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63: Meet-up talk, Interviews, and free cd’s!

NEWS

• Montreal Podcast Meetup
• Ottawa Podcast Meetup
• Canadian Podcasts in Southam news
• Just One More Book in Parksville Qualicum news and Salt Lake City Tribune
• Podcaster and Blogger magazine correspondent needed (example)
  Contact us for more information

PODCASTERS ACROSS BORDERS

• Early registration is over
• It’s now $100 per person registration until sellout
• Register by May 30 to have your show name on the shirt
• Hotel rate available if booked on or before May 22
• Robert Farrell Band secured for full performance on June 23
• Each attendee gets a copy of the Freddy CD
• Artists: Want to promote your podsafe tunes at PAB? Contact Bob

CANADAPODCASTS.CA

• Sassy Science
• Podcasting Unleashed

INTERVIEWS

• Andy Bilodeau from the Andycast
• Kathi Simmons and Andy Kaplan-Myrth on legal issues

PODCAST LOUNGE

• Thanks
• Traditional print publications doing disservice to their online readers

Show transcript provided by Marion McDonald…

MUSIC INTRO

Arthur Masters: Hi, this is Arthur Masters, formerly, well sporadically from The Ottawa Local Podcast and right now I am in a rusting hunk of metal bound for Ottawa, returning from Montreal from the latest podcaster’s Meetup with Mark Blevis and you’re listening to the Canadian Podcast Buffet.

Mark Blevis: You almost forgot what it was called, didn’t you?

Arthur Masters: I almost said Electric Sky.

Pierre Journel: Okay, so my name is Pierre Journel, I am the host for a podcast called Le Podcast De La Cabane au Canada, which is basically a chronical of my life as a French people, French guy living in Montreal for the last 10 years, so I usually speak about what happened. I spent some time outside recording whatever happened in my life during this week and I tend to try to share as much as I can what I do in Montreal and sometimes outside of it.

Bob Goyetche: I’m Bob Goyetche.

Mark Blevis: I’m Mark Blevis. This is the Canadian Podcast Buffet, Show Number 63 for Thursday, May 4th, 2007.

Bob Goyetche: On the spread this week–interviews with Andy Bilodeau and Kathi Simmons and Andy Kaplan-Myrth. We have a buffet special featuring something we’ll tell you about in a few minutes. And of course our weekly Podcasters Across Borders update.

Mark Blevis: You can find links to everything we talk about in the show notes at canadianpodcastbuffet.ca.

Bob Goyetche: So Mark, we had two Meetups in four days.

Mark Blevis: Three days.

Bob Goyetche: Three days. And I only made one of the Meetups unfortunately.

Mark Blevis: And you know what? When I arrived at the Clock Tower Brew Pub which is where the Ottawa podcast Meetup was on Saturday, April 28th, I said to Scarborough Dude and Arthur Masters that, you know, I’m not expecting you to show up but at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did.

Bob Goyetche: It crossed my mind…

Mark Blevis: I knew it did.

Bob Goyetche: And I was feeling it and I was, ah, I got to go and then I had to back out.

Mark Blevis: Well, and you know what, I’ll be honest, a part of me was disappointed when I left the Meetup and said, you know I thought to myself, yeah, Bob never made it.

Bob Goyetche: But I did, yeah, yeah. It was at the thing on Sparks Street, wasn’t it?

Mark Blevis: Nice try.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah too late to try that. So we had the Montreal Meetup at La Quincaillerie on the Thursday night and then the Ottawa at the Clock Tower Brew Pub thing on the Saturday night. And the Montreal Meetup was interesting because it was really the first time of the reaching out between the English and the French podcasting communities. And as typically happened, there were two tables together, and the right table was English, the left table was French.

Mark Blevis: There was a little bit of mingling but there was a language barrier because Arthur Masters and I and Michelle came up from Ottawa and I don’t think any, well Michelle actually speaks French but she’s not a podcaster so she was kind of, she came along for the ride. But Arthur and I, I don’t believe Arthur speaks French, certainly I’m not comfortable in French and so until the ice kind of broke later on in the evening, everybody was still kind of in their little sections.

Bob Goyetche: Well, what was nice though was the guys from Daily WOM, which is DailyWordofMouth.tv came and did a nice interview and Yul Buzz, which is Y-U-L which is the airport code for Montreal. It’s not like a yule log. It’s Y-U-L which is the airport code. They came and they were very intrigued by the fact that there was a podcaster meetup happening and a lot of them thought it really was the first one, unfortunately not realizing that they’ve been happening in Montreal pretty much since 2004.

