A business podcast dedicated to exploring headline issues to understand the longer-term stakes for the economy and the world.
Shortman Studios is launching The Big Tech Ticket, a new podcast about tech, business, and news. Industry veteran James Rogers (FoxNews.com, TheStreet, CMP Media) will host the show. The Big Tech Ticket will be an interview-driven podcast that explores headline issues in the world of technology to understand what’s behind the stories and what matters for the broader economy and the world.
The technology sector’s rise in relevance, utility, and power in our lives and the international landscape has been increasingly self-evident over the 21st century. The past decade saw once-charming upstarts become behemoths who drew scrutiny from a wide range of critics. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only grown the sector’s salience and our dependence on their products, heightening the contradictory position. As we emerge from that pandemic with the rising awareness of this dependence, there are tons of questions about what happens next, which the Big Tech Ticket will address.
The podcast will run for an inaugural 8-episode season. Each Wednesday, The Big Tech Ticket will feature a Rogers interview with experts and decision makers in the wider technology industry. Initial episodes will feature Jason Mollica, professor of communications at American University, and Gilman Louie, partner at VC fund Alsop Louie and governor on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.
The podcast debuts on May 5th and will be available on all podcast platforms. Listen to the trailer on Apple or Podbean, and follow for future episodes. New episodes will publish every Wednesday.
James Rogers is a journalist based in Brooklyn. He has over two decades of experience as a reporter and editor covering technology, business, and science, working in both print and video formats. He has worked at FoxNews.com, The Street, CMP Media, and Reed Business Information. A native of Liverpool, he is a “rabid Evertonian” and fan of the football club.
Shortman Studios is an independent podcast production studio. Founded in 2020, the studio publishes The Razor’s Edge, an investment podcast featuring discussions on the technology sector and today’s market; A Positive Jam, a music podcast featuring deep dive discussions on music albums; and Voices of Migration, a bilingual (Spanish/English) podcast featuring migration stories of people from around the world.
Estamos emocionados de compartir el primer episodio de nuestro nuevo podcast, Voces Migratorias / Voices of Migration.
El desplazamiento define la historia humana y nos sirve para entender que la migración va a aumentar en los próximos años. Voces Migratorias / Voices of Migration es un podcast centrado en las personas y las historias del desplazamiento Vamos a hablar con personas de todas partes del mundo que han cambiado sus vidas y se han mudado a otro lugar, ya sea de forma temporal o permanente, ya sea por elección o por circunstancias extremas, ya sea por trabajo o por familia o por libertad. Nuestro objetivo es ofrecer una visión equilibrada de la migración, y presentar las historias individuales de las personas que migran, mostrando una perspectiva local y global, sus razones para migrar y qué tipo de hogar han construido o buscado en el mundo.
Con Amy Mortensen y Daniel Shvartsman como presentadores, la primera será principalmente en español, ya que hablaremos con personas que han llegado desde otros países a España, donde vivimos. Podriamos tener algunos episodios en ingles u otros idiomas, dependiendo de nuestros invitados.
Nuestro primer episodio presenta Aminata Soucko, una mujer impresionante quien ha convertido su historia del desplazamiento a una oportunidad de ayudar otras. Una nativa de Mali, ella llegó a España en 2008 por medio de un matrimonio forzoso. Después de haber escapar su marido abusivo, ha empezado la misión de su vida, de ayudar victimas de mutilación genital femenina. Su historia del desplazamiento es inspiradora, y esperamos que os disfrute como la cuenta en su hermosa español.
Publicaremos nuevos episodios cada jueves. Suscribirte con los enlaces abajo, y nos vemos pronto!
We’re very excited to share the debut episode of our newest podcast, Voices of Migration / Voces Migratorias.
Movement defines human history, and migration is only going to increase in years to come. Voices of Migration | Voces Migratorias seeks to share the stories of that movement. We’ll be speaking with people from around the world who have picked up their lives and moved to another place, whether temporarily or permanently, whether by choice or due to extreme circumstances, whether for work or for family or for freedom. Our aim is to offer a balanced view of migration, and to present the individual stories of people who move, their mix of local and global perspective, their reasons for moving, and what or where they call home in the world.
Hosted by Amy Mortensen and Daniel Shvartsman, the first season of Voices of Migration / Voces Migratorias will be primarily in Spanish, as our guests will be from Spain, where we live. We may have select episodes in English or even other languages, depending on our guests.
Our debut episode features Aminata Soucko, an impressive woman who has turned her challenging migrant story into an opportunity to help others. A Mali native, she moved to Spain in 2008 in an arranged marriage that was against her will. After escaping her abusive husband, she set herself on a mission to aid victims of female genital mutilation, which has become her life’s work and passion. Her migration story is inspiring, and we hope you’ll enjoy how she tells it in her beautiful Spanish.
Voices of Migration / Voces Migratorias will publish new interviews every Thursday. Subscribe to Voices of Migration / Voces Migratorias here:
“Positive Jam” set out what the Hold Steady cared about, but it was “The Swish” that showed who the Hold Steady were and what they were about.
