I am writing this from the Hampton Inn in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, after the first (annual, I hope) PodcasterCon meeting, PodcasterCon2006.
This was the first podcaster meeting of any sort I have ever attended. I was unable to fly across the country to go to the Portable Media Expo in Ontario, and I missed last month’s Washington, DC, podcasters meet-up because of an ice storm. (Will B., my hat’s off to you for attending! Glad I met you in Chapel Hill!)
I attended three sessions, in one of which I was a nominal discussion leader. In the morning I was at the session by Rob Walch and Stephen Eley on the 411 of Podcasting–an introductory session for people interested in getting into podcasting. This was simpler than I needed to do, but I thought I might be able to contribute to the discussion, and I ended up being the quasi-official audio recorder of the session. It was very good to meet Rob and Stephen, both of whom I had admired for some time on the podosphere (and, in the case of Stephen, on the Yahoo Prius group).
Lunch was an interesting, somewhat crowded experience in Murphey Hall of UNC, but I did meet a couple of other people whom I knew only by their voices–in particular Chad Barnard and his wife Amanda, of Me and the Bean. I also saw, but did not meet, Mur Lafferty of Geek Fu Action Grip, and Swoopy and Derek of Skepticality. (Derek looked very strong and in good shape, considering his recent health problems.) I also did a video interview with Joseph of the Mac Pro Podcast, and was interviewed, along with my brother, by Beau and Kevin of the Attack of the Nerds podcast.
After lunch I attended a very interesting session on copyright and intellectual property issues, led by Derrick Oien.
My last session of the day was an “open session” on the use of music in podcasting, with several great and thoughtful participants and led by Chad Barnard and Tom Shad. I was at least nominally a discussion leader of this one; I held my mike and recorded it (and said a couple of possibly worthwhile things as well).
After delivering Howard, the North Carolina Nerd, back to his car so he could drive west, I re-joined the group at Fuse, a bar directly across Rosemary Street from a house where my brother Howard and I lived for a semester as undergraduates. (That slum-dwelling house has been razed and replaced with a new condo building.)
Enormous thanks are due to Brian Russell for single-handedly organizing this event. It was fantastic. It cost us nothing, and Brian fed us lunch and gave us coffee in the morning.
More thoughts on this conference later, I hope. Further information and links to audio recordings of sessions will eventually appear at the PodcasterCon website.
Categories: podcast, podcastercon2006
Entries (RSS)
I wish I were there. America’s too far, it ought to float westward and merge with China. (just joking)
It was really cool talking with you at the FUSE bar after the con. Good to meet you!
Thanks, Christiana; it was very nice to meet you too. That conference was a fantastic opportunity to get together with people I didn’t know and people I knew by voice only.
Wish I’d been there…Hopefully next year/later this year/whenever I’ll be able to afford it. Thanks for the coverage, Dave.