I like listening to podcasts when driving or out riding my bike.
I remember the first days of podcasting being discussed in the #joiito IRC channel along with other early ideas that RSS would enable. The early days of podcasting required a lot of special software and manual work to be able to listen. 20+ years ago I was writing about is when I didn’t believe the term ‘podcast’ would catch on. Yes, I was wrong on that one. While RSS was the key to unlock early podcasting adoption, the podcasting world has expanded broadly with video versions on Youtube and walled garden podcasts on Spotify.
Today, podcasts are de rigueur for every media company and pundit in the world. Entire businesses wrapped around podcasts exist and the ability to listen to them easily on almost every audio platform.
Here are the top four podcasts I enjoyed the most this year:
Search Engine – Created by PJ Vogt and Sruthi Pinnamaneni, veterans of the Reply All podcast, the show is once of the best produced out there. The conceit is that PJ is answering a question listeners want to know, but they all lead to some in depth information expertly presented. Topics range from whether you should drink airline coffee to how to gain entrance to the German techno club Berghain.
404media – 404media is an investigative journalism team that works the tech and internet beat. They patrol the grimdark part of the interwebs and have a wide range of contacts from the blackhats to corporate PR teams. Only so much can go into a written post on the site, so the podcast lets the writers go a little deeper and discuss the topics as a team. The work they do is great, often breaking major stories before the larger news groups can understand the topic.
Hard Fork – Hosted by Kevin Roose of the NY Times and Casey Newton of Platformer, the podcast is a traditional discussion between of the current tech news de jour. The chemistry between the two works well and you can feel the friendship and a little competitiveness. Besides bringing up the questions the average person would ask, they are able to bring in a wide range of guests on special topics to bring actual experts into the discussion.
The Vergecast – Nilay Patel and David Pierce of the Verge also discuss the current tech news du jour, but do it differently than Hard Fork. Nilay is neither a tech cynic nor a true believer, and is willing to push guests and topics both ways. I appreciate their willingness to call bullshit on crisis management press releases and also explain how uncertain the future of new businesses and technologies are in light of the ever changing political landscape. Too often podcasts try to pretend they know the future will unfurl.
I know my choices don’t include any true crime stories or super emotional revelations, but the internet is swamped with those and they are easy to find. They aren’t the flavor of interwebs I like.
I subscribe to a wide range of other podcasts with topics ranging from beekeeping to science news to video gaming. Most of them are good, but listened to after my favorite feeds are empty.
Here other podcasts get an honorable mention:
Darknet Diaries – Host Jack Rhysider makes an incredible podcast “about hackers, breaches, shadow government activity, hacktivism, cybercrime, and all the things that dwell on the hidden parts of the network.” As someone that spent their teenage years phreaking and traveling the world of pre-internet BBSes, this is pure catnip to me. Extremely well written and produced it’s always a delight to hear. The only drawback is that the podcast is monthly.
ICYMI – ICYMI is short for In Case You Missed It. The show covers internet culture and tries to explain the nuances of complicated memes and trends. The show has gone through a few hosts and the topics vary a bit. I enjoy the shows that explain the trends and memes of TikTok and social media the most. Occasionally the show gets into reality TV drama or weblebrity mess, which I don’t care about. But when they get to discussing things like goblincore, zynternet, and #booktok, I’m all ears.
