Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 88 posts

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#51

Post by skywhopper »

danschuller wrote: post #44
netcan wrote: post #43

I've heard that when TV started spreading people thought it would never overtake radio. "Who has time to just sit and watch something?" You can listen to audio while you do other things. Podcasting is probably my main "media" for the last 5 or so years. I listen to 15-20 hours per week as I commute, exercise, wash dishes… Right now. As a marginal, unprofitable, poorly understood medium podcasts are amazingly "free."…

Any recommendations? I'm loving Serial, I listened to nearly all of it today. Occasionally I listen to Startups For the Rest of Us ( http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ ) but it's hit and miss if the content is relevant for me. Hardcore History is excellent. It'd be nice to discover some more.

Slate's "Working" podcast is pretty new but has been excellent so far. 20-40 minutes each week covering the basics of various people's working day.

You'd probably like "Criminal" which is short crime-related stories. Only a few have been produced, but they've been picked up by the Radiotopia folks to do more and more often.

"WTF with Marc Maron" has some amazing interviews with people from the comedy and music worlds, along with short monologues from Marc's twisted mind. The (pay-for) archives are where the best episodes are (Judd Apatow, Louis CK, Ira Glass, Ken Jeong, Ed Helms, Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Dave Foley, Dave Grohl, Aubrey Plaza, Bryan Cranston, the list is endless) but the most recent 50 are always free. His interview of Robin Williams was incredible, and he just reposted it in the free stream recently.

Also on my playlist: 99% Invisible (stories about the design of things (more interesting than that sounds)), Good Job Brain! (pubquiz-themed trivia show), Ask Me Another (live trivia show), The Memory Palace (extremely rare, but fantastically interesting episodes), Born Yesterday (interesting tidbits from history), The Bugle (John Oliver riffs with a comic colleague from England), StartUp (Alex Blumberg recounts starting his own podcasting company after leaving This American Life), and of course This American Life and Radiolab (if you can stand the style).

Also, check out the big list of podcasts the new label Wolfpop just put out. Lots of good pop-culture stuff: Nate Corddry Reading Aloud, Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period, The Canon (histrionic arguments about movies), and Maltin on Movies (calm discussions about movies) are the ones I'm trying at the moment.

Podcasts my family enjoys but I've had to cut mainly just for time: Planet Money (NPR/TAL-style explainers about the economy) and the Sporkful (good-natured arguments about the minutiae of various foods).

NPR has a ton of great, well-produced podcasts and radio-shows-made-into-podcasts: Pop Culture Happy Hour, Dinner Party Download, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Fresh Air.

Hope that gives you a good starting point.

EDIT: some other podcasts I've listened to but given up for various reasons, but which are definitely worth checking out: The Moth, RISK, Snap Judgment, On Being, Life of the Law (I think).

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#52

Post by logn »

adriand wrote: post #50
danschuller wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations? I'm loving Serial, I listened to nearly all of it today. Occasionally I listen to Startups For the Rest of Us ( http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ ) but it's hit and miss if the content is relevant for me. Hardcore History is excellent. It'd be nice to discover some more.

This American Life, the show that created (I think more or less), Serial, is a great show. 99% Invisible is a great show about design. Radio Diaries is interesting. If you're into super thoughtful discussions about religion, science, meditation, and so on, On Being is fantastic. Other ones worth checking out: * Radiolab * Stuff You Should Know * Studio 360 But - Serial is definitely my favourite podcast of all time.…

Here are links that go to MP3 files (versus their webapp players)...

This American Life bookmarklet:

    javascript:var i = prompt("TAL episode number:");window.location=i?"http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/jomamashouse/ismymamashouse/"+i+".mp3":"http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives";
Radiolab: http://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#54

Post by goatforce5 »

smackfu wrote: post #45
netcan wrote: post #43

I've heard that when TV started spreading people thought it would never overtake radio. "Who has time to just sit and watch something?" You can listen to audio while you do other things. Podcasting is probably my main "media" for the last 5 or so years. I listen to 15-20 hours per week as I commute, exercise, wash dishes… Right now. As a marginal, unprofitable, poorly understood medium podcasts are amazingly "free."…

>You can listen to audio while you do other things My biggest problem with podcasts is that I can only listen to audio while I do other things. Running, cleaning the kitchen, driving. If I don't have something to occupy my hands and eyes, then unconsciously I find something, and tune out the podcast.

