Where Past Meets Future
As promised, here is a re-recording of the talk that I gave at the Museums Association Digital Dialogues conference. It is, of course, available as a podcast.
Feel free to comment here. If there’s interest, I’ll also post my presentation for people to download.
If you’d like to subscribe to this and future podcasts from Past Thinking, the feed URL is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/pastthinking
Tomorrow, I’ll be giving a paper at the Digital Dialogues conference in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I may well re-record my talk and release it as a podcast here on Past Thinking, if people are interested.
I won’t be talking about how to podcast, there’s plenty of guides and forums for that, but rather introducing people to what it is, why do it, and who’s doing it, whilst touching briefly on video and vodcasting.
If you’re already going, I’ll see you there, and if you’re not, check back here soon and have a listen.
Just 4 months after publishing the success of Wessex Archaeology’s Archaeocast, which had just seen 20,000 downloads, a check of the server logs shows 35,414 complete downloads of the podcast to date.
That’s not bad going considering how rarely I get a chance to record them. It demonstrates, even in what is still only a niche medium, the thirst for information about our past is as strong as ever.
The latest issue (No. 11) of Podcast User Magazine contains an article entitled “Podcasting the Past” written by yours truly. It’s all about podcasting archaeology, and how Archaeocast came about.
So head over to http://podcastusermagazine.com/ and grab a copy (well, PDF) while they’re still hot!
This year, PodcastConUK will be held on Saturday 18 November 2006 at CCT Smithfield, London. If you’re in to podcasting - either as a listener or a producer, I urge you to go. I went last year, and it was fantastic - from meeting fellow podcasters, to hearing the varied talks, brainstorming, and discovering new podcasts. I went away with a brain buzzing with ideas, many of which have since come to fruition. Needless to say, I’ll be there this year too.
This year looks as if the format has changed from a series of talks, to a series of panels, allowing for a more interaction between participants. Each panel is to be lead by an established podcaster, and there will be a chance for workshops, equipment demonstrations, as well as live “podsafe” music.
Unlike many technology conferences, PodcastConUK is organised by a small team of volunteers, who are in it for the love of it rather than money. An event like this, for the podcasting community, by the podcasting community, is set to be the best yet.
Link: http://podcastcon.co.uk/
I should have blogged about this a while ago, but my last post on niche podcasting reminded me about Podcast User Magazine. PUM is available electronically (PDF) and licensed under a Creative Commons license.
PUM is written by podcasters for podcasters, and covers everything from starting your first podcast, to publicity and studio tips. They’re up to issue 8 at the time of writing, and it’s well worth a read. If you’re already a podcaster, they also accept submissions from readers - a true participatory publication!
Link: Podcast User Magazine
It’s been just one year since I launched Wessex Archaeology’s podcast, and although they’re not produced very often (on average they’re bi-monthly), it has just broken through the 20,000 download mark.
The official blurb is on Wessex Archaeology’s news blog.
The latest edition of Archaeocast was recorded on-site at Wessex’s annual practical archaeology course, and features short sound-bites from some of the students on the course who are in the 17-19 age range. What surprised me was that none of them had ever listened to a podcast. Only half seemed aware of what they were, and none realised that you didn’t need an Apple iPod to listen to them.
I admit to being a little disappointed, as it’s all too easy for people like me who have been to podcasting conference, and listen to podcasts regularly to forget that it still really is a niche area. Even though John Humphries uncertainly mentions them on Radio 4 in the mornings, and we see that most of the ‘big players’ such as Virgin Radio and the BBC are doing them, and tens of thousands of people are downloading them (and hopefully listening to them), it’s still not yet mainstream.
But it’s a start, and a good one at that. I do think that the term “podcast” is a limiting one due to the connotations with iPods, but hopefully that stigma will fade as people become familiar with the term.
For something as relatively obscure as archaeology, and commercial field archaeology at that (which often just isn’t sexy at all!), can attract such a big audience over a year is pretty good going. It shows the potential that this medium has for the heritage sector. It reminds us that there will always be people out there across the globe who really want to hear about “grass roots” heritage - how it really is as opposed to the mainstream media-fed TV or radio programmes.
Podcasting’s long tail will always be the most varied and most interesting in my opinion (I don’t want Chris Evans with or without music!), and over time will have the greatest number of listeners. So if you’re thinking of making a podcast - just go for it. Help build the biggest and best collection of niche (read: interesting) content that the world has ever seen.
Related links: Podcasting and Museums - Shock and Awe or New Opportunities? , Britcaster.
The latest edition of Archaeocast, the archaeology podcast from Wessex Archaeology, features Phil Harding, an archaeologist famous for his role on Channel 4’s “Time Team” TV archaeology programme. Phil is an archaeologist for Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury when he’s not filming for Time Team.
With a growing presence of computer use in archaeology, Phil agreed to explain to the masses the importance of technology in prehistory. The people of the ’stone age’ (circa 500,000BC to 2400BC) have often been depicted as primitives, dwelling in caves, pulling their women-folk about by the hair etc - the usual stereotypes pushed by the press over the last couple of centuries. The reality is that we will seem like a primitive people in half a million years - it’s all relative.
Phil makes the point (’scuse the pun) that if you look at closely at stone tool technology, and if you begin to make them yourself, you can start to see how advanced it became. The complexities and subtleties of stone tools are incredible, let alone the knowledge of how to find and select your raw materials. Some of those tools were made by “grand prix” flint knappers, making tiny flakes of razor sharp flint to tip wooden arrows with. Polished stone axes would have had to have been made with extreme care, and could be highly effective as well as beautiful to look at. They evolved into objects that weren’t just functional “problem solving” objects - they could have been seen as desirable objects in their own right (gadgets, anyone?).
Have a listen to the podcast and have a glimpse into the past…
Technorati Tags: ancienttechnology, archaeocast, archaeology, flint, philharding, podcast, stoneage, technology, timeteam
I have just found out about Podzinger, a new service that utilises voice recognition technologies to index the actual audio content of podcasts. It essentially transcribes your podcast, which is amazing. Their search interface is simple and uncluttered, and search results allow you to listen to the podcast right on the page.
They are even offering a service where people can search your podcast from your website.
Podzinger’s speech recognition software is powered by BBN Technologies, who have apparently been in the game for 30 years.
PODZINGER looks inside podcasts, not just the metadata, letting you search podcasts in the same way that you search for anything else on the web.
I’ve just added the Archaeocast feed to Podzinger to see how well it copes with speech that has background noise. But from a quick scoot about searching for random things in random podcasts, it looks most promising.
Technorati Tags: blogging, podcasting, podzinger, voicerecognition, search
