Winnipeg Free Press Article about the Hipbase and Podcasting

Winnipeg Free Press Article about the Hipbase and Podcasting - Printable Version

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Winnipeg Free Press Article about the Hipbase and Podcasting - mrlayance - 01-28-2006

My picture is not on the 'Online Version', I will post a scan someday.

Quote:Detour

Pod people
Winnipeggers are making their voices heard in the new medium of podcasting

Sat Jan 28 2006

By Gabrielle Giroday

IN a darkened hospital in Inuvik, a night-shift worker is listening to velvet-toned Lance Robinson dedicate his favourite songs to those tuning in.

Meanwhile in Toronto, the designer for renowned Canuck band the Tragically Hip is consulting Robinson on how to plot out the band's new website to showcase the band's sound as well as possible.

Is Robinson some kind of low-lying Winnipeg guru, an underground cult music figure and recording-industry insider?

Well, not quite.

Robinson, a 25-year-old newlywed who broadcasts from his rented apartment on Kenaston, is one of a new breed of vanguard journalists with a global audience: a podcaster.

Podcasters -- the oddly named bunch fast carving out a niche for themselves in pop culture -- record their own audio or video programs so people can download them from the Internet with free subscriptions, and listen to or watch them on MP3 players or computers.

"People like podcasting because you get to listen to what you want to. And there's no advertising on most of them," says Robinson, who produces half-hour weekly shows peppered with his own dialogue and bootleg recordings sent to him by listeners. "It's straight to the consumer. There's no middle man."

With the massive popularity of the iPod -- the ubiquitous gizmo by Apple that allow users to digitally store audio or video recordings and tote them around -- those who want to produce their own programs are increasingly finding a hungry audience.

Audio podcasters, like the mild-mannered Robinson, are popping up in Winnipeg. By day, he works with computers for the federal government, a self-described "techie."

But by night for the last eight months, the spectacled blond takes on a different role entirely: Internet podcaster dedicated to exploring every nuance of the Tragically Hip's music.

With his wife's poodle yipping nearby, Robinson uses a $35 microphone and his desktop computer to channel a less cheesy version of Dick Clark.

"People think podcasters don't know what they're doing, that they're just amateurs," says Robinson. "There are a lot of professionals out there."

The technology enabling audio podcasts, the aural equivalent of blogging, hit in late 2004.
Now it's increasingly mainstream, and instead of spinning recorded discs, Robinson points and clicks his online broadcast.

Over 4,500 members have joined his website, Hipbase.com, since it premiered in 2001. Between 500 and 600 fans of the band download his podcasts.

The popularity of the site and the podcasts has taken off to the point where Robinson sells The Hip Base T-shirts online (his wife squeals when she describes running into a stranger on a Winnipeg street who was wearing one).

Robinson credits part of the success to websites like iTunes, which list thousands of podcasts from around the world so iPod subscribers can search and select their listening preferences.

"Every week there's more and more listeners," says Robinson. "I didn't think it would ever take off like it did."

While podcasters may be able to manufacture programs that sound professional, the content of many programs is so incredibly obscure that it would be difficult to find anywhere on mainstream radio.

Take the British lads who record their commute to work every day, including their own mundane, grunt-laden conversation and the pings and pongs of their metro train.

Or a Vancouver-based woman who is diarizing her ongoing struggle with multiple sclerosis. There's even a California couple who record themselves making dinner every evening, over the din of background music and clanging utensils.

"Most podcasts have some kind of audience. The more specialized your podcast, the less people you'll have listening," says Dwight Wallbridge, who nicknames himself The Canadian Geek and makes a program called, fittingly, The Canadian Geek Podcast (<a class="postlink" href="http://www.geekblog.net/geekcast/">www.geekblog.net/geekcast/</a>).
"If you have a podcast on the didgeridoo, you might only have 100 people in the entire world who'll listen."

To appeal to the high-end market, luxury car makers like Lexus have released podcasts.

Soundbite-laden speeches from politicians including Jack Layton and Stephen Harper were podcasted, targeting elusive youth voters in the recent election.

Even George W. Bush is jumping on the trend -- well, at least his two terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley, have their own podcast.

For 28-year-old Wallbridge, who podcasts from the apartment he shares with his parents in South St. Vital, podcasting is part of an ongoing shift of power between technology makers and technology users.

Podcasters, he says, are changing the way technology works by allowing people to produce their own content.

He's also a vociferous advocate for consumers' right to use the technological gadgets they purchase as they wish, so he stringently disagrees with large companies that try to control technology.

