Boardgames To-Go

Geekspeak junkie

I'm quickly becoming a diehard fan of Geekspeak, the new homebrew audio program about boardgames. This is part of the next wave of power-to-the-people Internet content & delivery, podcasting. Like the early days of websites, when there was an amazing display of poor graphic design skills (see my own home page for a current example!), these early podcasts are finding their own way. Almost everyone doing them has no experience in broadcasting. Even so, the personal feeling and targeted audience of a podcast makes it great. Just like you couldn't find a good boardgame magazine in 1996--but could find at least a dozen good websites--now we are beginning to have podcasts providing "boardgaming radio."

The name "podcasts" belies the medium's connection to iPod devices. However, that was just the consumer product that got this technology to the tipping point. Now it's taking off on its own, using a variety of software and devices. I don't have an iPod, myself. However, I can easily listen to the shows through my desktop machine. Later I figured out how to download them to my Palm device (which I still want to call a Palm Pilot), and listen with headphones. Most recently I've tried burning the episodes to audio CDs which I can listen to in the car. I've got a long commute to & from work (45 or an hour each way), so the longer Geekspeak episodes are perfect for me.

Predictably, all of this excitement in the medium has made me contemplate making my own podcasts. I read a few web pages that show how to do it, so I may try an experiment. Geekspeak is a 1-2 hour interview show. At least that's how it's developed so far. I'd probably aim for something more like a 15-30 minute session report/game review/editorial format, using recent Santa Clarita Boardgamer sessions as my main content.

Posted by MarkJohnson at November 10, 2004 12:55 PM | TrackBack