Matt Brooks (Washington Post) joins us again to break down the first big rocker of the Hold Steady’s album career, track two of their debut Almost Killed Me. We get into the musical elements, including the ringing guitars and the AC/DC tricks, as well as the lyrical elements – the name drops, the geography, the specificity. We explain why Joni Mitchell is an underrated but lyrically tied reference for the Hold Steady, argue over whether the song ends well, and debut our special feature section, Map Corner.
Here’s the episode itself.
You can also subscribe to the show at all of these places:
And leave us a review or a rating on Apple or Stitcher if you can!
Here are a few categories and things to listen for, in the song itself and in our podcast:
Best Line in the song: We have too many to just narrow down to one. Here’s a top 3:
I’m so well connected, my UPC is dialed into the system
I blew red white and blue into a tissue, I came over the counter just to kiss you
Tights and skirts baby, skirts and tights, we used to shake up in shaker heights, this chick she looked like Patty Smyth, she was shaky but nice
Top 3 Celebrity Comparisons
Some people call my Andre Cymone, because I survived the 80s one time already
Patty Smyth, because come on, aren’t we thinking about Patti Smith? But this sounds better
Robbie Robertson but people call me Robo
Top 3 pop culture references
The Neal Schon to Nina Simone to Andre Cymone roll
Circuit City (and One-Hour Photo) for references that didn’t last long
Joni Mitchell’s lyric drop to start the song, pills and powders baby, powders and pills.
Our favorite location name drop
City Center is a fun one because it’s less obvious, but Newport News evokes a lot, and sets up both the Elisabeth Shue reference and the Hold Steady’s favorite verb on this album, bruise.
Our tracking of all the places listed in The Swish, which we break down on a segment we call “Map Corner”.
Best musical moment: The return to the intro guitar crashes at the 3:05 minute mark, to prepare us for the final leg of the song, with a great lead guitar line stepping in.
Billy Joel/Bruce Springsteen or AC/DC/Thin Lizzy?: Every Hold Steady track seems to exist on this spectrum. It’s a contrast between loud, guitar-driven rock that takes no prisoners and more of a soulful, troubadour lyricism both in the melody and the lyrics themselves. Like any band, the Hold Steady is at their best when they forge their influences into a unique sound. But it’s still fun to try to rank their songs by which side of the line they’re closer to, so we do that frequently on our podcast’s episodes. And even if we don’t remember to do so live, we can revisit here thanks to our handy graphics department.
“The Swish” is about as far to the Thin Lizzy and AC/DC side of the spectrum as the Hold Steady can get – guitar chords that ring out, the snarl in the lyrics, unrelenting rock. You could talk yourself into Craig Finn’s fast-paced lyrical delivery being something like Springsteen on his debut album, but you’d probably be trying too hard.
Worst take of the episode: While Mike’s proposal that the ending is bad was the spiciest, Daniel’s comparing the b-section guitars to water in a toilet bowl, come on, that belongs in the toilet.
Then again, Mike looking for lines about Tatooine and Alderaan…what a clever kid.
Biggest question: It has to be the ending, since Mike brought it up; is it a good ending or does the song fall flat? We think we talked Mike out of it, but even asking the question raises the doubt.
Background reading: Here’s a link to the Vulture interview Matt referred to (again).
Music video: Yes, they made a music video. Here it is.
Review of the week: Shout out to kudmatsukyle, who had this to say:
Thanks, kudamatsukyle, we hope we live up to your expectations throughout!
For the audience: What’s your favorite line from this song? And do you buy the Band/Joni Mitchell comparisons for the Hold Steady?
The Hold Steady kicked off their recorded output in March 2004 with a track called Positive Jam. The song begins with two minutes of spoken word-esque pretext, lead singer Craig Finn rattling through historical woes and cycles of calamity. And then the guitars kick in, and the Hold Steady step into the world.
The podcast A Positive Jam kicks off our recorded output by breaking down ‘Positive Jam’ for our first full episode, as the first episode breaking down Almost Killed Me, the Hold Steady’s debut album. Hosts Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman are joined by Matt Brooks to talk about how this sets the road map for the Hold Steady’s career, why the song works, and also whether it actually works as a stand-alone.
Here’s the episode itself.
You can also subscribe to the show at all of these places:
And leave us a review or a rating on Apple or Stitcher if you can!
Here are a few categories and things to listen for, in the song itself and in our podcast:
Best Line in the song: We got shiftless in the fifties / Holding hands and going steady / Twisting into dark parts of big Midwestern cities.
Best musical moment: The feedback at the 2:15 mark building and giving way to huge guitar chords and solo guitar licks panning from one side of your stereo sound to the other.
Billy Joel/Bruce Springsteen or AC/DC/Thin Lizzy?: Every Hold Steady track seems to exist on this spectrum. It’s a contrast between loud, guitar-driven rock that takes no prisoners and more of a soulful, troubador lyricism both in the melody and the lyrics themselves. Like any band, the Hold Steady is at their best when they forge their influences into a unique sound. But it’s still fun to try to rank their songs by which side of the line they’re closer to, so we do that frequently on our podcast’s episodes. And even if we don’t remember to do so live, we can revisit here thanks to our handy graphics department.
