PodcasterCon 2006

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who attended PodcasterCon! Your active participation made it the huge success it was. Thanks to the people who came together online before hand and got this organic unconference going!

Many people wondered before the event what an unconference was. It is a rather strange idea to wrap your head around. But it’s liberating once you do it. To me it’s the feeling of having a bit of control over the outcome of your life. To partner with others and take some control - to learn, to grow, and to create. I think the people who attended PodcasterCon got to experience this. But each of us had a unique individual experience. I hope yours was possitive.

What’s really interesting to me is that an unconference is larger than a single definition. It’s a distributed concept not a unified concept. Each and every person is a node in the social network of the unevent that makes up an unconference. The Internet itself is our greatest example and analogy of an unsystem. It prepared us to work together in a network centric manner in a physical space.

Also big thanks to our financial donors and our volunteers. Without your help I wouldn’t have been able to pull this off. I’m still a bit overwhelmed and can’t believe it’s over. I am so happy and proud. With time I’ll have more to say…

There is LOTS of information from the event to aggregate and share. It’ll take a little while to bring together. But once the PodcasterCon site is reorganized a but it will transform into a organizing tool AND a podcasting educational resource.

Check out what people are blogging about via the Technorati tag PodcasterCon2006, see what pictures they took at Flickr - tag PodcasterCon2006, read even more blog posts via Google’s Blog Search, and of course check out the PodCon wiki for all the notes. More audio to be podcast soon as it comes in and a good well organized summary of all the content gathered. I think everyone had a good time and was pleased with the day.

David Ranii over at the News and Observer in Raleigh wrote a good article on PodacsterCon 2006. I was impressed with the depth of the story, quoting more than one person and having some keen insight. Thanks for coming to PodcasterCon David! Also thanks for having a website that allows bloggers to freely link to a story that isn’t hidden behind a pay wall. I hope the link to the story stays around for many years to come.

As of this minute we have 286 people registered! Murphey Hall Room 116 isn’t big enough to hold all of these people. Not to worry. We’re still meeting at Murphey at 9am for coffee. Once we have our caffeine we’ll take a short walk to Carroll Hall Room 111 and have our opening session. Several sessions will now be held in Carroll Hall, many will still be held in Murphey Hall. Now we have the room to accommodate everyone.

PLEASE see the updated PodcasterCon 2006 Schedule for specifics.

Hello I am Rob host of podCast411 and I will be the Session Moderator for “The 411 on How to Podcast”. This session will run from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM on Saturday, January 7th. My Co-Moderator for the Session is Steve Eley from the Escape Pod Podcast. As mentioned in an earlier post this will be an unconference - so be ready with your questions and comments.

Some of the items we will be addressing are:

What is a Podcast?
How do people Subscribe and Listen?
How do you Create an MP3?
What are ID3 Tags?
Why are ID3 Tags Important?
What is a RSS Feed?
What is needed in a RSS Feed?
Validating your RSS Feed?

We will also put together a podcast at the presentation, upload the MP3 file and add it to an RSS feed.

Be ready to be involved

My name is Derrick Oien and I am facilitating the session on Copyright Law and Podcasting at Podcastercon on Saturday, January 7th. The format of the session as stated elsewhere is an unconference. If you are not familiar with this style of event, please look at this overview by Doc Searls. Please come to the session looking to contribute not to be talked at.

The session is meant to be a conversation among those present about the things they are interested in. Certainly we all have opinions on the topic if we are podcasting. One of the challenging things about podcasting is that there is in fact a lot of legal implications of what you do if you are playing copyrighted material. Although there are legal structures in place, there is also a lot of ambiguity about what you need to do to make sure that you don’t stumble over one of these legal areas and expose yourself to penalties and fines.

Some of the things we may want to discuss during this session can be the following:

What are the underlying rights associated with copyrighted works?

Who administers permission and payments if you want to use copyrighted materials in your podcast?

What copyright protections can I have in protecting the intellectual property that I create in my podcast?

What is Creative Commons?

Let’s talk about acronyms like DMCA, DRPA, DPD, and CARP.

What is the case law that has been established thus far in digital music that may be relevant to our podcasting?

What is Fair Use?

What do I need to do to play cover songs in my podcast?

If I am concerned about playing copyrighted music, what are my alternatives?

As the session moderator, I am familiar with some of the above topics and will contribute to the best of my abilities, but will only do so in a conversation with everyone present. I am not a lawyer. Hopefully there will be some of those in attendance.

