Confessions of a Podcast Addict

Hi, my name is Bill and I am a pod­cast (net­cast, Internet media) addict. I sub­scribe to over 110 pod­casts and I lis­ten to them all. My list starts with the “All CNET Audio Podcasts” and “All CNET Video Podcasts” sub­scrip­tions, works its way through sev­eral gen­eral news pod­casts includ­ing some from CNN, Fox, and NPR, a bunch of ESPN pod­casts, a gag­gle of Mac, Photoshop, and pho­tog­ra­phy casts, TWIT net­casts, Pixel Corps, Mevio, Revision3.…   ah!!!!!! it goes on forever.

Right now I am three days behind with 84 unlis­tened to pod­casts but for­tu­nately the week­end will help me catch up again. As I write this I am lis­ten­ing to No Agenda with John C. Dvorak (who will always be the Devil’s Advocate-MacUser? to me) and Adam Curry. Ok, it just got over actu­ally and now I am lis­ten­ing to a pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast by Martin Bailey. And I guess that brings up some of the prob­lems I have right now and I really don’t know what to do. I am lis­ten­ing to a lot of pod­casts but not sure I really am hear­ing them all the time, they just become back­ground noise.

Now, I work at my com­puter all day so play­ing pod­casts, both audio and video is not an issue. I also lis­ten to a lot of the pod­casts on my iPhone (thanks Steve!). If I find that I need to back up and re-listen to some­thing, that is fine. Often I will dis­cover some­thing new that really helps me as I lis­ten to the pod­casts. But even still, I have a real hard time with not want­ing to add just one more.

And so now I am fac­ing the deci­sion of which ones I should get rid of.  Well, start­ing from the top I sup­pose I could sub­scribe just to the exact CNET pod­casts that I really like and skip the rest.  After all, they often just repeat the same story in dif­fer­ent casts. But the “All pod­casts” sub­scrip­tion is so handy.…  And, BOL, Loaded, Car Tech… Uhm, ok, the only ones I really don’t care about are the MP3 and cell phone pod­casts and it is easy to just skip over them so I guess I will just keep those two subscriptions.

Lets look at the TWIT pod­casts.  Hmmm, ok, the scalpel can come out here. I know I almost always skip Windows Weekly and Leo on KFI (the Tech Guy) any­ways so… unsub­scribe. Munchcast and This Week in Law will have to go as well.  Oh, I feel so much bet­ter.  That leaves TWIT, MacBreak Weekly, Security Now, Net@Night, and FLOSS Weekly.

Lets look at Revision3 shows.  What can I get rid of there?  I think I will keep Tekzilla, Systm, PixelPerfect, and Internet Superstar, all the rest can go. That got rid of a cou­ple more.

From the Mevio guys… I will cer­tainly keep GeekBrief.TV with Cali Lewis, No Agenda, Tech5, hmm, not sure what other ones are actu­ally from the Mevio guys.

Ok, how about the news ones? Yeah, I can drop a cou­ple from CNN and a cou­ple from Fox and one from NPR. ESPN will be lim­ited to Mike and Mike, Around the Horn, and PTI. I miss hear­ing Stephen A Smith but alas. The three I get from the New York Times I will keep and Talking Tech with Ed Baig and Jefferson Graham from USA Today I will keep.

Good grief. I really don’t have too many beyond that I want to get rid of. Everyone should watch Ask a Ninja and Strong Bad’s Email. Mac peo­ple are almost required to lis­ten to Mac OS Ken, The MacCast, and Surf-Bit’s Mac Review Cast. Photoshop and/or Adobe CS users should always watch Photoshop Users TV and Layers TV. Photographers need to lis­ten at least to This Week in Photography (TWiP) and Tips from the Top Floor. And finally, Flatland Church’s pod­cast is one that I can’t miss, even though I hear the ser­mon live on Sundays. If you can’t hear it live, you should hear it in the podcast!.

Well, this exer­cise hasn’t been a total waste but in real­ity, I am only down to approx­i­mately 92 pod­casts. I will start pay­ing atten­tion a bit more to what pod­casts I am not really lis­ten­ing to or skip­ping over and try to delete a few more but in truth, I have always been an info junkie and always will be. It is who I am, I will accept it and use it to the bet­ter­ment of mankind *rolls eyes*.

Oh good grief! I just heard about another pod­cast on ESPN’s Mike and Mike called NASA Edge from NASA and sub­scribed to it with­out think­ing. Well, maybe I will lis­ten to a cou­ple episodes and unsub­scribe later. Curse you iTunes for mak­ing it too easy!