I'm the same. If I can hear words (talking or lyrics) I tune in to them and totally blank on whatever i'm doing. Podcasts are for when i'm pottering about in the morning making coffee and having breakfast, or the increasingly rare times i'm at the gym.

Luckily I like listening to more obscure forms of techno/electronic music which rarely have vocals in them. Even then i'll get distracted by trying to work out what a particular track was and who it was by. And gosh darn if there's a vocal sample in there I have to go work out where it's from.

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#55

Post by HelloMcFly »

adriand wrote: post #50
danschuller wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations? I'm loving Serial, I listened to nearly all of it today. Occasionally I listen to Startups For the Rest of Us ( http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ ) but it's hit and miss if the content is relevant for me. Hardcore History is excellent. It'd be nice to discover some more.

This American Life, the show that created (I think more or less), Serial, is a great show. 99% Invisible is a great show about design. Radio Diaries is interesting. If you're into super thoughtful discussions about religion, science, meditation, and so on, On Being is fantastic. Other ones worth checking out: * Radiolab * Stuff You Should Know * Studio 360 But - Serial is definitely my favourite podcast of all time.…

Others:

* Hardcore History with Dan Carlin - only 2-3 episodes per year, but all very long and well-researched. Very entertaining.

* Planet Money - quick, short episodes of interesting money/economics/markets-related things.

* The Lowe Post - if you like basketball. Zach Lowe, from Grantland, interviews various people if note related to the NBA.

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#56

Post by gldnspud »

I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to plug Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak's "No Agenda Show" podcast.

http://www.noagendashow.com/

It's entering the eighth year, reaching its 700th show, and has been entirely funded by producers (active listeners) throughout its history.

No ads. No native advertising.

In the morning!

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#57

Post by dmoo »

danschuller wrote: post #44
netcan wrote: post #43

I've heard that when TV started spreading people thought it would never overtake radio. "Who has time to just sit and watch something?" You can listen to audio while you do other things. Podcasting is probably my main "media" for the last 5 or so years. I listen to 15-20 hours per week as I commute, exercise, wash dishes… Right now. As a marginal, unprofitable, poorly understood medium podcasts are amazingly "free."…

Any recommendations? I'm loving Serial, I listened to nearly all of it today. Occasionally I listen to Startups For the Rest of Us ( http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ ) but it's hit and miss if the content is relevant for me. Hardcore History is excellent. It'd be nice to discover some more.

Lots from the BBC I enjoy In our Time http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot From our own Correspondent http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fooc More Lighthearted Stuff Infinite Monkey Cage http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc and From the qi people http://qi.com/podcast/

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#58

Post by grimtrigger »

danschuller wrote: post #44
netcan wrote: post #43

I've heard that when TV started spreading people thought it would never overtake radio. "Who has time to just sit and watch something?" You can listen to audio while you do other things. Podcasting is probably my main "media" for the last 5 or so years. I listen to 15-20 hours per week as I commute, exercise, wash dishes… Right now. As a marginal, unprofitable, poorly understood medium podcasts are amazingly "free."…

Any recommendations? I'm loving Serial, I listened to nearly all of it today. Occasionally I listen to Startups For the Rest of Us ( http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ ) but it's hit and miss if the content is relevant for me. Hardcore History is excellent. It'd be nice to discover some more.

If you like (American) politics, Political Junkie and the Political Gabfest are both awesome.

Re: ‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More

#59

Post by navait »

supercoder wrote: post #4

I know this will get me downvoted but I can't understand the fascination with Serial. Overall I found it quite a boring listen. Too many side paths that amount to not much at all, feel like it could have done with a harsh edit. But it's production qualities are high quality and so anything that leads people to create more content at a similar level the better !

>I know this will get me downvoted but I can't understand the fascination with Serial. Overall I found it quite a boring listen. Too many side paths that amount to not much at all, feel like it could have done with a harsh edit.

I find it fascinating that your criticism of Serial is essentially a criticism of reality. Perhaps this indicates there should be a Law and Order: SVU type podcast.

Post reply on HN