For instance, Wallbridge slams SonyBMG's November 2005 decision (later reversed) to install potentially harmful software on its CDs to prevent users from copying music. He says companies should trust buyers to use their gadgets in the way they choose.

"If informing people and trying to get changes made makes me activist, then I'm an activist," he said. "But do I see myself as an activist? No, I see myself as somebody who just talks about technology."
There's also the lighter side of being a podcaster, and the smooth-voiced tech junkie admits to a little practise in the strangest of places.

If you see a retail clerk at Home Depot moving his lips while neatening up a parking lot, well, it just might be Wallbridge practising one of his podcasts.

"Sometimes I will go in my head and try and figure out how I want to put something," he said.

"I've gotten a few people at work to listen to my podcast and other people's as well. It's about letting them know something different is out there."

But even with the increasing tech-savviness of the general population, podcasters don't expect a bonanza of cash or fame from their hobby anytime soon. Robinson says he's not planning on quitting his day job, ever.

"I don't know how you'd make money from podcasting, and it's not something I'd like to do as a career," he says.

<a href="mailto:gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca">gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca</a>

What is podcasting?

A video or audio feed people can subscribe to using an MP3 player

or personal computer. The term was coined from the Apple iPod (the world's most popular portable listening device) and "broadcasting." Podcasters, like bloggers, are often ordinary people who want to spread their opinions or special interests to the world. They make programs on a wide variety of subjects for their listeners or

viewers to download, and experience at the time of their choice.

How much does it cost?

According to local electronics retailers, you need some of the following gear to listen to or create your own podcasts. Here's what it will set you back, approximately:
* iPod nano, approximately $249 and up, iPod video $379 and up,

or other MP3 players, $50 and up

* Headsets, $39 and up

* A desktop computer with the right software, upwards of $1,200

By the numbers:

* 100,000,000 plus: Number of Google hits to date for the term "podcast"

July 2005: Kick-off month of the People's Choice Podcast Awards
* 200: Number of downloads per week of sermons (nicknamed "godcasting" by

pundits) from the Christ Chapel in Macon, Ga.

* 14 million: Reputed number of iPods sold by Apple in the 2005 holiday season

* 1: Number of times the term "podcasting" has won word of the year from New Oxford American Dictionary, in 2005

Websites to check out:

For a quirky range of podcasts, with categories ranging from Finnish Culture to Crooklyn Dub:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.podcastdirectory.com">www.podcastdirectory.com</a> or <a class="postlink" href="http://www.itunes.com">www.itunes.com</a>
For podcasts with a Canadian focus:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.canadianpodcastbuffet.ca">www.canadianpodcastbuffet.ca</a>

And to meet up with other local podcasters, try the province's newly hatched online meet-up spot:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.manitobapodcasting.com">www.manitobapodcasting.com</a>

- sgryzko - 01-28-2006

Pretty cool. The exposure for the site and the podcast is going to be awesome.

- chancellor - 01-28-2006

pretty wicked article, keep up the good work

- MountainHip - 01-28-2006

Way to go Lance

- Corby - 01-28-2006

Wow, great plug for the site. They really cast you in a good light, lance, and rightly.

Good on you, spectacled blond.

- everything_is_bleak - 01-29-2006

ya thats awsome man!

- PortlandCarbo - 01-29-2006

MountainHip Wrote:Way to go Lance

ditto that! congrats mr!

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

- direwolf74 - 01-29-2006

Very cool!

:thumb:

- Lizard King - 01-29-2006

The Velvet-toned Lance...I love that! Maybe you should be a Mel Torme impersonator. :lol:

Congrats on the article Lance thats great to see!

Hipbase RULES!! :thumb:

- LoftyPines - 01-29-2006

Nice work Lance. Very cool!

- tigerthelion - 01-29-2006

Yeah, nice work done by the 'spectacled blond'. That could be your new nickname. Anyway, congrats!

- ccollins515 - 01-29-2006

Great job Lance...Keep up the great work!

- j-monster - 01-30-2006

Very impressive Lance... you are doing some great work with these podcasts, and getting noticed by the media is pretty cool indeed.

Way to go!

- sean.bonner - 01-30-2006

Awesome read. I think the elevation in numbers of members speaks volumes about your hard work and dedication Lance. Thanks for putting together the best site on the web! Here's to the Hipbase! Cheers.

- mrlayance - 01-31-2006

Thanks for all the positive comments!! You guys are what makes this all such a great community!