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October 23, 2004

Podcast Review: Tech Rag Tear Out

This entry posted in: 3 and a half stars , I subscribe , Podcast Review

Format: talk, with a little music
Content: abstracts of articles from technical journals and other sources "for the seasoned information technologist and some über geeks"
Rating: Rating: 3 and a half stars
What I'm going to do: keep listening
Typical Length: 25 - 30 minutes

Steve is an example of the best potential in podcasting; someone who starts 'casting with a little know-how and steadily improves his offering as he goes on. I was initially going to do a "First Take" of Steve's first broadcast or two and then leave it for a while and come back later to see how he was doing. Instead, by the time I got to writing about him, he had posted 4 more and had shown some definite improvements worthy of a full review.

Steve's format is abstracts of articles he finds interesting in technical journals, of which he gives a high-level interpretation and source information. Steve gets a lot of this kind of information - much more than I could ever keep track of. My particular interest was only piqued by perhaps 50% of the articles he chose, but he had consistently good comments about the technologies he spoke of, often giving some personal insight to the article. Then he often plays a song, discusses podcasting for a few minutes, and has had an interview (albeit with his kids).

Steve's delivery for the first 'cast or two left something to be desired - often sounding less-than-perfectly prepared and like he was reading right out of the article, and the background was empty. Since then he's added an interesting intro track and some transitions and his delivery has become much more "professional". One of the things I really like about his format is that he gives a quick overview of the target audience for his 'cast and a quick run-down of the contents (number of articles and the like); Adam Curry actually played a snippet from Steve's 'cast as a good example of intro data. Metadata in Steve's RSS feed gives a run-down of the contents of the show with reference to number of articles, songs, and other topics, and his blog at Steve Holden's Weblog gives more detailed metadata, including what the articles are in reference to.

Steve also has an interesting approach to the issue of copyrighted music. He's chosen to play only relatively old tracks (primarily from the '80's) on his podcasts, with the hope that fewer lawyers will be interested in pursuing copyright violations for stuff that might not even be in the music stores any more. I'm not hopeful of this approach, since someone still owns the copyrights to those songs, and if podcasting becomes a hotbed of "piracy" then I think the RIAA is going to go after 'casters with a vengance, and the age of the music played will have little bearing on their assessment of your guilt. However, I wish Steve the best with it, and I have really enjoyed listening to the music in Steve's show; some of the bands he's played used to be in m music collection, but somehow got displaced over the years - bands like The Screaming Blue Messiahs and The Style Council.

One other thing I like about Steve's 'cast is that he lets us know what kind of beer he's drinking, and sometimes gives it a review (and always takes a swig on the "air").

All in all I will subscribe to Steve's blog and retrieve his 'casts when he's talking about somehting I'm interested in.

Subscribe to Tech Rag Tear Out on mp3.

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Posted by cori at October 23, 2004 06:03 AM