NET RESULTS:Obsessions, niche interests or broader, topical issues – podcasts offer it all, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

I’VE WANTED to start creating occasional technology podcasts – recordings designed to be downloaded to a computer, MP3 player or iPod – for a long time.

I have always liked how podcasts can be polished or rough and ready; studio-based or done on the fly.

They can be produced by professional broadcasters, but also by the girl down the street.

Unlike radio programmes, they don’t require expensive equipment and sound engineers, just some ideas, commitment and a modest investment in something that will work for recording and editing.

Podcasts are born from the same motivations that inspire some to create weblogs and YouTube videos.

They indulge obsessions and niche interests, as well as broader topics and topical issues. In short, just about anything.

I’d had an idea for a while of creating podcasts that would fit in with my weblog’s technology and culture theme (www.techno-culture.com) – in other words, interviews or commentary, long and short items, about technology, culture, arts, politics, society, a bit of business (but not as a primary focus) – serious or quirky, thoughtful or frivolous. Ideally, a different take on technology, and something a general or techie audience might find interesting.

Getting organised enough to do it, for a person who thinks procrastination is an art form to be carefully nurtured, was another thing.

It required moving beyond talking about doing it, and mentioning it to a few people who might badger me to wonder when the first one would come out, to actually making phone calls to some of the people I wanted to take part, reading up on ways of going about the process, and, only 20 minutes before doing the first interviews, rushing out to Big Bear Sound in the Liberties to buy a proper microphone.

The initial learning curve was steep. It’s one thing to listen to others’ podcasts and use RSS (really simple syndication) feeds to subscribe to podcasts and blogs; quite another to create them, edit them, and set up your own RSS feed. But that’s done now, and the first four podcasts are there for you to listen to. To download them, you can go to a page on my weblog, http://tinyurl.com/cg4xyb, and select a podcast. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed, www.techno-culture.com/ technoculture.xml.

Type that into most current browsers and the browser will subscribe to the feed.

Alternatively, you can go to the iTunes Store podcast section and search for “Technoculture”, or just check the main page of audio podcasts to find it listed.

You can subscribe to get each podcast as it is released, or download whichever you wish to listen to.

So what’s there so far? The first episode has a discussion with my Irish Times colleague John Collins on his visit last month to MacWorld and the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as well as an interview with Trinity Science Gallery director Michael John Gorman on the first year of operation for this unusual new institution and his drive to spark ideas and interest in science.

The second programme features an interview with Martin Murphy, the managing director of HP Ireland, talking about technology, economic hard times, innovation, education, and how tech might help keep Ireland Inc afloat.

The third programme launched what I intend will be a regular feature, called the Geek Bookshelf, in which a technologist discusses a book that has been an influence, an inspiration, a career-changer – special in some significant way to their perspective on technology.

To kick this off, Iona Technologies co-founder Chris Horn talks about Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, the Pulitzer-prize-winning book chronicling Data General’s race to build a new computer in a year to take on Digital, and perhaps the first true non-fiction literary classic in computing.

Horn delves into why the book inspired him as a student, but also provided management insight later on, when he was running a company himself.

The fourth programme, out today, features an interview with science-inspired designer Prof Anthony Dunne, head of the design interactions department at the Royal College of Art in London and designer with his own firm, Dunne Raby (www.dunneandraby.co.uk).

Dunne’s often controversial design projects for places like London’s Science Museum stimulate discussion and debate about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies.

Podcasts are released on Friday, generally weekly, or biweekly.

Please come and listen, and feel free to send me feedback and comments.

klillington@irishtimes.com

Weblog and podcasts: www.techno-culture.com