what’chya listenin to?
So…. as geeky as I am, there are still geeky things that I just have never really got into, one such thing has been podcasts. Not necessarily geeky I guess, but it’s the nerd equivalent to traditional radio, so I see it as the tech way to listen to yer favorite shows. So anyway, I’ve never really got into them until I got hooked up with a little 8g Zune for a graduation present, which was arguably the coolest gift I have gotten all year. Well I have much more music than an 8g anything could handle, and I already was toting an iPhone around with me, so I figured I’d use it for jogging or working out cause the form factor was great. Well since I’ve taken my job now, I have a few 1 hour drives a week and then several 15-20 minutes jaunts to a store or friends house. So somewhere along the way I realized I could be using the time for something a bit better than …. well doing nothing with it, and since I’m a big fan of talk radio anyway, I went searching for good podcasts to fill my time on and have since converted the Zune into my 8g’s of podcast loving updated nightly. And since I’ve been through quite a few, I thought I’d share with you what I got and why, so if you decided you wanted to hit it up, you could have a place to start. 
So first, I have
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Comedy Central Stand-Up Comedy – avg length of a pc: 1:40
I do the video podcasts of this and they are great for a quick laugh when I need a break during the day, not for driving normally, but great when lunch is still 2 hours away and it feels like you’ve been working forever. (comedycentral.com)
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LDS Voices – avg length of a pc: 37:00
These range from speeches to devotionals to conference addresses, but some great ones come up in the list sometimes, and I have had to go revisit in print several gems I have found in the mix. (ldsvoices.com)
- Manager Tools – avg length of a pc: 45:00
Manager Tools has been a great podcast for me, going over tips, and suggestions, and etiquette for managing and more generally, for functioning in a business world. Some great podcasts come out of these guys and it’s an easy listen, so if that’s something you do (business) it’s a great way to kill the drive. I know guys who have been in the business 30 years who swear by these podcasts, and I’m becoming a fan. A great supplement for whatever else you got going business wise. (manager-tools.com) (I would recommend you get the registered member podcasts – even the free ones are worth it.
- NBC Nightly News – avg length of a pc: 24:00
No I”m not showing the news source I love, this is one of dozens of places I get news daily, but I do like the nightly news podcast. It’s video, so I catch up on it when I’m on a plane, or sitting in a doctors office so I can have something to watch and not just listen to. I especially like this cause I love watching the nightly news, but I haven’t been able to be in front of the TV at 10pm in …. about 3 years. So this is how I grab it. (msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/)
- NPR: Business Story of the Day – avg length of a pc: 5:00
NPR BSOTD is a nice little blip on the screen, when I’m driving to the gym (4 times already this year, or more often to Star Donut shop, I throw this on, it’s a few minutes, it is often a positive story if not just informative, and it gets my creative juices flowing. Just hearing other peoples views of business often help me connect my own dots, so I like it cause it keeps me focused. (npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1095&ft=2&f=1095)
- NPR: Car Talk – avg length of a pc: an hour
I love car talk and let me tell you why…. I don’t know. I remember listening to it with Dad growing up and it was one of those things where we’d laugh at the same jokes and dad would try and solve the problems before click and clack, and I would stare at him like a super hero as he would diagnose the same CV joint that the brothers would. It’s a favorite memory of growing up, so I listen now and it’s just a nice reminder of where I come from and how much fun that place is. (cartalk.com/)
- TED Talk – avg length of a pc: 20:00
TED is something I love, it’s Technology Entertainment Design, and they do a big conference each year and then podcase all the addresses. This is another one of those where the primary benefit isn’t what they say but what it gets you thinking about. Often these are current tech stories being followed in the news but being talked about by people who really know rather than seedy journalists. Some great presentations though (it’s also video, so I grab one for part of my lunch while I’m eating or again, on the plane or before bed) But it’s one, maybe two updates a week, so it’s easy to keep up. (ted.com)
- This Week In Technology – avg length of a pc: 90:00
This is Leo Laporte who used to do call for help and screen savers on tech TV back in the late 90′s. Well I loved tech TV when it first started cause it was a tv network for geeks, so me and Jake would leave it on anytime we housesat a lady’s house that had cable. Thus where I found my Leo (I was even a caller on Call for help one time, oh yeah, that’s right) and now he’s started a podcast called TWIT, which is great. He has some great people on there and they just go over tech stories and their views on them. I like it cause a lot of times I don’t get my daily slashdot in and pc mag hasn’t been delivered for a long time, so it’s nice to have a pc that hits all the big stuff over the week and give some informed commentary. And the guys get pretty funny at times too. (twit.tv)
- The Economist – avg length of a pc: 15:00
My roomie subscribes to the magazine, so through the podcast, I get the highlights of the issue and can then seek out articles and read them if I am so inclined. It’s a good spin on world issues too, so I’m a fan. (economist.com)
and with honorable mention, The Atlantic (theatlantic.com) I don’t subscribe to so I can’t get the podcast, but I go and watch their monthly video casts, and listen to their audio supplements, cause I’m a big fan of quality journalism.
So that’s me, I’d love to hear any other good ones you guys have found or what your experience with podcasts have been. Let me know!
Note: if you don’t know how to get podcasts to your device, whatever kind of player you have (ipod, zune, etc) you can go into your player, and there is a podcast section, there you can add a podcast, and it will automatically go fetch new episodes when you open the program up, and then sync them to your device as you plug it in. I plug the zune in each night, and in the morning, I have all my news and commentary for the day ready to go.