Pickling the podcasts

Podcasters are leaving their dungeons for this weekend’s Portable Media Expo in Ontario, California, although there’s no apparent representation from Ontario, Canada. Not that you haven’t heard enough hype about the medium – most local FMs, including the CBC’s Metro Morning, quickly latched on to the premise that every digital file of radio blather is just a click away from being delivered to listeners subscribing to a copyright-free feed. But the true potential of portability, in both the creation and consumption of audio (and increasingly video) programming, hasn’t quite infested the GTA. Maybe it’s because anyone with an urge to speak into a microphone will drift into a local campus radio station. Yet, the relative simplicity of crafting a podcast without time or space constraints on either end – along with all the other levels of interactivity – is what’s seeding the enthusiasm. Having something to say, and finding the audience that wants to hear it, can be a different challenge entirely. Rabble.ca formally launched their leftorium of podcasts this week; Blog T.O. has been posting shows on music and movies; the Toronto Star is sorting out possibilities. The fact that podcasting has its own confab may mean little beyond enough companies not wanting to miss out on another bubble – it does require buying equipment – although, after a decade-plus of interweb shenanigans, all the tools don’t mean squat if no original thoughts are being nurtured.  The CD-ROM Store (345 Danforth Ave.) amends its own name with a public forum on podcasting, Sunday from 2-4 p.m.