Sound As A Medium
Once every thirty years, a new technology for distributing music and other audio content that supplants the old one. It began with the Edison phonograph (listerally “sound writer”), which played small wax cylinders about the size of a roll of toilet paper. The machines were quite expensive for their day, and to propel the sales of the devices, Edison gave away the recordings for free. He didn’t have much awareness of who the musicians were, and while they were paid, it didn’t occur to him that the recordings themselves might be worth money.
Then came the 78 RPM record, invented by Emile Berliner, which could record and play back sound on 10″ discs. Each one could hold about three minutes of music. It didn’t produce as good quality sound as the Edison phonograph, but the media were flat and could be stored more conveniently. It took off like wildfire, leaving Edison in the dust.
Then came the vinyl long playing disk which ran at a bit less than half the speed, but which could hold twenty times the amount of music – and that lasted another 30 years. Jumping to cassette tapes, as the big to-do in the 1970′s with CD’s rising to dominance in the mid-late 80′s. The first CD was Billy Joel’s album 52nd Street. This helped that album become a #1 best seller – and predictably, thirty years later, here we are buying and selling MP3 files. Now here we are in 2012, and the next big wave of technology is simply the streaming of the digital sound information over the internet. Source to speakers, no physical medium at all.
That, in an important way, is why there’s a Krypton Radio at all – and, many of our shows started their creative life span as podcasts.
Rise of the Podcast
Podcasts are almost as old as MP3 files. As soon as people figured out they could make their own radio shows, compile them into single files for download and post them on web sites, podcasts (named for the first personal fully digital playback device, the iPod) became the new de facto medium. They leveled the playing field, making it possible for anyone with a computer to have a voice in the new age of digital media. Podcasts blur the line between traditional recorded audio content distribution and terrestrial radio to create an entirely new medium.
Podcasts have become so important and influential that they are now recognized each year in awards ceremonies, one of the most significant of which are called, simply, The Podcast Awards. The Annual Podcast Awards are held each year to help recognize the fan’s favorite shows and show appreciation to the podcasters for their contributions to internet radio.
This year marks the 8th Annual Podcast Awards, with voting open from Monday, October 1 until midnight, October 15th. Your nominations will then be voted on to determine who receives the awards in their category. Categories range from Lifestyle to Technology, Travel to Education, and also have a “Best Produced” and “People’s Choice”!
The Podcast Awards
Krypton Radio hosts several podcasts which we broadcast as radio shows, bending the paradigm back on itself to recreate the traditional radio listening experience. One of the best we have is the Stolen Droids Podcast, which is eligible for nomination in Technology. We know you’ve been listening in fairly large numbers, and we hope you’ll help the guys who make this great show by voting for them to make it to final consideration. This will put them in the running to win one of these prestigious awards.
To vote, enter the name of the show (Stolen Droids Podcast) and URL (http://www.stolendroids.com) under “Technology”. Be sure to vote for whatever shows you enjoy in other categories too; you can only vote once so be sure to fill out that form!
REMEMBER, you can only vote once for each category. Be sure to show all the Krypton Radio shows you enjoy some love and nominate them in their respective categories too. A show can only be in one category, but you can nominate them again for the “Best Produced” and “People’s Choice”.
Krypton Radio features TV Campfire, D-Pad, Ani-holic Time Chamber, Off Topic, Fanboy Scoop – Week in Review and The Corsair’s Closet. We hope that you might nominate some of these shows as well.
To the podcasters, we know you work very hard on your shows, and that frequently your only reward is the satisfaction of a job well done. Good luck to all podcast producers everywhere.
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