On ‘Positive Jam’ as many a Hold Steady track, it’s a song of two parts. The first part, with the Dmsus2 to Dm back and forth, is more lyrically driven. Craig Finn’s nearly spoken lyrics take us through history with a social awareness that drives the song to the Billy & Bruce side of the scale. But once the guitars kick in (see above), this becomes one of their hardest rockers, even if the rhythmic drive is in low gear. That ending outweighs the pensive start, and so we rank this closer to the AC/DC and Thin Lizzy side of the line.
Worst Takeof the episode: Daniel comparing “Positive Jam” to both Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, though it makes more sense when you listen to it.
Biggest question: Does this song work on its own, or only as a curtain-raiser? Matt and Mike lean towards no, Daniel towards yes.
Background reading: Here’s a link to the Vulture interview Matt referred to.
Review of the week: Shout out to the one year old, who had this to say:
Thanks, the one year old! A Positive Jam, a podcast for all ages.
For the audience: How important is ‘Positive Jam’ to a Hold Steady concert? A staple? Forgettable? In between?
One of the things I’d like to do with this blog is highlight podcasts I’m listening to as examples of what does or doesn’t work in podcasting. I am adapting this from my personal blog, and the focus here will be a little bit more on the format, the production techniques, etc. As I did the review for this month, I was reminded of how open the podcast format is, and how many different approaches are available. For each podcast I share the links to the show and classify them by type of podcast, though that’s mostly illustrative and not meant as a hard and fast definition.
Feist is a great performer, full of charm and willing to take risks. I saw her at two separate concerts in college, once with Broken Social Scene and once solo, and they are among my fondest music memories.
I came across Pleasure Studiesin one of Apple’s podcast app promo carousels, scanned the titles, saw they echoed the titles on her album, and thought ‘oh, cool! Not so far from what we’re doing on our podcast, going through an album track by track.’
Listening to the podcast subscribed me, then, because it’s nothing like that. Instead, the show takes a theme from a given Feist song, mostly off her last album, Pleasure, and then presents 3-4 interweaving personal stories, as spoken by guests. Feist’s voice only appears in the introduction and conclusion.
The format is in between an essayistic approach and storytelling. The production is high quality both in terms of the sound and in terms of the cutting from one story to another. The content hits hard as well. Young Up is about people ignoring their age, and is among the lighter episodes I’ve listened to so far (I’m six episodes through), and introduces us to the grindmother. “I’m Not Running Away” was about facing challenges whether related to fear, immigration status, or gender. “Lost Dreams” is pretty self explanatory and, in its way, brutal.
The format is like stage monologues, it feels like the theater. One imagines Feist strolling on, saying her piece, and then walking off, leaving each of the speakers in a different part on the stage, with the spotlight shining on them in alternating fashion. It’s not light listening or entertaining in the way a good conversational podcast is, but it’s fascinating and thought provoking. The show is also very concise, with each episode coming in under 30 minutes.
Since I’m co-hosting a music podcast, and will do more of it, I’ve been looking to see what else is out there. My co-host Mike Taylor turned me on to Strong Songs. I’ve listened to two episodes so far – host Kirk Hamilton’s breakdown of Sufjan Stevens’s “Chicago”, and then his episode on Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye”.
They’re really good.
Kirk does a few things especially well. He conveys excitement for the music. The deep dive format is a great one for him to share that excitement. He cares a lot for these songs (and I presume, the others he’s unlocked), which makes it easy for the listener to get excited. I was already big fans of these songs, and I will eventually pick out an episode about a song I don’t know well to see if this can bridge the gap for me. Kirk also teaches the listener about the music, and in a way that requires little or no musical knowledge but also doesn’t dumb things down. I believe he made reference to being a music teacher, and he comes across as the smart band teacher who can relate to you and help you go beyond the notes to a better understanding.
Lastly, he really makes sure the music is incorporated into the episode, so you can listen and appreciate the music while also getting his commentary. The production is really sharp – sometimes the music lingers in the background, other times he talks over it or adds his own musical accompaniment to accentuate certain points, and he gives enough of a taste without
The discussions take a little bit of wind-up to get past, but once beyond that his breakdowns are really enjoyable. I can quibble on a couple things because it’s fun to do so – how do you talk about Stevens’s lyrics and not mention his religiosity; and the strings on Last Goodbye have a South Asian element to them, what is that? But those are all in the realm of things to talk about, not musts.
Boomtown – by Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment
One of my other obsessions is finding podcasts about places. Something that can convey what it’s like to be from a place, to live in a place, what makes it tick and hum, what makes it special or different, worth seeing or worth knowing about.
I started listening to Boomtown without necessarily looking for that – I thought it might be a good story about the oil sector. And it is. But what I think makes it more worth hanging onto is the personal perspective Christian Wallace, the host, brings to it. He’s from West Texas, he’s worked on an oil rig (pronounced oll rig, apparently the accent out there), and he cares about the industry even as he’s aware of the problems with oil and fracking.