Mark Blevis: The one thing that Arthur and I agreed on, by the way, is next time there’s a meetup in Montreal, it has to be at a place that also serves food.

Bob Goyetche: And on the French side, they were saying it has to be in a place where the music isn’t as loud.

Mark Blevis: Yeah, oh yeah, actually we did have that conversation too but I think food was a priority for us because we had driven in from Ottawa and hadn’t eaten yet and then, you know, especially I mean I was drinking. Arthur wasn’t because he was driving but you know, I hadn’t eaten anything and suddenly there’s drinks plonking down in front of me. And yeah, it would have been nice to have something to eat at the restaurant instead of having to go chase it down.

Bob Goyetche: Well the restaurant next door to that bar had some of the best poutine in Montreal.

Mark Blevis: Yes..,

Bob Goyetche: So…

Mark Blevis: … I didn’t have the poutine.

Boy Goyetche: …so actually my idea for the next Montreal area Meetup would be to do it outside because now summer’s here, er…

Mark Blevis: Yeah that would be nice.

Bob Goyetche: …so maybe in Mount Royal Park or something like that, just go up on the mountain and you know, sit in the field and you can record, you can do anything and it doesn’t have to be loud music and techno and all this crap going on. There could just be people talking and having a good time and putting flowers in their hair and…

Mark Blevis: That sounds like a very different type of Meetup and I can enjoy that.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah, so after PAB, or we’ll try to do it before PAB for Montreal, I don’t know it that’s…

Mark Blevis: Yeah you do that, okay…

Bob Goyetche: Yeah, we’ll see what happens…

Mark Blevis: You see if you can swing that one.

Boy Goyetche: Yeah, it’s hard, it’s really hard to get a bunch of people together, especially people who aren’t used to getting, you know like…

Mark Blevis: Oh, I was thinking more of the time commitment involved and you know, I mean it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to organize a Meetup, but with everything else you have on the go with PAB and everything.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah, so maybe it will be after PAB but I really want to do one outside and I think, you know what, it would be cool to do one halfway between Montreal and Ottawa maybe outside. We could do one at Hawkesbury just on the waterfront there.

Mark Blevis: Yeah, that might be nice, yeah.

Bob Goyetche: You know, everybody in their car, there wouldn’t be too much drinking so because people would have to drive home, so it’d be a cheap Meetup and that might be fun. Yeah, podcasters across Hawkesbury, or something.

Mark Blevis: The other thing that’s worth mentioning by the way is when we had the Ottawa podcast Meetup, Scarborough Dude was there of course and the big topic of conversation for at least a time of the evening was the fact that Episode 100 was imminent. So at the time of our recording this episode, Scarborough Dude has already entered the Century Club. I haven’t listened to it but I see the show has been published.

Bob Goyetche: Okay, I hadn’t seen it yet, I just listened to 99. 100 shows for Scarborough Dude. That’s incredible when you think about it.

Mark Blevis: Considering he was going to stop at 60.

Bob Goyetche: And before that even, he was, you know, the first 5 shows were never even put on the Net, they were just on CD. So congratulations Scarborough Dude, 100 shows and…

Mark Blevis: A certificate at PAB right?

Bob Goyetche: Absolutely. And we have to actually; yeah we have to create…

Mark Blevis: Yeah, if you’ve hit a hundred shows, see it’s very hard to be on top of the community the way we were when it was just 110 podcasts that were being produced. So if you’ve hit 100 episodes since PAB 2006 and we don’t know about it, drop us a line and we will create your Century Club Certificate and we will induct you at PAB 2007.

Bob Goyetche: And it’s no joke, there are actually certificates signed by Mr. Mark Blevis and myself, attesting to the fact that you’ve put out 100 episodes of your show.

Mark Blevis: And you know what; don’t discount the value of that. You put that on a resume, you’re in.

Bob Goyetche: You know just that in advertising dollars alone is more than you’ve probably made podcasting.

Mark Blevis: And we don’t charge you for the paper and the ink.

Bob Goyetche: We do it for love.

Mark Blevis: Now last week we spoke about the fact that you had been interviewed for Southam/CanWest News and the article ran in a couple of papers.

Bob Goyetche: Right, it ran in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, it ran in the Vancouver Sun and in the Ottawa Citizen. And interestingly enough, the three, I mean, I’m not a newspaper guy so I don’t really know how they work but the source article was the same obviously. But the three articles that appeared in the papers were different. At least the edits were different, the ending quote was different or there was an extra paragraph or there was something different. So it was really like being in three different papers, sort of.

