It’s been two years since I started podcasting again. Honestly, there are a lots of hits and misses, but I am getting the hang of the basics.
I had my podcast start around 2009, a decade ago, when I decided to make good use of the MP3 player I got as a gift from my mom, whipped up Audacity, and upload audio on the Internet Archive under the name JP Angeles (which I consider a good name at that time). Be aware that I got some good ol’ cringy stuff here.
I consider myself as an early adopter of podcasting in the country, listening to GeekNights, TWiT and the like. This was at a time where Tek Tok was a podcast and not a segment on the then Global News Network of GSat.
Podcasting actually led me to meet Al, which led me to do podcast projects with him before – some of which are on the Internet Archive as well. (Those close to me have probably heard me say that after our stint with Deremoe where we made good stuff, we decided to move to our own lives.)
Way back then, podcasting is a term I associate with audio, and my appropriate term for video podcasts is vodcast. Vlogging was not that popular as a term, and only a few networks are doing such.
Nowadays, there’s no such thing as vodcasts, only vlogs and podcasts. Yep, I had a beef with podcasters only having a YouTube channel as a platform, because to me, the only thing that considers your show as a podcast is having an actual Libsyn/Podomatic/Soundcloud/Anchor/Spotify page with all of the episodes on audio only.
Until I remember that TWiT had enough resources to have its own iTunes Video podcast feeds.
You know, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I am too outdated with the trend. What year is it again? 2019. Good.
My first podcast recorded March 15th (re-uploaded September 6 months after) was just done using a smartphone, inside a quiet room. 60 episodes after, I’d be using a lapel mic for most of the time, and will be editing the tracks on Vegas. Five days after, I said “my target is 10 podcast episodes per month.” Joke’s on me, that was a goal that I can achieve if not for the busy day job.
I then settled for a two-episode-per-month schedule, which works fine except that there are hits and misses, which should be normal considering that this is a podcast set at a minimum of 30 minutes per episode. All I need to do is to beef up the way I spread the latest episodes online, as well as make good audio for each of them.
What got me back into podcasting are Ellie Nogami and Gary Vaynerchuk. Ellie hosts Idle Talks which is streamed on YouTube for the vampire social club audience (aka the ones who stay up late to listen to, sometimes, idol tea) while Gary is the real talk kind of person, dishing out stuff that convinces people to move their asses and start doing.
Gary shares a 2016 Nielsen study stating that podcasting received a 76% growth year-on-year. Top this off with the rise of home appliances such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home and how it raked in 600,000 more listeners PLUS the acquisition of Anchor (my podcast platform) by Spotify this year.
The signals are here – it’s a good time to start a podcast. Even former radio broadcasters are starting their own.
Just this week I was at a Podcast Network Asia meetup at Launchpad (right beside 5 Media Center which means by correlation I can safely say that I finally got my foot on 5’s HQ). Tony Toni, Delamar and Stan Sy are the names I recognize the most.
I loved their stories about their radio careers, but as soon as Tony Toni said the magic phrases, I was saddened but not surprised: There’s no money on radio if you’re not one of the top DJs, and there’s only a few DJs in town.
Understandable, considering that I listen to stations that offer less talk and more music. Wait – I’m actually part of the problem, or rather, was I conditioned to understand that this is the new normal?
So yeah, I’m aware that we have three podcast networks in the country, namely PumaPodcast (literally “podcasting”), Cut Print Podcast and Podcast Network Asia.
PumaPodcast already makes waves, and as I mentioned earlier, Podcast Network Asia is more into creating a community. As for Cut Print Podcast, I have yet to listen to their Creepsilog podcast series.