Documentary podcasts are the hardest to pull off, and not only did he and his team pull this off, they did it in a different way. This wasn’t a serial story, with one narrative that brings things to a boil. Instead, the podcast goes into different corners of the oil patch – how tough it is to work there, how dangerous it is, what the sex economy surrounding an oil camp looks like, what the economics look like, and so on.
The production is really solid, integrating music and ambient sounds into the discussions, and the set up for the interviews and narrative was good. It felt a little lo-fi in a deliberate way, Wallace’s interviews were transparent and natural. And then when slipping in an interview episode with Bethany McLean, he adapted to the different format with a great deal of deference for his guest – and Bethany is an expert in the area. The one thing I would note is that the ads came on without any warning, and without any change in Wallace’s voice, which was a little startling. But it’s a minor thing and I got used to it.
The podcast was released over the winter, right before oil collapsed once and then again amidst the covid-19 issues. So the timing for talking about a boom was ironic, though the show is laced with both the downside of a boom and the inevitability that every boom begets the next bust.
But the economics were the less interesting part of this to me, since I spend more time in that part of the internet anyway. Learning about the issues in West Texas and hearing from people, that was what stuck with me from this show.
Nicholas Quah has been writing the Hot Pod newsletter, a podcast industry write-up, for a while, and I’ve been reading it for a year or two, all told. He is immersed in podcasting, and I’ve learned a lot reading him, including some good recommendations – Welcome to LA is another great place-centered podcast, e.g.
His new podcast, Servant of Pod, builds on the newsletter format. He interviews podcast people of all sorts – people who make podcast music, leading hosts, industry types – and they’re just good conversations. One thing interesting to me is that the theme music and the way he goes in and out of ads reminds me more of public radio than podcasting, though usually by the end of his interviews things have loosened up and fallen into the podcast flow.
One more place podcast. I found this when digging through the listings on Apple, I think. It’s a three-part series – again, an example of a slightly different format – and I wish it was longer. A few different hosts – Kai Wright, Nadege Green, and Christopher Johnson – take us through Liberty City and Little Haiti. The angle is on how gentrification and pushing around minorities has gone in different directions, with the interstate displacing one population and now the irony that these neighborhoods are on the high ground, and thus more attractive as Miami sinks into the ocean. The show does a great job bringing different voices to the story, and though it’s only three episodes it covers a lot of ground.
I don’t know why certain cities attract me – New Orleans, Detroit, Memphis in the US e.g., – and others haven’t grabbed my eye, including Miami. But hearing more about the history of the place has reminded me that there’s a lot more to the city than South Beach. Some post pandemic day, I’ll have to visit.
And we end up in the business world, with Vox Media’s Land of the Giants. I have been listening to season 2, which covers Netflix’s rise and current position. Peter Kafka and Rani Molla got a lot of great interviews with Netflix execs, industry experts, and directors, and they frame the story well. The consumer voice is missing, but I’m not sure how you would represent that here.
What I like most about the series is that it has fun with the narrative, and doesn’t treat it as overly dour, titans of the industry sort of stuff. Business reporting is sometimes overly serious, exalting towards its subjects, or else scathing. This show praises Netflix where need be, but also points out where they got lucky and has fun with the story. This is about entertainment and media, and there’s a lot of fortune and sliding doors that has come into effect.
So far in listening I’ve learned about the company’s rise, been impressed with their focus and their fortune, and enjoyed the narration meanwhile.
2020 has been a year of working from home. Ok, it’s been a year of a lot of things, most of them not great. But one of those things has been working from home, and that’s come in for mixed reviews.
As someone who’s worked from home for nearly a decade, I’ve watched people’s reactions to this change with interest, bemusement, and a bit of embarrassment. If something this natural to me has thrown off so many other people, what does that say about my taste?
Working from home also means recording podcasts from home. As with the other aspects of working from home, podcasting is doable but requires adjustments. Podcasters have to master their home studio, but also the variable of having a conversation with someone who is not in the room with them – no body language to cue in to, no recording console to manage everyone’s volume levels.
Having worked from home for nearly a decade, I’ve also been recording podcasts from home for the past few years. While I don’t have everything perfect or on par with live radio studio, I have learned a few tricks to the process that are key to success.
The Importance of Getting Your Sound Right
When I started podcasting, someone with more experience in the field gave me a great piece of advice: “As long as the host sounds clear and solid, listeners will be able to adjust to a guest’s sound more easily.” We’ll talk about maintaining good sound with your guests, but it’s of utmost importance that you control your own sound. That means having the right equipment, making sure there’s not too much noise in your surroundings, having a good internet connection, and more. I covered potential recording errors more in detail in this post, so refresh on the topic there.
