Why I’ll keep talking about podcasting (but try not): This post started yesterday as my typical slapped-together agreeable disagreement to a post by Russell Beattie who wrote, “the first rule of podcasting…is that you don’t talk about podcasting.” I started typing about why one should talk about podcasting and then about 2,000 words later I gave up and said, “forget it. I can’t do this. I can’t explain why I think this is such a big deal worth talking about until blue in the face.” I think I now agree with Russell (at least on the “first rule” part): Talking about “podcasting” makes one sound like the complete dork I figure the folks at Hammock Publishing think I am for spending 15 minutes of our Monday staff meeting bouncing off the wall about podcasting.

So, I’ve bagged the 2,000 words of blogging about podcasting (well, at least 1,300 of them).

But I do want to at least enter into the rexblog-record a few thoughts on this topic so I can point back one day and say, “See. I told you so. Remember?” (Which, frankly, is the best thing about having a weblog. Conversely, the worst thing about having a weblog is giving other people something they can point back one day and say, “See, you said that. Remember?”).

So, as of October 6, 2004, here are some things I have determined about podcasting in the week since I first heard the term.

1. Podcasting is a really, really big thing. Big like the first time you saw the web via Mosaic. Big like when Microsoft thought HTML was too simple to ever be anything important.

2. Podcasting today is where blogging was back before you ever heard of it.

3. Podcasting could enable you to turn your iPod into a TiVo-like device for conference calls and seminars and staff meetings and presentations and worship services and high school band concerts and class lectures and club meetings and (you get the idea).

4. Podcasting is not limited to Adam Curry (bless him for evangelizing the concept, however) producing something that follows a radio talk show format.

5. (In fact) Don’t get hung up on the “programming” part of podcasting. The “programming part” of podcasting can be as simple as the “programming part” of making a phone call.

6. Podcasting is not webcasting. It doesn’t have to be about a specific time or a format or “a show”

7. Podcasting is a very easy concept to understand if you regularly use all of the following: iTunes, an iPod, RSS, a newsreader, and (even a little) GarageBand. Podcasting merely ties all of these things together in a “frictionless” channel. You can grasp it even if you don’t use of all these. But if you do, it’s a no-brainer.

8. If you don’t read weblogs via a newsreader, it is really difficult to understand the concept of podcasting. (In fact, if you don’t have a newsreader set up, just forget reading the rest of this post as it will make no sense. Instead, at least click over to Bloglines.com and get over whatever it is keeping you from making your life a lot more simple).

9. You sound like a dork if you say podcasting more than twice in a two-minute time period.

10. I’m a dork.

Other podcasting items so I can move on:

1. I’ve heard myself mentioned on a podcast for the first (MP3) (and second (MP3)) time ever as Tim Germer said some nice things about me on a couple of his shows called Northwest Noise. And yes, Tim. I am older than you. A lot.

2. It appears several people are already staking claim on the creation of podcasting. I have no idea who should be credited, but I’ve learned in the past that it’s always a good idea in matters like this to credit Dave Winer. So, no matter who or what or how this all came together, I, for one, credit Dave.

3. Endgaget has posted a “How To” tutorial on podcasting. I’m sure there will be a gazillion more within a few weeks.

4. I will be doing some experimental podcasting in the near future but I doubt it will be more than that, some experiments.

5. Bumper music will be included on all of my podcasts.

rexblog bumper music: Video Killed the Radio Star (The Buggles)

Lite reading: Here’s a press release about Carblite, a new magazine that is “the go-to resource for readers who have adopted a low-carb lifestyle.” Reminds me of a joke my father used to tell: “Did you hear about the guy who read so much about how smoking would kill you that he decided to give up reading?”

Update: Don’t confuse the magazine CarbLite with the magazine CarBlite, “the go-to resource for readers who have really ugly, mildewy automobiles.”

No Way: Someone just e-mailed to congratulate me about that Nashville Scene award, to which I responded, “What Nashville Scene award?” That’s how I discovered that I’ve been named by our fair city’s popular alternative paper as the “Best Local Blogger” in their annual “Best of Nashville Awards.” (Note to perplexed readers from the blogosphere confused with Tennessee geography: mega-blogger Instapundit lives in Knoxville, not Nashville.) I must say, I’m extremely honored. I can’t wait to display my “Best of Nashville” award on the front door of Hammock Publishing. Seriously, I am honored to a large degree because I do consider this weblog as “local” despite my focus on the industry I’m in. That’s why I take time out now and then to rant like I did yesterday about the CMA awards.

