What was the leading podcasting event for the last 4 years, the New Media Expo, has now become part of the premier expo on blogging… the BlogWorld & New Media Expo. This year the event will be hosted at the Las Vegas convention center from October 15th to the 17th and will features all the heavy hitters from the worlds of blogging, podcasting and social media. For as little as $75 (and up to $1200) you can start to be a part of the event that is sure to be a smash hit.

Why Should You Attend?

If you are into podcasting and blogging, this is the leading even for many reasons. Not only do they have killer tracks focusing on audio and video podcasting, focused community building, and the fundamentals of social media… they also have a huge exhibition floor, panels and discussions from leaders in blogging and podcasting (including Robert Scoble, CC Chapman, Chris Pirillo and dozens more) and the opportunity to connect with some of the greatest minds in social media from around the world.

Will Podcast Alley Be There?

Regretfully, no. I was asked to sit a few panels but had to decline. You know I love podcasting and blogging as much as (or even more than) every other nerd out there, but unfortunately the timing did not work out. I am sad, but while you suckers are listening to Guy Kawasaki, Leo Laporte, Cali Lewis and Chris Brogan, I will be on vacation with the people I love and admire most… my family.

Now wipe your tears and go register for your ticket to the BlogWorld Expo… and if you do, use code RICKNDAVE20 for an extra 20% off your pass to BlogWorld & New Media Expo or any Partner Program.

Chris McIntyre

Many of you may have noticed an increase in content coming out of Podcast Alley recently. More podcaster interviews, more featured podcasts, more forum moderation and posting, more blog posts and more general activity. This is not a fluke… I am back!

I started Podcast Alley in 2004 and helped build many of the early concepts that made podcasting what it is today. I partnered with iTunes when they were first learning what podcasting was and provided them with their initial directory of shows to launch their podcast section of iTunes. I helped Todd Cochrane, a podcasting pioneer, with the first ever podcasting book titled “Podcasting – The Do It Yourself Guide”. And later I went on to partner with Mevio (then PodShow) to help them build their service to host podcasts and provide a way for podcast producers to make money with their shows if they chose to. It has been one hell of a ride the last 5 years.

But a new chapter is starting now as we approach the 5 year anniversary of Podcast Alley. I am focusing on rebuilding Podcast Alley to help producers make better content (and helping them learn how to make money) and will still be promoting more shows to the loyal PCA fans who look to this site every day for new audio and video entertainment. I still work with Mevio because I believe in what they do to help producers with free hosting, promotion and revenue opportunities (they are much different now than they were in the early days of podcasting). But Podcast Alley is now my focus, and I no longer help design and build the products and features for Mevio.

Thanks for all the kind emails and tweets through the transition, keep the content and new feature suggestions coming! More news coming soon.

Alltop

A BIG thanks to the team at Alltop.com for including the Podcast Alley Blog in the podcasting news section of the Alltop site. For those of you who do not know, Alltop.com is an online news service that describes themselves as “…an online magazine rack of popular topics” where you can “Pick a topic by searching, news category, or name, and we’ll deliver it to you 24 x 7.”

This site was created by a trio of friends (including Guy Kawasaki), and the site aggregates the top news feeds from across the net and categorizes everything for you. They show you the top 5 stories from a bunch of different blogs on the category page so you can find the best of the best in that topic. Needless to say, it is really cool to see Podcast Alley’s Blogging from the Alley news feed show up.

If you have not tried out their service, you can create your own account (like mine here), and add feeds from every genre to keep yourself up to date on the latest news on your interests.

CNET News

Just wanted to send a quick shout out to the CNET News team for their recent recommendation of the Podcast Alley directory in their post titled “Find new video podcasts with these directories” as one of the top places to find video podcasts. After the recent news that TiVo was going to start allowing subscriptions to, and watching of, any video podcast via RSS feed… information and directories to find video podcasts becomes more important.

If you are looking for a quick description on how to add RSS feeds to your TiVo box, checkout this post on PodcastingNews.com to see how it is done.

Podcast Alley on Twitter

I may have forgot to mention to all of you, but Podcast Alley is indeed on Twitter. You can find me at @podcastnews on twitter (a squatter has the real podcast alley name, so this one will have to do for now). You may be asking, what the heck is twitter? There new tag line explains it all saying they help you “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world”.

Visit www.twitter.com to find out more, and follow me to stay up to date on the latest happenings at Podcast Alley. There is a good chance you will find interesting things in the Podcast Alley twitter stream that you will not find any place else.

Featured Now on Podcast Alley:

• Open Source Sex
• Lets Get Naughty
• Whispered Pearls
• Doctor Cockney
• Sex is Fun

Links:

• PCA Featured Sex Channel on PodShow (Subscribe )
  
• PCA RSS Feed for all Podcast Alley Features (Subscribe )
• Main Podcast Alley Site

Well I can hardly believe it has been almost 3 years since I started Podcast Alley (in November of 2004). To commensurate this historic event, I decided to have the Elizabeth Street Brewery concoct and brew a custom Podcast Alley Oatmeal Stout to celebrate! Click on the image above to see some pictures of the first steps of the brewing process.

I will be having a get together at the PodShow office to celebrate (with the beer of course) around November 2, 2007. Send me an email to info@podcastalley.com if you are going to be around San Francisco at that time and come party with us… consider this an informal RSVP request because if you don’t email me, I won’t have enough beer for everyone!

>> Click Here to see all Photos from the Podcast Alley Stout Brewing!

From the Listing: 

“Here is our list of the Top 100 Classic Web Sites in 2007. You’ll see a lot of familiar URLs on this list, and we hope there are also quite a few that you haven’t heard of before. These sites are established and generally best-of-breed in their respective categories.”

>> Find the whole store here: PC Magazine

As a side note, I have also started contributing to the PodShow Developer blog at http://developer.podshow.com. We are working on releasing some new APIs to interact with the PodShow website and content. Check it out and leave us some feedback!

If you find any issues with the site, please do not hesitate to email me at info@podcastalley.com to report the problems.  Further, if you notice how much faster and responsive the site is, just sit back and smile (you can email if you like as well:D ).