Find the right recording software
Recording a conversation with someone who is not in the same physical location is not an easy task, but fortunately there are many programs that simplify it. I have used several over the years trying to get the right sound. The challenges and variables to watch out for include:
Audio drift – the possibility that your guest’s recording will get out of sync with your recording due to varying computer speeds
Glitchy connections – if the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) aspect of the software isn’t good, the call can get robotic or the line can just drop
Storage – Most software programs allow you to record on the cloud, but you want to make sure you have secure access to the recording
File type – Different programs record different types of files. While it’s relatively easy to convert files from one type to the other online, the more conversions you make the more you run the risk of the audio deteriorating. Ideally, you can record in mp3, m4a, or wav for easy conversion or editing.
Video – I’ll discuss the value or challenge of having video for recording, but it’s certainly a variable that affects both the internet connection quality and the connection you have with your guest or co-host.
As I mentioned, I’ve used several programs over the year. For a free service, I recommend Zencaster. It allows you to record your guest or co-host on a separate track, there is separate back-up recording, and it’s a good audio quality. There is some risk of audio drift, and I found the VOIP quality to be lacking to the point where I would prepare guests to refresh the screen if things cut off. But it was a mostly effective recording platform. I am curious to see what their video recording feature is like (currently in beta), and with the onset of the pandemic, the company has removed any restrictions on number of guests you can have or recording volume in a month.
I currently use Zoom, which you’re likely familiar with. While the videoconferencing software has had some security concerns – many of them since resolved – I ultimately find the call quality to be the most consistent of any of the alternatives I’ve tried, and the audio quality to be more than satisfactory. There are a few tricks to maximize the quality, including recording on your computer to get separate tracks and turning on original sound. The cost is $15/month on the PRO plan, and there’s a possibility of upgrading to also get transcripts. The ability to see my co-host or guest is also a plus, as it makes it easier to go back and forth, and it makes it possible to easily produce videos of the conversation too, if that’s of interest.
(One small thing about Zoom – try to avoid muting anybody, including yourself, from the program. I believe this leads to Zoom not recording that person while they’re muted, which means their track gets out of sync with the others. We’ll mention the importance of recording on separate tracks which mitigates most of the need for muting anyway, but if you need to mute, try to do so by muting your microphone hardware itself, rather than doing so in Zoom).
Prepare for your podcast beforehand
It’s always a good idea to prepare for a podcast before you start recording, but this especially is the case before recording remotely. With a co-host, this could mean working out an outline and a plan of attack for a given episode. With a guest, sending questions or talking points in advance is a great idea.
Even once the call starts but before you start recording, it’s good to check in with the guest or co-host. That allows you to make sure everyone sounds good. You can also refresh on what you plan to discuss, check if your guest has any time limits to their availability, and prep them for how you end the podcast – usually, I will sign off with my guest or co-host, stop the recording, but continue the call so we can debrief.
Give Your Guests/Co-Hosts Space To Talk
One of the biggest differences between online recording and in-person recording is that lack of body language I mentioned above. Video helps to a degree, but it’s still harder to read a person through a screen than it is across the room.
This matters for the flow of a conversation, where you may not know when a person has finished their piece and when they want to keep going. So as a rule of thumb, give the person space to finish their thought – wait a couple seconds before following up with your next comment or idea. And prepare your guest or co-host for this possibility.
The nice thing about recording podcasts is that you can always go back and edit to remove unnatural pauses. But building these spaces into the conversation gives you more margin for error to make those edits, and also allows your interlocutors time to develop their arguments or ideas fully.
We record The Razor’s Edge without video. Our most recent guest was Rahul Vohra, the founder/CEO of Superhuman, and he’s been on several podcasts before. That experience showed, as he adapted without question to the no video format and had no trouble pausing and flowing in our conversation.
There was a bit of interruption on all parts, and it is both ok and natural to interrupt other speakers on your podcast if you have a point to make or want to interject from time to time. Which is what makes the next point especially important…
Record On Separate Tracks
Whether using Zencaster, Zoom, or a software program that does not begin with a Z, make sure you are recording each speaker on a separate track. In Zoom you want to go to your settings and then recording, and make sure to record a separate audio file for each participant who speaks.
Source: My desktop – that second checkbox is the key one.
You also need to record to your computer rather than to the cloud – the cloud won’t enable multi-track recording, at least last I checked.
Why is this so important? First, it allows you to edit in post-production and control for the ambient noise on each person’s end, without unduly affecting someone else’s track. It also allows you to take out, say, a phone ringing on your track while your guest is speaking (much harder to do if it happens while you’re speaking, but that’s why we had the recording rules at the beginning). And as far as interrupting goes, some interruptions don’t actually need to stay on the final version. So again, multi-track recording enables a much finer final product.
As a sub-item here, it can be a good idea to record your track separately on a desktop software (Audacity or GarageBand, for example), and to ask your guests to do the same. While I prefer to edit off the Zoom versions because those are locked in place with one another, and Zoom provides as good latency as any call service, there will be the occasional robotic moment where your guest or co-host’s voice sounds unnatural. If they are recording on their end and backing up the audio, you can use that back-up audio to smooth out the conversation.
Don’t Be Shy To Produce While On The Call
One last bit of advice is to be proactive during the recording. If your guest or co-host doesn’t sound clear at the beginning of the podcast, tell them. If their volume suddenly drops, interrupt to ask them to repeat themselves after they fix the sound. If they make a point poorly or you want them to flesh something out, jump in.