Oh, yes, and I’d especially like to thank my seven readers who’ve stuck with me through all the good blogging times and bad.

Quote:

Best Local Blogger: Rex Hammock, (www.rexblog.com) The most well-known Web logs (or “blogs”) are political in nature, but the best one in Nashville is about the magazine industry. Run by Rex Hammock, president of Nashville’s Hammock Publishing Inc., the “Rexblog” observes the latest goings-on in the world of periodicals. From the effects of Martha Stewart’s legal troubles on her magazine to the ephemeral world of the “vaporzines” (magazines that are not magazines at all but are just run-it-up-the-flagpole ideas floated by people to get little media attention), Hammock’s site is a nice little peek into the publishing industry. Oh yeah, the site also includes a fun bit about Hammock’s sit-down meeting with a fairly unrehearsed President Bush in Washington. If you’re one of those baffled as to why people like Bush, read Hammock’s narrative and maybe you’ll figure it out. — Roger Abramson

Bookish: Google’s print search, much like Amazon.com’s “Search inside the book” feature, is expanding as Google has “invited publishers large or small to provide books that will be scanned and included in the Google Print service for free.” Books will be accepted if they have ISBNs and are in…English. (via paidcontent.org)

RSS primer for PR folks: Steve Rubel is taking part in a PRSA webinar and has posted a helpful intro to RSS on his weblog. (Sidenote: In a former life, I had the initials APR behind my name.)

 rexblog bumper music: Public Relations (Jimmy Buffett)

Magzine trendspotting:“Pop culture critic” Cary Darling of the Dallas Ft. Worth Star Telegram, does a round-up of some new (and not-so-new) magazines he thinks are cool, many of which have been mentioned here previously. As apparently dictated in the “guidelines and bye-laws” of the organization, “Reporters Who Once In A While Write About Magazines,” (RWOIAWWAM), there are plenty of quotes from Samir Husni in the article.

Cary starts the article out with this opening sentence: “Isn’t the printed word supposed to be going the way of the $1.50 gallon of gas?” I’ll skip the fisking and merely share Cary’s “Top 26″ (which is a great example of reporter-math, as there are 37 magazines on the list) of the magazines he thinks are worthy. If I didn’t have anything better to do, I’d link to each one. However, if you want to purchase a subscription to any of them, here’s a rexblog contextual commerce link to a place you can do so and allow the rexblog to become a revenue generating machine:

CULTURAL COOL
Vice
Mental Floss
Lo-Fi
Big
Hobo

NEWS
The Week

GUYS
Cargo
Giant
Complex

GIRLS
Suede
Bust

WORLD
URB
Giant Robot
Urban Latino
Loft
La Banda Elastica
Heeb

HOME
Real Simple
Ready Made
Cottage Living

PETS
Bark

CARs
Intersection
Dub

SCIENCE
Seed

MUSIC
Tracks
Paste

OLD FAVORITES
Adbusters
Entertainment Weekly
Mojo
Q
The New Yorker
People
Us Weekly
Reason
Wired
Vanity Fair
Vibe

Update: Of course, Ft. Worth, not Dallas, is where you’d find the Star Telegram. Sorry.

rexblog bumper music: What is Hip? (Tower of Power)

Recipe for confusion: Don’t have time now, but later I will link back to lots of previous rants on the “digital magazine” topic to give some backgroud to today’s news in mediapost.com that Epicurus has launched a recurring PDF-like document designed using the metaphors and subscription model of a consumer print magazine. “Everything is the same,” they say, “except we don’t send it to the printer.”

“It’s a magazine except there’s no paper” is right up there with, “Except for that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” It’s like saying that pictures of food are like food without the smell and taste.

Note to publishers: The web offers some amazing opportunities to do things you can never do with print. Stop trying to make it print. You’re missing the point.

I will consider the digital Epicurus magazine a magazine, when I see someone displaying it on a coffeetable. It may be great, and no doubt will be, at what it is and can be. But calling it a magazine “except we don’t send it to the printer” requires too much discussion of Mcluhan and Freud for this early in the morning.