Mark Blevis: So congratulations and you had some incredible things to say. As always, you represented the community quite well.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah, there were just one of the versions of the article ended on me saying that you have to be a geek to listen and that quote got shortened and I wasn’t happy how that ended but…

Mark Blevis: It ended with “you have to be a geek”.

Bob Goyetche: Something like that, yeah. And it was like no, well now, where’s part 2 of my sentence? But the other two editions had the full quote which was of course, you have to be a geek and among the sexiest humans alive to podcast or something.

Mark Blevis: I must have read a different version of the article.

Bob Goyetche: You must have.

Mark Blevis: Just One More Book actually managed to get into a couple of publications in the last couple of weeks. Parksville Qualicum news out in BC ran a piece about us as part of a series that they are giving on literacy. And actually I think the Salt Lake City Tribune is doing the same thing. They were doing a series on literacy and mentioned, did a short write-up about Just One More Book. So it’s been a busy week for podcasting in the news.

Bob Goyetche: And speaking of podcasting in the news, Podcaster and Blogger magazine is looking for a correspondent to report on PAB.

Mark Blevis: So we’ve received a request to help find somebody who would be a correspondent for Podcaster and Blogger magazine, a correspondent at Podcasters Across Borders. So we have some information on what they’re looking for and we have a sample URL. So if you’re interested in acting as a correspondent for Podcaster and Blogger magazine, drop us a line and we’ll hook you up.

Bob Goyetche: And without wanting to actually divulge contents of personal communications, the line in her e-mail I liked the most was “I think a PAB story would work because yours is a community event, not a trade show”.

Mark Blevis: Yeah, well here it is right here, “I think that the PAB story would end up being a bit more laid back and less snarky than their coverage of the South by Southwest because yours is a community event, not a trade show.”

Bob Goyetche: So Mark, we’ve accomplished our goal.

Mark Blevis: We have.

Bob Goyetche: You know, seriously seeing that come back at us, the fact that we’re not a trade show. Yeah, I’m there.

Mark Blevis: Excellent. So yeah, let us know if you’re interested in being hooked up.

Bob Goyetche: Hey, you know what we should talk about? We should talk about Podcasters Across Borders because we’ve never mentioned it before.

Mark Blevis: Yeah, hopefully, I think people are just going to start to register to get us to be quiet about it.

Bob Goyetche: You know, the minute we have 160 registrants, we shut up.

Mark Blevis: That’s right.

Bob Goyetche: It’s as simple as that. Even if you’re not going, register.

Mark Blevis: What’s exciting is that we have now, we now have more people registered for this year’s event than we had registered for last year’s event and registrations, the early registration is over. So regular registrations kicked in and that’s $100.00 per person and we’ve started to receive those, so this event is very much alive and kicking and I’m confident that we’ll hit 160. Because we hit 80 in less than half the time and so we have another 80, well less than 80 to go now so this is, I’m pumped, I’m looking forward to this.

Bob Goyetche: And we received a few e-mails saying, you know what, even at $100 bucks you guys aren’t charging enough.

Mark Blevis: Well, and we should talk about the sponsorship in a minute after we go through the rest of these little quotes here.

Bob Goyetche: Good idea, good idea. So register by May 30th, because we’re printing shirts once again this year and what sets us apart from other events, your show ends up on this shirt that everybody’s wearing. So if you want your name on that shirt, register by May 30th because we do have to put it together and bribe Nico into doing a nice layout and getting the shirts done.

Mark Blevis: So to be clear, if you don’t get your registration in on or before May 30th, then your show name will not appear on the shirt. The hotel rate that we have available through the Holiday Inn is available, as part of a block of rooms that have been set aside for us, provided you register or you book your room on or before May 22nd. So that, that rate again of $155 for a non-smoking room with 2 double beds and free Internet access is available…

Bob Goyetche: No…

Mark Blevis: Okay, go ahead, sorry.

Bob Goyetche: Sorry, the wire, the Internet access there was something about that. People were, was it wireless or was it wired? Last year it was in fact wired Internet access. I don’t think that’s a problem really for anybody, bring a wire. I mean…

Mark Blevis: Most hotels will actually loan you a wire.

Bob Goyetche: In the actual conference facilities, we will have wireless routers set up so that you can connect.

Mark Blevis: With strict rules about what you can…

Bob Goyetche: Yeah…

Mark Blevis: How much band width you can suck up.