With post-production editing, you can remove the ‘first attempts’ as much as needed. And while sometimes asking someone to explain what they mean is naturally part of a conversation, there are other times where the second version is just better. The same goes for audio – as ‘natural’ as I like conversational podcasts to sound, for example, the listener won’t necessarily know or need to know if you had to take two tries at something because a dog started barking, and all things being equal they’d rather not hear the dog anyway.
***
These tips reflect things I’ve learned over the past few years, and I am sure there are many more techniques left to learn. Some of these items are common sense, and some apply to in-person recording as well (which, hopefully, will become a regular thing again before too long!). And there are things that can be corrected after the fact in the editing process, or by re-recording bits.
A common theme in my posts, though, is that while you can do a lot to dress up a conversation after recording through the editing process – or you can turn to a service like ours for help – it’s really important to get the recording itself right. As you bring on guests you respect and admire in your field, you want to make sure you respect their time, which means getting the recording right and avoiding the need to repeat. That’s why getting the techniques of remote recording down are so important. And fortunately, they’re not that hard to do with a little practice and, hopefully, learning from people who have already made their own mistakes for you.
Anything I missed? Let me know below or get in touch here.
We’re excited to introduce our second Shortman Studios podcast, and our first newly launched podcast: A Positive Jam. Here is the description as well as our first two preview episodes – an introduction and a playlist for those looking to get into the Hold Steady.
A Positive Jam is a podcast dedicated to breaking down great albums track by track. Our first season focuses on The Hold Steady’s classic debut album, Almost Killed Me.
The Hold Steady emerged in 2004 with Almost Killed Me, a record that took a throwback 70s’ rock sound and made it wholly new. In a time of 80s knock-offs, dance-punk bands, and the last gasps of nu-grunge and boy bands, The Hold Steady kicked the doors down with a bag of one-liners and guitar solos. They reminded the sniffling indie kids and critics of the early ‘00s that this was supposed to be a party. And, they changed our lives.
Hosted by Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman, two Hold Steady fans and music lovers, A Positive Jam breaks down The Hold Steady’s debut track by track to explore why it matters and why the Hold Steady has had staying power with diehards around the world for the past two decades. Hosted by Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman, and featuring guests like the Washington Post’s Matt Brooks, The Unified Scene Theater’s Shawn Westfall, 30music’s Kyle Undem and Brian Holm, and Fiasco’s Leon Neyfakh, this season looks into the lyrics, the music, and the cultural climate to understand why killer parties still almost kill us. The common thread – passion for a band that embodies staying positive.
A Positive Jam debuts on August 5th 2020. Subscribe to A Positive Jam on:
We’re going to share episodes of our original podcasts here, both as examples of how we podcast and in case the content itself catches your ear. Here’s our latest episode of The Razor’s Edge.
We’re joined by friend of The Razor’s Edge and professional investor Captain Twilio, as he’s known. As someone who has only owned two stocks in his portfolio since 2012 – Netflix from 2012-2017 and Twilio in the three years since – he has a laser focused approach to growth investing, and it’s worked.
In the wake of Netflix’s most recent, pandemic-fueled earnings report, we brought him on to see where he thinks the company sits, and what we all make of the report and Netflix’s positioning. We also cover Captain’s Twilio position at length, though that will be part two of this episode, coming out around Twilio’s earnings.
Topics Covered
3:30 – Background on the Captain’s positioning
7:30 – Understanding the old Netflix long case and the growth investor mindset
12:30 – Why swap out?
14:30 – Attention span issue and the new threat of Tiktok
21:00 – The competitive landscape
27:00 – The old distribution vs. content question
30:00 – The streaming wars and what attrition looks like
34:30 – The most recent earnings call, and what lands are left for Netflix to conquer?
43:00 – Peak Hollywood and our changing viewing habits
Think about the word podcast. What associations come to mind? What sort of words or sounds are playing in your head?
It might be a familiar voice, talking week after week to a new guest. Or it might be two voices, the same two each week, going back and forth about the news or sports or whatever else. Or it could be one person talking you through current events or history, or their own lives. Or…well, there are a ton of different formats for a podcast, as with any media or art form.
‘Podcast’ by definition is just a means for sounds to get to people’s devices. Broadcasting goes out via an antenna, and podcasting goes out via our phones, and iPods before then, hence the name. It’s most common for podcasts to be distributed via RSS feeds that plug into podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or others.
Source: Apple – the ubiquitous sign of podcasting
Which is to say that what a podcast can be varies widely. In the mid ’00s, a music website I wrote for released a monthly podcast which was essentially a mixtape that people could download as an mp3. Spotify playlists and similar have replaced that format, but plenty of other podcast formats have blossomed.
