What makes a good podcast?
I’m not a big podcast listener. I think the only podcasts I make sure to never miss are:
See? It’s a short list. Topfunky rules.
But I’ve also started listening to the Pragmatic Podcasts as well. Oh, and also The Musicology Show, even though its quality varies dramatically from show to show, and I don’t really care for the editing – the pace of the show is often too brisk for my taste.
Back when I had a longer commute, I used to listen to various techie podcasts to pass the time in the car. This Week in Tech comes to mind. But I don’t usually have time to listen to long podcasts anymore.
What podcasts would you recommend I try?
If you listen to a lot of podcasts, what differentiates a good podcast from a bad one? How do you choose what to listen to?
It’s a video podcast, but I strongly recommend Railscasts http://railscasts.com/ The incredible amount of information, the nice explanations, the references between different chapters, really, Ryan Bates does a great job. My preferred, definitely.
+1 for the Ruby on Rails podcast.
I also enjoy the RailsEnvy podcast. The guys don’t take it too serious and I get all the latest goings on in the Ruby/Rails world in 20 mins or less.
I’ve been listening to the StackOverflow lately. For me the jury is still out because the run time, usually around an hour, is a bit too long for my taste. I prefer podcast that run 30 mins or less. It also tends to have an MS slant even though they try to be technology stack agnostic.
A few of mine :
This week in django (30mins weekly ) Rails envy (weekly 20mins) Software Engineering radio (1 hour even 10 days) Google Developer podcast (time to time 30mins) Audiable Ajax (30 mins time to time ) Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky do stackoverflow which is OK
and LugRadio for a linux fix
@Adrian: Railscasts is awesome. I guess I was just thinking about audio podcasts I can listen to in the car. If we’re talking screencasts, PeepCode is also awesome, and the Prag videos have been very good so far, too.
Without a doubt, my two favorite podcasts are Radiolab and This American Life. They’re not (necessarily) technology-oriented, so you’re not going to pick up any new Ruby tricks, but they’re fascinating listening. Both free on iTunes.
I like NPR’s Science Friday, KEXP’s Song of the Day and Live Performances.
I’ve tried listening to Ruby/Rails podcasts while driving but I find them hard to follow without video to watch… better to listen to Ira Flatow try to interview introverts.
I keep up with most of the ones mentioned above, as well as dotNetRocks and dotNetRocks TV. Although you’d think the content would be centered solely around .Net as a platform, it doesn’t. Check out the dnrTV on UI design, hopefully they’ll finish up the Part 2.
One that’s all text.
And I’m not actually being facetious here. The amount of information in a 1-hour podcast is going to be about ten minutes reading time worth of text. Podcasts/screencasts are only useful when there’s something that can’t easily or adequately be communicated in text.
To me, what differentiates a good podcast is respect for the listener’s time. There’s a lot of competition for time and attention now, even drive time, so if a podcast is boring or rambling I generally won’t give it more than a couple of chances.
The Rails Envy podcast is my new favorite software podcast. They cover the week’s Ruby and Rails news, and it’s funny enough to keep it interesting. I tried Stack Overflow for a few weeks, and they eventually failed the “respect for time” test. I also became more and more convinced that Joel Spolsky is more of a blowhard than a luminary. His ignorance on concepts such as MVC certainly makes his opinions of questionable value for the sorts of development we’re doing.
If you’re a fan of science fiction, I also hope you won’t mind my shouting out my own project, Escape Pod. We’re a weekly short story podcast that buys audio rights to stories from pro authors and distributes the narrations for free download. Past stories include authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, David Brin, Mike Resnick, and the Hugo nominees from the last three years. My company also has two spinoff fiction podcasts, PodCastle for fantasy and Pseudopod for horror. Between them I hope you’ll find some stories you’d enjoy.
The most important 5 minutes of your day: Tech5, John C Dvorak,
http://tech5.mevio.com/
The Railsenvy podcast is funny and informative! ;)
I also like the podcast from Thoughtworks, nice to hear what Martin Fowler thinks about the future. They are pro-ruby and java.
Makes me feel so good to see people recommending the Rails Envy Podcast. Jason and I try hard to keep it informative, brief, and entertaining. I totally agree with the “Respect for the listeners” time rule. I love listening to podcasts, and I can totally spot people who do podcasts just because they enjoy talking. Bleh!
Jeff, let me know if you take a listen to our podcast and feel free to send feedback, we’re always looking to improve.
That goes for anyone ;-)
@Gregg: Thanks for chiming in. I’ve now listened to the most recent episode, and I thought it was very good. Subscribed. :-)
I like http://www.hanselminutes.com , no wait, that’s MY podcast!
Can’t believe no-one has mentioned the Rubyology Podcast yet. Steve Bristol (of Less Everything and occasionally Rails Envy fame) has recently started as a co-host. They have some great interviews, especially in the last few weeks.