Podcast are a wonderful technology. Its enables entertainment and information to be carried on the go and you only require partial attention unlike video or text. I usually listen to podcast when I commute or when I am out running. This way, I make full use of my time and learn something instead of doing nothing. I have listed my Top 10 Geek Business Podcast. These podcast will help you stay engaged in the tech sector and open up new business opportunities for you.
1. TWIT:This Week In Tech
Hosted by Leo Laporte, Person of the Year in Podcasting. The podcast offers a weekly round up in the world of technology. The articles that they discuss come from Digg, Slashdot, Valleyway and many more tech news sites. Each show is about an hour and it is interspersed with much opinionated comments from Leo’s guest. Sometimes there are also accurate predications being made. (One that I remember is John C Dvorak’s prediction that the Mac will be able to run boot Mac OS and windows.)
Listen to this if: You need a weekly summary of the Tech world
2. Diggnation
Hosted by Kevin Rose & Alex Albrecht who had a hand in creating http://www.digg.com/, the geek social website that has suppressed Slashdot in bringing down servers all around the world. The podcast covers a selected number of stories from digg. Watch and hear how the conversation between Kevin and Alex degenerates into an entertaining banter on interesting tech news and products as more beer is consumed through out the entire show. Very entertaining to say the least. (Interesting Sidenote: Kevin is valued to be worth $60Million by Businessweek)
Listen to this if: You just want to be entertained by 2 other geeks!
3. Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American
Hosted by Steve Mirsky. Stories are drawn from the popular mainstream Scientific American magazine. Includes a section where you have the chance to guess which of the 4 stories presented this week is actually bogus. Stories are not only limited to computer technology so expect a broad grounding in the various cutting edges of science
Listen to this if: you want to hear about non computer related technology
4. boagworld.com: web design
One of the few long running podcast on running website sites and web technology in general. After all, if you are a geek, you must have a website right! The podcast takes a web design related topic each week and teaches you on how to use it. Don’t expect to become an expert in an hour but at least you get some knowledge on the upcoming web design technologies (like CSS, Flash Videos) you should be paying attention to.
Listen to this if: you have a website or are going to get one. (Which means everyone reading this blog)
5. SecondCast - Second Life Podcast
Secondcast discusses topics centered around SecondLife, a virtual world where players can create and own items. It is the #1 podcast for Second Life. SecondLife has been compared to the internet in its infancy. User growth is exploding and there are actually people making consistent and stable income in the world. A lot of big business are also opening shop in second life(I.e: IBM, Levis, Adidas) Most of the podcast are more of entertaining than informative though. To get to know secondLife, its better that you jump in world anyway.
Listen to this if: Virtual Worlds are your cup of tea or are planning to jump onto the next big thing
6. Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture
Every geek hopes to make it big by using technology combined with business. Stanford invites speakers from high technology companies to speak to their students. The podcast does not have a regular schedule but it is worth keeping up with as the speakers are usually of high quality and bring with the industry specific information and insights that you cannot find in other podcasts.
Listen to this if: you are interested in business.
7. Manager Tools
As geeks, sometimes we just do not have the ability to shine in our interpersonal skills. Fret not, that is where manager tools come into play. Manager Tools is one of the strongest business skills podcast online. Every week, a topic is tackled and step by step tutorials are given so that at the end of the podcast, you should have all the knowledge required. However practice still makes prefect so go ahead and practice the new skill you have learnt. The topics covered are pretty broad ranging from holding meetings to networking session.
Listen to this if: you need to work with people
8. The HotSpot
All work and no play makes a boring geek. Coming from gamespot.com’s editors, the Hotspot discusses game news. You don’t really get game reviews in this podcast though. What you get are opinions and a rough idea of what games are worth playing. Sometimes you get event coverage like E3 and D.I.C.E. Nice of listen to for a feel of the gaming industries’ pulse.
Listen to this if: you want to be knowledgeable about games but don’t have that much time to go through all of them.
9. IT Conversations
Get the buzz from famous people in IT. IT Conversations record conference and keynotes made during important events by important people. Of course these conversations are good indications to near future trends in the IT industry. Every conversation is interesting and full of information. Very geeky and also very helpful increasing what you know and discovering new areas of interest.
Listen to this if: you want to be spotting trends before they hit mainstream tech media
10. Your Own show.
Podcasting is real easy to do. Quality content in the podcast however is much harder. Like blogs, the initial period where you have to consistently pump out podcast for a small audience really test your willpower. However if your content is attractive, news will spread. If you have a show, remember to inform me via TodaysTen@gmail.com
Listen to this if: you are a blogger and have a skill you wish to impart to someone or has a very entertaining character.
The 14 Point Web Design Checklist by Matt Coddington actually describes how he charges for his web design projects. It is a quick, fast and dirty way to come up with a price. It is quite funny. But I guess the main moral for the article will be to get a few quotations and avoid being fleeced. Web design does not have to be expensive. You can learn Dreamweaver yourself in about 24 hours. It is almost as easy as using Microsoft Word. The book I read was Sams Teach Yourself Dreamweaver MX 2004 in 24 Hours . I can now design websites, normal static ones with CSS included. For dynamic pages, it is much harder and coding is mostly necessary so I wouldn’t bored you with the details.
Add $5 for everytime you use outer glow - Check out Windows Vista for outer glows in action!