If you want to start a podcast, you need to know what the common formats for a podcast are. The medium is still new and open to experimentation, but it’s worth knowing what the existing standards are so you can set out on the path. Here are seven of the most common podcast formats, including examples of successful podcasts in each area and personal examples I was involved with during my time at Seeking Alpha:
The Conversational Podcast
I’d put my money on this being the most familiar podcast to most listeners. In it, two or more hosts talk each episode about a given theme or topic. Their charisma and chemistry is what catches the listeners’ attention. Having two people going back and forth allows room for hosts to complement (and compliment) one another, and to shed more light on their views and on who they are than a solo podcast would. That, along with the intimacy that comes from podcasting, allows the listeners to feel like they’re hanging out with friends.
One of the first podcasts I listened to regularly was Men in Blazers, which focuses on soccer around the world though especially in England. But the soccer is sort of a sideshow. The two hosts – Roger Bennett and Michael Davies – will often take 10-15 minutes just to get to their recap of the week that was in the English Premier League, and they will digress over and over again. Because of their chemistry and how they work listener input into their shows, though, it totally works and their profile has skyrocketed over the past 6 or so years.
Men in Blazers deep in conversation. Source: NBCSports
Another example of this is the podcast Call Your Girlfriend, a podcast “for long distance besties everywhere.” The show is explicitly built around the idea of two friends – Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman – talking, which then allows other people into both their friendship and into the broader topic of friendship. As Friedman said in a recent article, when they launched the podcast, “we would just call each other and talk.”
In my time at Seeking Alpha, we launched two podcasts that I’d place in the conversational category – Behind the Idea and The Razor’s Edge, the latter of which is now a Shortman Studios podcast. While the content itself is very important, the dynamic between the hosts was a key component of listeners’ feedback, and by exploring investing ideas as a duo, we were able to get further into them than we would have otherwise.
Interview Podcasts
Following on conversational podcasts in popularity are interview podcasts. This may be the format you are thinking of for your own podcast. It lends itself to the networking benefits we talked about here, and it’s a great way to explore a topic by bringing on other practitioners or experts as guests. A host can focus on a given theme over a series of episodes, while still keeping it fresh with the new guests.
For example, Guy Raz hosts the popular How I Built This series, where he interviews entrepreneurs, business people, and other builders about their back story. Stay in the NPR universe and we can of course cite Terry Gross’s Fresh Air, which while being a radio show provides a great template for interview podcasts (and has influenced many of them).
It’s worth pointing out here that these categories are not mutually exclusive, and indeed interview podcasts work when they drift towards the conversational, when they are back and forths rather than just one person talking. To cite another obvious example, the Joe Rogan Experience uses interviews as a starting point, but they are very conversational interviews.
At Seeking Alpha we had three interview oriented podcasts – The Cannabis Investing Podcast, Let’s Talk ETFs, and Marketplace Roundtable Podcast – as well as one that straddles the line between interview and conversational, Alpha Trader. Interviewing guests, especially remotely, brings some variables into the process for good – they can increase your audience, bring new insights, and introduce you to new people – and for bad – less control over recording quality, need to spend more time booking them. But they are all manageable.
News Podcasts
News podcasts are fairly straightforward to understand, and are similar to their radio antecedents. The point of the podcast – often daily though they can also be weekly – is to deliver information rather than share a discussion. It’s no surprise that the most popular news podcasts come from major publications – the New York Times’ The Daily is the most obvious example. Bloomberg has converted a ton of its radio shows into podcasts, and the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Vox, and other major outlets have gotten into the daily podcast game.
These are also good examples to point out that again, the news podcasts can have range. The Daily features interviews with other NYT reporters as well as some reporting on specific episodes. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway have a conversational podcast about the news, Pivot, that only comes out twice a week but also falls into this category. At Seeking Alpha, we had Wall Street Breakfast, a 7-days a week podcast, with the company recently turning the Saturday edition into a conversational one – that podcast has over 1M downloads a month, as the daily habit is really easy to build.
The news podcast would seem least relevant to individuals looking to start their own podcast, but it’s worth keeping in mind for a couple quick reasons: using news topics as a peg to explore your passions is a way to join wider conversations; and if you really care about a field, reporting or sharing the news on a regular basis is a way to establish yourself as a source of information, even if you’re just aggregating to start. This of course works better the less crowded your field is.
Essay Podcasts (or, less controlled, Rants)
Conversational and interview podcasts by definition are a two or more person affair. News podcasts can either be one person reading the news or something more dynamic.
Essay podcasts are more explicitly focused on one person’s perspective. They may work in guests, or even quasi-regular co-hosts. But the podcast is defined by the host’s starting point and usually their voice.
To draw on a last Seeking Alpha example, we had a podcast called SA for FAs, that focused on the needs of financial advisors. It is hosted by my former colleague Gil Weinreich, and the standard episodes are 5-7 minute pieces that he writes and records, giving his take on key themes in the financial advisor space. It is very polished and clean, and the focused approach makes sure to not waste the listener’s time.
In researching this category a little bit, I came across Bill Burr’s podcast, which many people like for its rambling nature. I can believe that he pulls it off well, but I also point it out for a note of caution. The Essay podcast can veer into a rant, and while this podcast format may be the easiest to do, it’s among the harder to do well. If you want to explore podcasting and starting with your own essays is your approach, you’ll want to think about how to focus that so that it hooks listeners, or how to open up the approach to incorporate other people.
