I’ll be attending PodcampEDU DC on Saturday, November 10th here in DC.

The PodCamp for educators and those interested in education and multimedia!

No, I’m not in education, but I’m all for helping anyone interested in podcasting and new media to learn more about it. I won’t be presenting, but the true magic at podcamps happens in the hallways and between presentations when the one-on-one conversations occur.

Another key factor is the networking that occurs at these events. I’ll be able to meet and hang out with other local podcasters and producers. I went to the original “unconference” PodcasterCon back in January of 2006 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was a truly wonderful experience.

With a maximum participant count of 85 registrants, PodcampEDU will be notably smaller. Far less than the rumored 1,300 registrants and this weekend’s PodCamp Boston 2.

This event will also be a good primer for the first PodCamp DC in April of 2008.

Hope to see you there!

I just found out about a very interesting social-lending / social-philanthropy site called Kiva.

From their website:

“Kiva lets you lend to specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.”

Due to the generosity of contributors, Kiva personnel have had to limit donation amounts to $25 per entrepreneur to give everyone the opportunity to donate. Now that’s a good problem to have…

From what I’ve read, everything seems very secure and entrepreneurs are checked out before they can participate in the program. The site has an extensive FAQ section for the wary.

Thanks to Mike from the Kiva Podcast (I’m subscribed) for posting a techie question on the Yahoo! Podcasters Group. I would not have checked it out if you hadn’t mentioned it. Talk about social!

Yesterday, at Podcast Academy 6 in Ontario, Canada, Marantz revealed its new portable recorder the PMD620.

I was immediately excited when I read the headline as I’ve been looking for the perfect recorder for my portable podcasting tool bag. Unfortunately, for me, this is not it.

From the Podcast Academy blog:

The PMD 620 sports a pocket size form factor, easy to use menu interface buttons, internal mics, and a convenient built in speaker. It is designed to be used in many markets, including podcasting and broadcasting.The top of the PMD620 houses a pair of high quality omnidirectional condenser mics for convenient recording. This device also provides an 1/8″ input for external plugin mono or stereo microphones, with +5v phantom power for electret condensers. The PMD620 can record 16 or 24bit resolution audio [mono or stereo] direct to SD flash memory in the WAV or MP3 file formats.

Ugh…no TRS/XLR inputs!

Basically, it sounds like Marantz’s own version of the Edirol R-09 or the Zoom H2.

Won’t somebody please make a device for under $400 that has the combo TRS/XLR inputs AND a 1/8th jack! Is it really that difficult? The flexibility of that unit would be amazing.

I could even settle for paying slightly more than $400 for a hardware with those specs. That’s why I’m still torn between Samson’s Zoom H2 and Zoom H4.

*sigh* The search continues…

Cliff Ravenscraft, leader of the tightest, best produced, and diverse personal podcast networks, GSPN.TV, just announced that he is going to go at it full-time beginning January 1st. Go Cliff!

Cliff and his wife Stephanie produce and co-host, as of this writing, 18 different podcasts from their Kentucky home. It all started with their flagship, and most popular, podcast “The Weekly Lost Podcast” about the hit ABC TV show.

I have thought a lot about going into podcast production full-time one day and its people like Cliff and Stephanie that give hope to the idea.

On October 31st Yahoo! will be shutting down its podcast directory.

The site was infamous amongst podcasters for the lack of support, its duplicate and triplicate listings, and an overall sense that Yahoo! pretty much abandoned the idea less than a year after its initial debut.

Some argue that it’s a sign that podcasts are just a passing fad, but I believe it is just a good business decision. If you as a company are not fully committed to putting resources into a project then you should really think about abandoning that project.

Don’t waste your customers time, your bandwidth, and your reputation on something that you know you have no desire and passion for.

So…good on you Yahoo! for making a great decision.

My audio poetry podcast Cloudy Day Art, along with other members of the Association of Poetry Podcasting, were featured in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Podcast options aplenty for poetry

Type the word poetry into a podcast directory search and you’ll get about 140 results, often more. Some poetry podcasts are based at institutions and have money behind them, such as Poetry Off the Shelf, which is produced by the Poetry Foundation, the publisher of Poetry magazine. Likewise, Jim Lehrer of the PBS program NewsHour hosts a poetry series that features readings and interviews with nationally known poets.

But individuals with an interest in poetry have found the medium accessible enough for them to make programs, too. From bedrooms and laptops around the world people are recording podcasts, registering them with directories such as iTunes, promoting them, and garnering a listenership - all for very little money.

Thanks to Katie Haegele for contacting us and conducting the interviews. We really appreciate the exposure she gave to poetry podcasting. Awesome!

Read entire article here.

Cliff Ravenscraft over at GSPN.TV’s Net Junk 27 podcast turned me on to a great new online music search utility called SeeqPod (terrible name if your trying to tell somebody the URL offline).

Yes, there have been others who do this, but what makes this different is that you can search for an artist/song and add it to a virtual playlist–which can be saved, shared, and even embedded into your blog or web page. In fact, I created one here below.

Check it out:

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

Just found this great meeting scheduling service called “Timebridge“.

…the first Personal Scheduling Manager designed to help busy people find a time to meet— fast.

Though still in beta, it seems to do everything I need and more to assist in scheduling interviews for my podcasts:

• E-mail my available time-slots to interviewee
• Multiple date/time options in one glance
• Professional appearance
• Confirmation e-mails once the interviewee has picked a date
• Integrates nicely with my Google calendar!

Very nice. I’ll use this to schedule the current slate of interviews I’m planning and let you know how it works out. I used it for my upcoming interview/discussion with Thom Ingram for Cloudy Day Art. No issues. So far, so good.

Ok, I’ve started a poetry blog here at WillBrownOnline.com.

I’ve had them before, but they’ve never really gone anywhere. I’ve posted a poem or two then just given up. In fact, I just remembered “Will the Poet” (I used to own the domain name).

Well, now that I’m hosting my poetry at my hopefully permanent online home, I will always be reminded that I need to continue writing…at least for now.

Check it out: Will’s Poetry Blog

Although “Will Brown is Online” currently sounds like a good title for my personal blog, I’m not so sure it will remain that way for long.

Anyway, welcome to my personal blog. It will be the personal face of what WillBrownOnline.com will evolve into. I’m not 100% sure of what that will be, but we’ll be exploring that purpose over the life of this blog. In general, its going to be the central hub of “all things me”. A portal of sorts into the various web projects that I am and will be involved with.

At some point, WillBrownOnline.com will cease to redirect to this blog and instead give the visitor succinct choices between a variety of destinations. For example, there could be a “podcasts” image/link that would take you to the current list of podcasts that I’m working on. Or a “consulting” image/link that will take you to the different podcasting production services that I can provide.

But, for now, this will simply be a blog to share whatever I choose without limitation. This is something that breaks me free of the constraints of blogging on my current podcasts sites, Cloudy Day Art and The Jesus Juice Review (which is dangerously close to being canceled as a project).

Feel free to comment and provide feedback anytime.

Will