It has come to my attention that there has been another death in the podcasting family…. www.slapcast.com. From what I’ve seen, there looks to be an issue with the domain owner either having forgot to renew the domain or choosing not to (or maybe it got hijacked!). Either way, this is a tragedy to the podcasters using the SlapCast service.

If your podcast was hosted or controlled by SlapCast.com and you have lost your podcast… please contact me ASAP. It doesn’t make sense and we want to help you get your podcast up and running again.

Send an email to [email protected] with your show name and contact information and lets get this fixed. PodShow will be happy to help you get your podcast running again.

I love Stuff…when do we get a US version?

“We stuttered, we ummed and we managed a new paradigm in poor sound quality, but that hasn’t stopped the first ever Stuff podcast climbing to number four in the UK iTunes Music Store chart.

Thanks to your help, fellow gadgeteers, we’ve managed to pip Chris Evans (number seven) and Pete Tong (number nine), putting Ricky Gervais’ Guardian podcast within spitting distance. Not that we’d spit at Ricky. Were we to meet the man, we’d politely shake his hand and inform him that he’s a very funny chap.”

Stuff Magazine

Approved an interesting podcast today from the House of Blues. If you are interested in keeping up on the blues scene (or just the good up-and-coming music scene), the Ones To Watch page (and podcast) may be just what you were looking for.

“Every band starts somewhere, and House of Blues is proud to present a new online feature introducing promising new talent that isn playing our stages yet. We e searching websites, asking our friends, listening to free downloads, sifting through self-produced CDs, and putting our ears to the ground to detect the beats of the future. Each quarter well introduce you to five promising artists that we e listening to, waiting until the day we can say, “We knew them when…”"

House of Blues Podcast Page

Cool concept. I always knew the travel genre could be a great place to help people through podcasting (including sound seeing tours) and I applaud Virgin Atlantic for taking the initiative to create original audio content to NYC visitors to enhance their experience.

“Virgin Atlantic has always been an airline of firsts – the first airline to introduce free limos, Drive Thru check-in, onboard bars and even onboard massage in Upper Class, the first airline to introduce seat-back TV for everyone including Economy passengers and even the first airline to introduce a whole new class of travel with their Premium Economy cabin.

To coincide with the 21st anniversary of its inaugural flight to New York, Virgin Atlantic are announcing another first…‘Podcasting’.”

Europe Travel » Virgin Atlantic to offer Podcasting

With all the arguing going on in the podcasting world about Adam Curry editing the history of podcasting through Wikipedia, I thought it was humorous to see this article published today at Wired.com. It turns out that editing the histroy of Kennedys assasination is much worse than that of podcasting.

“SAN FRANCISCO — Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to contribute articles, is tightening its rules for submitting entries following the disclosure that it ran a piece falsely implicating a man in the Kennedy assassinations. Wikipedia will now require users to register before they can create articles, Jimmy Wales, founder of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based website, said Monday.

The change comes less than a week after John Seigenthaler Sr., who was Robert Kennedy’s administrative assistant in the early 1960s, wrote an op-ed article revealing that Wikipedia had run a biography claiming Seigenthaler had been suspected in the assassinations of the former Attorney General and his brother, President John F. Kennedy.”

Wired News: Wikipedia Tightens the Reins

Hooray for podcasting!

“Thousands of podcasts are available at the iTunes Music Store, and websites such as iPodder.com and Podcast.net track thousands more. That’s why the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected “podcast” as the Word of the Year for 2005.”

‘Podcast’ Is the Word of the Year

After reading the story from PodcastingNews.com about iPodderX having to change their name, I looked over at Brian here in the office and said to him, “Looks like iPodderX got the letter for Apples lawyers!” not even thinking about what the real story was here. I continued to tell him about the prizes that go to the winners…

“First Prize
* iPod video 30GB
* Custom iPod Case
* $50 iTunes Gift Card
* Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro
* Griffin RoadTrip
* Griffin TuneJuice
* Griffin iFM”

Does anyone else think it is ironic that iPodderX is being forced to changed their name (to exclude the word iPod) and almost ALL of the prizes to the winners are Apple Products? iPod Video, iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle go to top contestants!

After we got through telling Brian about the prizes he looked at me and said, “You’d think they give away a Creative MP3 player or some other competitors!” Congratulations to Apple. You tell people they cant use iPod in their company name and they host a contest where the prize is an iPod to change the name.
Read More and Enter Contest Here

Thanks to boing boing for bringing this one to my attention. This should act as a warning to other podcasters who are playing mashups in their podcasts. I havent heard of anyone else who sends out mashups getting RIAA letters…has anyone else?

“MashupTown, a site that hosts and distributes mashups (two or more songs ingeniously mixed together to make a third) has taken down all of its files after complaints from the RIAA to its hosting partner.”

Boing Boing: RIAA targets mashups

There have been a few interesting articles published recently about the new Audible service that uses a closed DRM to protect and to monetize podcasts. I had been looking for information on it but it turns out the reason I couldn’t really find anything was because it is still in a closed beta. I will be posting from time to time some updates here, lets start with Corantes opinions…

“The blogosphere was not very pleased with Audible’s announcement. Especially the proprietary file format and the fees have caused negative reactions. It will be interesting to see if Audible makes changes to adapt to this criticism, when they finally launch the service (The service is still in closed beta.) While it is doubtful that there will be any changes in the file format, Audible might change something in the cost model.”

Read More at Corante.com

Big news in the podcasting (more specifically, teen podcasting) world today! Martina Butler of the Emo Girl Talk podcast has landed a corporate sponsorship deal with Natures Cure. Its good to see that more and more big companies are starting to see the true benefits of the niche markets that podcasters have found.

“Emo Girl Talk is a podcast hosted by Martina Butler, a fifteen-year-old. While she’s probably not the only teen dabbling in podcasting, she may be the only one to have secured corporate sponsorship. Nature’s Cure, a line of acne treatments, will sponsor Butler’s show in which she talks about emo music and interviews celebrities. This seems to be a way to get directly in touch with younger kids who have latched on to new technology. It will be interesting to see if other companies follow suit and begin to court other young podcasters.”

Found at AdJab