The Curse of the Podcast

Posted: Tue, 21 March 2006 | permalink | No comments

Over the past week or so, I've decided to get around to listening to some of the "amateur" (in the same way that Open Source software is "amateur") podcasts that I've collected in the past couple of months (primarily so I can either archive them, or delete them and free up a bit of HDD space). As a great fan of radio, I've been pretty disappointed at the quality of the podcasts I've listened to. While I hadn't expected the BBC world service, there are a number of quite common mistakes I've noticed across several of the podcasts I've listened to.

In the spirit of kaizen, I've noted down the really bad things that I've noticed, in the hope that someone who does a podcast, or is considering doing a podcast, might keep these simple mistakes in the back of their mind and avoid them. No podcast I've listened to so far has exhibited all of these symptoms (there's no way I would have gotten to the end of that hypothetical nightmare audio file) but most have exhibited at least one of these flaws.

For a better general idea of how a good podcast might sound, listen to professional radio for a bit -- a lot of good shows are podcast themselves these days -- and get an idea of what a good show looks like.

I'm also prepared to go further than just bitching about podcasts. If you do a podcast, and would like my (unprofessional but oh-so-opinionated) assessment of your podcast, please e-mail me at mpalmer@hezmatt.org with a link to your podcast, and I'll try to give it a listen and honest critique.


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