A Call to Podcast
Anchor’s new tools to ease and expand podcasting
Little known fact: in 2005, I tried to make a podcast. Yes, thirteen years ago. I had only started blogging the year before, but when Apple rolled podcast support into iTunes, it seemed like it would be a fun thing to try.¹
Boy was I wrong. It was a pain in the ass.
What I thought would be a simple record, click a button, and distribute was a series of intricate steps involving finding the right software to record, the right hardware to record, other software to edit, a place to host the subsequent file (which of course you had to pay for), with the joy of dealing with RSS sprinkled on top.
Then, and only then, would you send to Apple for inclusion in their directory. Minutes became hours became days became weeks. Amazingly, in 2018, the state of the podcasting art hasn’t changed all that much. We have better players that are bits of software that can stream podcasts from anywhere at any time, but the creation component remains a nightmare.
Well, remained. This is what Anchor’s updates today are all about.² You can read more about them in their own words, or on 9to5 Mac, Business Insider, Engadget, iMore, MacStories, RainNews, TechCrunch, The Verge, and Variety. Needless to say, it’s a ton of work (and thought) that the team at Anchor put in to upend the status quo of podcasting. I’m excited to see the fruits of that effort in the form of more podcasts. Podcasts that would otherwise have never have been created because well, see above.
To that end, I’m putting my mouth where my money is and getting back in the game. After a thirteen year hiatus, I’m going to give this podcasting thing another go. But slowly.
Just as I did with my newsletter experiment over the past couple of years, I want to take some time to gather some learnings in order to do it right. This will mean short bits of content on Anchor in order to find what works (both content-wise and format-wise). And it means I can use Anchor’s own unique capabilities to help guide my path — example: if you call-in to my podcast with questions/thoughts, I can respond/riff off of those from time-to-time.
Basically, I’m doing my best not to create Another VC Podcast™. Lord knows, we have enough of those :)
Since I first met the Anchor team years ago, I’ve also been compelled by the notion of what audio content can be on the internet. It has been amazing to see the world coalesce around the podcasting phenomenon, but there’s no real reason it has to just be an hour-long radio-style format. For many shows, that works perfectly. But I’m excited to see what others come up with now that the tools are infinitely more accessible. More to come.
¹ I had actually decided to do the podcast around my movie-review-in-haiku site, the aptly named, Review In Haiku, which I had also started that year.
² Just in case it’s not clear, Anchor is a GV portfolio company.
