I’m toying with the idea of doing a regular podcast. If I did it, the focus would almost certainly be my musings about the day’s news and critiques of the media.
But I don’t know if anyone would listen. So…I have a few questions for you:
1. Would you be interested?
If so:
2. How long should it be (minutes)?
3. How often should it come out (daily? weekly?)
Please comment. Thanks. Your replies–or lack thereof–will inform my decision.
13 Comments.
I look at at least 20 news sites multiple times a day. I never listen to audio. I read all your columns and cartoons tho.
I think a podcast would be nice, but I have to say that I would be interested in learning things and not so much listening to what might be considered ranting. Though, I guess a middle ground would be learning about what annoyes Ted Rall. More facts and less conjectural stuff is good.
1) Yes, but with reservations. I know of one podcast that has a man and a woman in it, and they tend to simply yap about things, in an overly trivial way, imo loosing focus and pacing in their show, which I found annoying after a while.
2) Having a variable length seem ok. No point punishing oneself or boring the listener with a fixed length.
3) Daily or weekly is the same. Daily might be too much, but perhaps it could be fun.
Other things:
– A download option for Podcasts is nice (mp3), then people can listen to it when they want.
– I noticed that the login includes a question field, which messes up my browser password wand tool that otherwise logs me into all the forums and whatnot, that I am registered with easily. I suggest removing that from the login page and keep the question field for the posting page.
If I perhaps have to retype my password to view/listen to podcasts, I might not bother with it that often.
With stored podcasts available for download, I suspect the need of an audience is less critical, because people can download earlier podcasts whenever they come by the website. Author might become disappointed though I guess, if there is no loyal listener base.
RSS feeds are practical. RSS feeds should imo show a kind of summary of downloadable podcasts and provide a hyperlink for either direct download or a link to the podcast webpage.
Why not do a podcast like your old radio show — with guests and interviews in addition to your reactions to the daily news? It would keep the show from getting boring, and would give you something to push against so it’d be more fun for you, too. Also I agree with Joe — a download is nice.
If you ask me, stick with the cartoons, and do more of them. The podcasts would probably be just another version of your articles, which I seldom find enlightening. Plus, no offense, but your voice is not really broadcast material.
I’m a reader, so for me, it would be better to do something “written”. And, due to my travels and lack of a good Internet oftentimes, videos and audio clips are unavailable.
I say go for it
I will agree with bucephalus above, with regard to Ted’s voice, which I imagine could use some tweaking.
Hrm, I wish I could sing in the shower or something at my place, because my vocal chords have really never been strained. Neighbours would surely find it unacceptable. I wish I lived somewhere outside the city š
I agree, it would be more fun to listen to (and for me to do) as a back and forth with someone else. I’m talking to Matt Bors about trying one out, just to talk smack about whatever and see if the results are worth listening to.
As for my voice, well, I can’t judge, but suffice it to say opinions are far from universal about it. Some people seem able to deal with it.
I seldom have time to listen to a podcast ā text is so much more efficient. So I would say: Donāt do it.
If you decide to go through with it anyway, hereās some very useful advice: Donāt engineer the damn thing yourself. To properly do a podcast, youāll need an audio break-out box, mic preamps, microphones, pop screens and audio software with post-processing effects.
If I lived in your neck of the woods, Iād volunteer to do it myself. Instead, consider the fact that there are quite a few āmulti-mediaā colleges churning out audio engineers every week. There is no actual paying work awaiting these people. You might as well snap one of them up cheap.
Iāve watched countless musicians try and self-engineer. After all, the USB a/d converter they bought says that they can have a ārecording studio in a boxā, so why not? Then they get bogged down in extra-musical technicalities and produce nothing in the way of actual music. Donāt let this happen to you. Find a cheap studio nerd and proceed.
Yes please.
Daily 10 minutes or Weekly 45minutes to an hour or a little more.
This would be an excellent idea Ted, and if you could sell it/post it on youtube after the sellby date, thatwould be great too.
Please excuse the grammar on my earlier post; one very important thing I wished to add was that it would be nice if Ted used his podcast to expand on his idea of “revolution”, just as a personal pet theme that could be used as something that could stick in people’s mind. Sort of how some people on the right are known for constantly advocating invading Iran, Michael Moore is known for constanly coming back to Flint, Michigan, and Bill Maher for his constant plugging of Atheism and alternative medicine nuttery; Mr Rall could preach revolution. If nothing else Mr Rall could enlighten people on the nature of society as a purely human and artificial construct, that can and should be controlled or changed for the betterment of all members of the populace. An audience could be carved out for it.
suggest you record it in a cafe or bar with circle of cartoonist friends with different viewpoints can also skype with different cartoonists if just in front of a computer.
see:
http://www.podcastingliberally.com/
http://tankriot.com/
http://kunstlercast.com/
this was one of my favorites…
http://www.rusiriusradio.com/