PodLily: PreLaunch I

The new year’s a time for learning new things. That means in 2007, I’m going to add podcasting to BlogLily. Why? I love radio shows. I love hearing people talk. I love conversations and voices and I rather like being read to, as long as the person has a nice voice and is reading something interesting.

When I was a child, I used to lie on my parents’ bed, my head hanging over the side in the direction of the radio.  I’d listen to broadcasts of old radio shows on the armed forces radio station we’d get in our house in Bavaria. And on Saturdays, I’d pray that the signal from the Saturday radio show, the one that involved a cliff hanger about a boy who was a space hero, would come in loud & clear. When it didn’t, I was bereft.

Just as with writing, you have to write what you want to read, with podcasting, you must record what you want to hear. And what I want to hear is something that makes me feel the way I did hanging over the edge of my parents’ bed:  lost in the sound of someone’s voice.  That’s my guiding principle, although I’ll be happy if I can just figure out how to record my own voice. 

But first, I figure I’ll have to call my podcasting self by a name of some sort.  My blog is called BlogLily, so PodLily seemed to work.  I did briefly consider calling myself LilyPod, but the general consensus around here was that this name was so teethgrindingly cute it might drive normal people away.  Anyway, someone else already has it and is doing their part in repelling the normal. 

And so it was that I registered podlily.com.  And then I registered “podlily”with wordpress and created a place for podcasting prelaunch matters.  (Like, how on earth DO you podcast?)  When things get off the ground, podlily will be a location for program notes and other things of podcasting interest. 

Next up is some research.  I have asked google how to podcast and found many straightforward looking resources.  I have also discovered that everyone in the world podcasts.  How nice to be part of a crowd. 

One thing that will give me the most pleasure, I’m pretty sure, is figuring out what sort of format I like. I love radio shows — so maybe a weekly broadcast.  But I don’t want to bore people for thirty minutes.  So maybe a short burst of something every week would be better. 

My sons want to help.  They love the idea of broadcasting.  I do have to consider the ethics and childrearing issues around allowing your children to participate in this sort of thing,

And that dear reader, soon to be dear listener, is quite enough for one day.