nanfeng oranges

The host of a podcast I listen to , ‘This Week In Startups‘, Jason Calacanis, called for reviews of the thirteenth episode. I thought it’d be a chance to enumerate the virtues of podcasting as well as the virtues of this particular program.

First, the virtues of podcasting. Anyone can be a broadcaster, not just the broadcasting elite. That means, experts and those passionate about one thing or another can reach their audiences (however small) without some knucklehead filtering off whatever might be most interesting so that the program appeals to as wide an audience as possible. Podcasting is good.

Also, the medium itself, audio, when used correctly, captures what the written word cannot. Podcasting is effective if it captures a dynamic conversation between several people. It is not effective if it’s some knob reading his witty insight from a piece of paper. Podcasting is good if done right.

As far as ‘This Week In Startups’, episode 13, is concerned, I jotted down my thoughts as I listened to the show.

Right off the bat, let me say I’m thankful for QuickTime’s feature that allows listeners to play programs at up to 3x the original speed. Otherwise, there’s no way I’d make it through a program like ‘This Week In Startups’. I condensed the 2 1/2 hours down to an hour and 15 minutes with this handy feature.

The first strike against the program occurred not far into the show. The host, Jason, took the lord’s name in vain. It happens. I know. But, I’m Catholic.

Having broken one of the ten commandments, Jason redeemed himself a short while later with an acceptable pronunciation of the Chinese city Shenzhen. Usually, when people are speaking English, only Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong are pronounced well. Cities like Guangzhou and Chengdu are usually mangled beyond recognition. Good job pronouncing Shenzhen. It was noticed.

Next, Jason fielded a question about hardware startups with a brief history of Flip and Slingbox. Not only was the answer good, I think it’s also noteworthy that good questions are coming through as well.

Throughout the rest of the program, Jason’s knowledge, insight, experience, and his ability to communicate his ideas passionately and coherently carried the show. The format of the show works well, too. Segments like the ‘Shark Tank’ thing serve as catalysts for discussion. And again, the material remained dense enough to keep one’s attention.

Next up was the interview segment, and, without going into depth, I’ll also give this a thumbs up.

The news segment was a step in the wrong direction. Neither the story about Snow Leopard or the story about Twitter in the NFL left much of an impression. And, I think the analysis of the Polish Microsoft ad was a bit off. The explanation (bzw. apology) for the decision to photoshop a black guy out of a Microsoft photo in Poland was that Polish people are white. That might’ve made sense. But, as I recall, there was an Asian person who was not photoshopped out of the image.

Then there was something about chocolate and cheese and wine and hiking and impressing girls. These anecdotes can be struck from the show. They’re interesting but, in a program that is over two hours long, ultimately unnecessary.

Anyways…here’s where I want to go off on a bit of a tangent. Proto-indo-european, the hypothetical ancestor of just about all the languages spoken in Europe as well as languages spoken in central and south Asia, did not have different words for ‘guest’ and ‘host’. There was one word that encapsulated both, like ’spouse’ describes both a ‘husband’ and ‘wife’.

Whatever that word was, I think it describes Jason’s role on the show, both guest and host. Not sure if it needs to be remedied or not. His personality and insight is probably enough to carry a show. But, if you look at the giants of the talkshow format…Oprah, Charlie Rose, Letterman, Donahue…you notice their ability to control the program without dominating it. The Germans say, ‘Wer fragt, der fuehrt’. He who asks, leads. As it is, the program is more like a masters class.

Okay, that’s not really a criticism so much as an observation. If the show’s about sharing Jason Calacanis’ insight with the world, it works.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.