Stex Toys

Podcasts.. PODcasts…

The very name put me off for years. Not the cast part, which had long been associated with broadcasting, but that first part.. the ‘pod’ It was all so Apple focused, many probably thought the only way you could listen to these downloadable audio bites was on an iPod, and whilst I was well aware of the many and various methods that I could use to enjoy these shows I resisted purely on my dislike of all things fruit based.

Of course the only person I hurt by this was myself. I had cut myself off from the , albeit unknown, joys of downloadable audio content. Something had to give eventually and I believe it all started with Google Reader which I have long used for my RSS subscriptions. At some point I haven’t taken the time to research they added an inline audio player for podcasts, and so I could start to pick up on these programmes without even obtaining any specialist software to do the downloading/streaming for me. It was a small start, but it was enough to get me interested and the usual snowball effect eventually found me paying for an application for my BlackBerry which would download and playback the episodes I had chosen to follow.

However all of this is coincidental. These tools and connections would have been totally overlooked if it wasn’t for one fact: Podcasts are an excellent channel of information. You see things have changed in recent years for all of us. We read far less on printed media than ever before and far more via websites and other forms of screen based media. The problem here is that we are training our brains to skim read most of it due to the huge amount of information available. Anything more than about two screens of text and you are likely to skip on to the next article, or not even start to read it in the first place. The is an excellent read over on The Atlantic entitled ‘Is Google making us stupid’ which I highly recommend reading which ironically is long enough for most people to ignore, but it sums up these thoughts perfectly.

So with text based information becoming a quick read where is one to go for that in depth lengthy discussions on the topics that matter to us most? Well of course you can see where I am going here, else I’ve just raised a very good point in a completely unrelated way! Podcasts have become that ‘unskipable’ form of information for me. I can happily listen to a show for it’s entirely, and most of the shows I listen to are 60 minute plus, without ever feeling like it’s taking too long, or wanting to move on to the next thing. Maybe it helps that my interests lie in the technological arena where the idea of pod casting is far more common place, but over the past few months I’ve managed to find myself some truly great shows which now accompany my every car journey, infrequent work out session or pre sleep chill out.. though that can lead to problems when a topic sparks my mind and I have to get up again to draft up a blog post, which is how this very one all started

So having said all this, what are these unskipable shows that are now enriching my life? Well let me through a few titbits your way.

First up, in the area on video gaming, which is my most avid interest there are a few shows I would like to mention. Top of the choice are The Digital Cowboys A UK based show hosted by Alex and Tony which manages not only to have a solid base format but also brings in some really great guests to give their opinions on the weeks topics and to answer the famous 8 questions.

Secondly a show I found out about via Digital Cowboys, GameHounds which manages to be wonderfully professional and yet totally independent at the same time. The interhost banter is really fun, and they still manage to actually talk about gaming news at the same time.

Finally for gaming, but by no means least Gamers with Jobs is a show I occasionally used to pick up when I only listened via Google Reader, and is actually responsible for pointing me towards Digital Cowboys.. it’s all rather incestuous really I suppose.. or I guess viral to give it a web 2.0 spin.

Outside of gaming I also pick up a few shows that interest me, such as the BBC’s Material World and Friday Night Comedy and recently I’ve even ventured into the world of video based shows such as the excellent CarPool and to return to gaming CO-OP

I can thoroughly recommend any and all of the shows I’ve linked to here, and you’d do well to add them to your listening lineup, or if you are like I was but a few months back and have never even given a podcast a chance, these happy few should soon see you bitten by the listening bug and reimerced into the in depth world.

Just a quick update to say I took the plunge and purchased PodTrapper which at $9.99 is one of the most functional items of software for price you can find. I highly recommend any BlackBerry owner to check the software out, you get a 30 day trial to be sure it works for you. But if you listen to podcasts it’s well worth a look. I’ll probably post some links to some recommended ‘casts soon.

I’ve been meaning to get to listening to some PodCasts for some time. In fact I’ve tried several times to setup some automated process of downloading them, copying them to the BlackBerry (Pearl as was and Bold as is) and listening to them in the car on the daily jaunt to and from work. And even though WinAmp had a way for me to do this remembering where I was up to on the BlackBerry and actually listening to them was never a smooth process.

Things became far more likely to happen with the move to the Bold as it sports a full 3.5mm headphone jack rather than the limiting 2.5mm of the old Pearl. This meant I wasn’t restricted to the hands-free kit that came with the phone and could invest in a decent set of travel friendly earphones. However I still had the slightly finicky method of getting the ‘casts onto the Bold in the first place.

Enter the rather splendid product PodTrapper which not only provides a great playback method which remembers how much you’ve listened to each PodCast but also takes care of the downloading of the files in the first place. You can choose to download over the air (OTA) via either your phone network or WiFi or via a desktop application that you can download from the same site. An added nice touch is the ability to set it to only download when being recharged, so as not to waste battery life.

The latest edition, which at time of writing is 1.6.7 will also create a playlist for you based on several items of criteria, which I use in the main to order all my part/unlistened to ‘casts in chronological order, as i have a habit of favouring certain items if left to my own devices leaving others unlistened

With just days left on my free 30-day trial I’m reading the credit card for a purchase, as this is one product I have actually used on a daily basis since I installed it. Nice work VersitileMonkey guys!