The stark reality of copyright law and podcasting is that it is a fairly new area that has some precedence and some indications of a legal/not legal framework and associated fines. Making yourself aware of what those areas are, and identifying alternatives to taking risks in our podcasts is what I hope we get to have a lively conversation about on Saturday. Please feel free to join in the session and contribute your opinion and knowledge on the topic.

The small towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro have a long reputation of incredible rock n’ roll music, hip hop, DJs of all kinds, experimental, country and western, rock-a-billy, Elvis impersonators, etc., etc. Saturday night after PodcasterCon is no exception. We can rock tha house like we we’re in NYC or San Fran and do it cheaper than hell!

Check out this diverse and talented line up of FANTASTIC music that’s available for you to see in Chapel Hill after PodcasterCon. This is really a wonderful night with lots of SERIOUS local talent. See the schedule for even more info about the event.

Local 506, 506 W. Franklin Street, bar/rock club
Elvis Fest - TWO DOLLAR PISTOLS (AMAZING Country and Western band!), STRAIGHT 8′S, HILLBILLY WEREWOLF, BUTCHERS, DEFILERS

Cat’s Cradle, 300 East Main Street, Carrboro (you can still walk here from Chapel Hill) - famous regional and national acts
Earthquake Relief Benefit Concert - The Capulets, 40 Oz, The Means, Tim Carless, On Three, All proceeds donated to “Doctors Without Borders” for relief work in Earthquake Devastated areas of Pakistan.

Nightlight - 405 1/2 W. Rosemary St., Eclectic Live Music and DJs
Sat 1/7 - RECESS! Our semi-monthly experimental/improv night featuring one-off performances by local musicians. TONIGHT: sets by Zeke Graves (ColdSides), Mike Walters (JettRink), Joshua Willis (BonerMachine), TJ Ward (YUGEN). 10PM / $5.

The Wetlands- 157 E. Rosemary St.
Saturday, January 7 - 10pm Cover $6
L IN JAPANESE (HipHop DJ straight outa Paris), ADAM ROTTIN, THE LICK, and SOCIAL MEMERY COMPLEX

The Cave - 452 1/2 W. Franklin St., Bar with small stage, bands almost every night
Sat. 1/7 Early Big Foam Finger, Late The New Twilighter.

I will be leading the discussion on Advanced Podcasting Equipment and Configurations. I am attending so I may teach and so that I can learn. I will be speaking with you, not speaking to you. We are all participants who will be working together toward greater understanding.

Podcastercon is this Saturday at UNC in Chapel Hill. Over 225 people have already registered, and the conference is free. If you haven’t signed up, there is still time.

Once you’ve mastered the basics of Podcasting you’ll want to spread your wings and try more advanced podcasting configurations. This session will address such topics as getting better audio quality with mixers, setting up multiple microphones, and adding special effects to your podcasts. We will also cover transitioning from the record and edit method of podcasting to a totally live recording session that requires no editing.

I currently publish two Podcasts: The Balticon Podcast and The ADD Cast. I’ve been podcasting for around 6 months, and in 2006 I will be adding a Poddiobook to my publication credits and possibly a third Podcast. I am continuing to expand my podcasting setup to allow for live call-ins by phone and by Skype. As well as adding additional equipment such as a compressor/limited to increase sound quality. My current setup allows for up to 5 in-studio guests.

This session with bring together a mix of folks just starting to advance their knowledge of audio with those who have been doing more advanced audio work. Backgrounds and technical competency will vary, but it is my hope we can share basics and advanced “secrets” with everyone involved. By the end of the session everyone will have learned something.

I will be bringing my equipment, and I invite you to bring yours. We can work together to understand how to overcome all types of problems. The following topics and more will be covered:

• Using mixers
• Multiple microphone setups
• Compressor Limiters
• Different types of microphones
• Improving audio quality
• Audio recording software

podcastercon2006

While I’m at PodcasterCon this saturday I’ll be taking LOTS of digital pictures. So in prep for all these pics I’ve created a group on Flickr called PodcasterCon2006. If you have pictures of PodcasterCon send me a email thru Flickr that you’d like to join. You can also just opt to use the keyword tag podcastercon2006. This tag is also good for using anywhere else. In your blog posts (all the search engines will snag it), technorati tags, Flickr tags (this is slightly more convient than joining the flickr group), etc. Once the events over we can talk about it at Flickr and share with others what we learned.

A few weeks ago someone emailed me asking if Murphey Hall - the location for PodcasterCon - was wheelchair accessible. I’m happy to report, YES it is!

Also here is a link to UNC’s Disability Parking Map.