weeks after reading about podcasting i figured out that ipod or not, i could do my own thing, my own radio show on the web. A dream coming true.
“Here is something we’ll all get sick of reading/hearing about in the next weeks (if not already) – but we might as well find it way cool:
(…)
‘podcasting is the hottest thing since (sliced bread) downloading and syncing a daily 250 MB of sound files to your iPod’ – hebig.com”
– http://www.mcturgeon.com/blog/archives/2004/10/podcasting_the.html
After investigating the web and blogger posts about podcasting, i figured out a setting to do my own thing and wrote a paper about it which i called ‘Podcasting for newbies: the new wave’, to help people know what the hell that new thing was about.
– http://www.mcturgeon.com/blog/archives/2004/12/podcasting_the_1.html
All i wanted is to have fun. Writing on my blog everyday is fun. Having a picture blog where i can post daily is muchos fun. But having my real voice on the web, chatting about what matters to me, playing tunes from independent bands i like, making music mixes and share them was way too cool – all this i could do at anytime, anyplace – i waited for this moment, and now it has come.
But wait. All of it is not just plain fun – setting up the whole thing was actually a pain in the ass.
– Which technology (hardware and software do you use?
On osx, i was first using Traktor Dj studio to make the music mixes and record my voice via the built-in microphone of my powerbook. First 2 podcasts were done that way and they totally sucked.
I then switched to garageband – another revelation, thanks god for being so kind with me – and do everything in it – voice recording, music mixes and editing.
– Where do you get your Mp3 music files?
Mostly from cd’s or buying them on the web (mostly the iTune store, it’s much cheaper than buying cd’s).
– How was the reaction from the Internet users?
Pretty good. I do half an hour show per week, and the average is about 500 downloads per week.
Of course people coming back to the show are the ones who appreciate it – i didn’t get any bitter comment about the stuff i’m doing. The only concerns i got where from user wondering about podcasting being illegal. I do strongly encourage people on my show to buy the artist’s cd’s, beside promoting concerts and the artist’s websites. This result in people appreciating my show because they discover new indie stuff which is something not easy to get access to via local radio stations.
– Do you know other women/friends who podcast?
Hm, there are still a really few people doing podcasts, especially women. Someone has put up a listing of women in podcasting:
–http://blog.contentious.com/archives/2004/12/22/women-in-podcasting-the-list