Reporting or Documentary Podcasts
The last three categories have some overlap to them as well. I’d argue they display the best of podcasting’s strengths, but are also the hardest to pull off.
Start off with a deeply reported podcast, or as Apple categorizes them, documentary podcasts. These are podcasts that feature a host or two but also a multitude of voices to give primary insight on a given story.
Some of my favorite podcasts from the last year or so have been in this genre. It can be a shorter series like the 3-parter from The Stakes on Miami’s gentrification, or a longer one like Pineapple Street Studios/Crooked Media/Spotify’s Wind of Change. Slow Burn is of course great. I’m currently listening to Boomtown by Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment and really enjoying it.
To be frank, you’re probably not interested in making this sort of podcast if you’re reading this blog post. This is not where beginners would go, I mean. But, there’s a lot to learn from the story-telling, the pacing, and the ways that these shows keep the listener hooked and listening for more.
Story Telling Podcasts
I mentioned story telling above, and good story telling is part of just about any podcast format, one way or another. But some podcasts are explicitly devoted to telling a story. They could be the popular true crime podcast formats, or oral histories like the 30 for 30 series, or fiction podcasts, with Welcome to Night Vale being the most popular.
Again, I would expect this to be less of interest to readers of this blog. But the audio format gives stories an added dimension, and podcasts as a field are more open to newcomers than traditional publishing industries, at least as far as I can tell. And perhaps of more relevance, these story telling podcasts can offer a lot of insight on how to convey your story, even if it is more focused on your business, hobby, or passion.
Deep Dive Podcasts
I broke out a last category to cover podcasts that are deeply researched, but that are still generally from one or two hosts. They can be conversational in approach or essayistic. They may or may not tell a story, and the reporting that happens is more off mic.
On the lighter end of this is something like the Ringer’s Rewatchables podcasts, which are really conversational podcasts, but do a deep dive into a given movie or show week after week.You Must Remember This is a weightier version of this, with Karina Longworth diving into lost stories of Hollywood. The show features guests, but it’s mostly her telling the stories and sharing her research. You’re Wrong About features two hosts – Sarah Marshall and Mike Hobbes – diving into specific historical events. Hardcore History sees Dan Carlin going at length – this could slot into the essay/rant podcast format as well – about history.
What I like about this format is that the podcasts are tailored to people who share the host’s/hosts’ passion, or at least who are curious about it. The oral format is perfect for getting into this passion. And weirdly enough, this is more ‘accessible’ if you’re looking into diving into a topic, since you can decide how far you want to go in your research and in what you want to share.
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These categories are not all inclusive by any means. And as I mentioned above, they’re not rigid or mutually exclusive – many great podcasts bounce between two, three, or even more categories listed above. In presenting them to you, I wanted to share a few formats that will help you think through what you might want to do with your podcast.
At Shortman Studios, we’ve had experience working with the first four formats, and are looking into the other formats as well. Of our current podcasts, The Razor’s Edge is a conversational podcast that features some interviews, while A Positive Jam will be a conversational deep dive podcast.
If you’re interested in working with us on your own podcast in any of these formats, you can get in touch here. And if you think there are categories I’ve missed, feel free to comment below or contact us above, I’m sure there’s more that could be touched upon. I hope, for those of you newer to this world, this post will help you narrow down your focus and give you a better understanding of what podcasts sound like, so you can figure out how you want to deliver your podcast.
We’re going to share episodes of our original podcasts here, both as examples of how we podcast and in case the content itself catches your ear. First up: our newest episode of The Razor’s Edge.
We’ve gone to some length covering Slack, Zoom, and other software companies, as the 2020 work from home environment has accelerated and amplified business’s rush to the cloud. But what about email, that old standby? Where does it fit in?
We got the chance to speak with Rahul Vohra, someone whose career has been built on optimizing email. He founded Rapportive, a Gmail plug-in, before selling that to LinkedIn for what was reported to be $15M. He is now the founder and CEO of Superhuman, a service that also builds on gmail and is dedicated to providing the fastest email experience ever. He filled us in on what Superhuman is seeing in the 2020 market, whether a $360/year product is consigned to a niche, what the entrant of a new competitor – Hey, from Basecamp – portends, and how gamification goes right or wrong. He also shared his thoughts on the recent Apple app store arguments that Hey prompted, and what his favorite video games were growing up.
Topics Covered:
2:30 minute mark – The role of email in the modern collaboration landscape: Is Email dead?
7:30 – Initial impact of asynchronicity, work from home, COVID
10:30 – Superhuman user experience
16:30 – The onboarding process, that Verge review, and unit economics
23:30 – The niche question
29:30 – Competition, Hey’s entrance into the market
42:30 – The Communications bundling/unbundling
46:30 – Demographic questions
52:30 – Among the giants
54:30 – App Store controversy
57:30 – Gamification
1:02:30 – Public SaaS valuations and what is possible for start-ups
Sources worth checking out in context of this conversation:
