Boardgames To-Go

The boardgame podcast that isn't . . .

. . . yet!

A couple times now I've mentioned that I'm interested in trying a boardgame podcast. Well, I've done it. Sort of. I mean, I've recorded three "shows," with more on the way. You can't listen to them yet simply because I haven't figured out a solution for hosting the files. My 20-30 minute shows aren't large by Geek Speak standards (mine are under 10 MB, theirs are as much as 80 MB), but that's still more than I can host here on Mikko's site. Just like every previous emerging Internet technology, a bunch of new hosting businesses are starting up, charging five bucks a month, $35 for the year, or what-have-you for low-end needs (storage and download bandwidth). That's nicely affordable, but the whole situation is in such flux right now I don't want to go with one and have to switch elsewhere in a few months. The Internet Archive, a non-profit organization, is actually offering free hosting for podcasts using Creative Commons licensing (sort of like a copyright, as I understand it). That sounds like a great solution for me--free and stable--but I've been getting upload errors for the past week. *sigh*

In the meantime I'll keep recording shows. It makes sense to have a few available when my podcast is "launched," anyway, so people can listen to a few and decide if it's worthwhile or not.

So what is this podcast? It's nothing more than an audio version of this weblog, right down to the name, "Boardgames To Go." My idea behind the original weblog was to offer boardgaming commentary away from your computer. A few years ago I was thinking of PDAs, hence the AvantGo channel. I'd also been wondering about making the weblog viewable to web-capable mobile phones. Never got that far, though. But no matter, it's now looking like podcasting is rocketing its way to being the mobile, offline way to get material from the net. It just so happens to be in audio format rather than on a screen. Not only is that a cool, new medium for most of us (the way page formatting for the web was an alien landscape in 1996), it also makes the best use of my offline time, my commute. Listening to some boardgame content on a podcast I've burned to CD while I drive to/from work is a great use of my time. I really love it, and look forward to having more great podcasting content (boardgames and otherwise) in the future. Heck, I'm going to have two 45-minute commutes every day for the next, oh, 25+ years--I'd like to make the most of them.

While Geek Speak is a two-host-plus-guest interview show, mine is just me rambling on by myself. I try to split the time between some general discussion (generally opinion, hopefully analysis someday) and sort of an audio session report. To be honest, I'm still feeling around with this. I hope it continues to improve, and I really hope I'm merely one of the early adopters of the format--that more boardgaming podcasts will be coming along.

Posted by MarkJohnson at April 3, 2005 11:23 AM | TrackBack