Bob Goyetche: Seriously, yeah, download your porn at home because it’s a limited pipe at the conference room but…

Mark Blevis: We’re not streaming audio, we’re not going to be uploading podcasts from the conference facilities.

Bob Goyetche: But you’ll be able to upload your flicker pictures and your blog posts while the conference is going on. We encouraged that last year and it was great for people who couldn’t make it because they felt like they were there, just with all the updates going on.

Mark Blevis: Now that we’ve mentioned the hotel rate, we’ve received a few e-mails from people last week about the cost of staying in the hotel. Like last year, you are not obliged to stay at the hotel where the conference is taking place, we’ve mentioned this on the Buffet before. There’s lots of options and so just check out some of the older episodes, go to the podcastersacrossborders.com website. Everything is listed there and don’t forget, you can share rooms. And there’s actually discussions taking place on the ROGIC Forums, the Podcasters Across Borders Forum on the ROGIC Forums.

Bob Goyetche: Which are new actually, we haven’t announced those ever.

Mark Blevis: Sorry?

Bob Goyetche: We haven’t announced those Forums yet.

Mark Blevis: Oh, sorry, well, there’s a Podcasters Across Borders Forum on the ROGIC Forums and there’s a link to that on the Canadian Podcast Buffet website and there’s also a group, a Facebook group for Podcasters Across Borders and discussions about room sharing have already started in both those places. So if $155 is a bit too much for you, maybe you’ll want to pair up with somebody and spend, what does that work out to? $77.50?

Bob Goyetche: So, and there’s also people looking for rides from the major metropolitan centres, I guess we’re looking at Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. So if you’ve got some seats available and you want to have somebody chip in on the gas, well get to the Forum. There’s people looking for lifts so get there. In fact, Brent left us this audio message:

“Hey guys, its Brent, the Closet Geek from The Closet Geek Show. I’m just calling because I finally registered for PAB and I’m in Toronto and I don’t drive and I don’t want to take the train all the way to Kingston. So I thought I’d ask your audience if any of them are from Toronto and going to Podcasters Across Borders if there’s a free seat in their car somewhere and I’ll pay gas. If you could ask that on the show, that’d be a huge help and my contact information is on my website, theclosetgeekshow.com. I’ll talk to you guys later, can’t want to see you at PAB. Bye.”

Bob Goyetche: And the Robert Farrell Band is secured. They’re actually, I think Mark taped them to his car or something, with duct tape.

Mark Blevis: I was trying to be very brief and concise with my words in the show notes.

Bob Goyetche: Okay, well…

Mark Blevis: Sue me.

Bob Goyetche: No, I’ll let Robert do that. So they’re booked, they are playing the whole Saturday night from 10:00 o’clock to, I think, well it is Ontario, so what is it 10:20?

Mark Blevis: No, nice. They’re on from 10:00 till I guess close, which is 1:00 I guess. Well actually that’s untrue, I think the bar closes at 2:00 but probably the band has to shut down at 1:00.

Bob Goyetche: And the only break they will take is when Scarborough Dude leads us on to, you know, covering the…

Mark Blevis: Cumby a…

Bob Goyetche: …yeah, Dean Martin classic, “That’s Amore”. But after that, Robert Farrell will be taking the whole Saturday night.

Mark Blevis: We had actually held a spot for, to open up for Robert and found that logistically it was a little bit easier this way, plus Robert definitely has the material and is a great live show, so no disappointments there. However, just this evening Bob you let me in on a note about somebody who could have opened up for Robert but unfortunately won’t be able to make it and has offered something else instead.

Bob Goyetche: This is so cool. If you listen to any of the music shows, in fact, we’ve played him on the Buffet when we used to play music.

Mark Blevis: Because he is Canadian.

Bob Goyetche: He is Canadian, he is out of Calgary, Alberta. Freddy Litwiniuk, who you’ve probably heard the single “Apart” was playing on the podcast for awhile and why this thing didn’t just take off, I’m not sure yet. But anyways, the whole album is just incredible. Freddy loves the podcasting community and feels he’s really been treated well so what he is going to do, he is sending us a case of CDs. Seriously, a case of CD’s. Every attendee to Podcasters Across Borders will get a copy of his album.

Mark Blevis: How cool is that?

Bob Goyetche: That is just amazing.

Mark Blevis: Well I think that just, that’s like a challenge now. Any other bands that want to promote themselves to the podcast community, you have a captive audience. And I think you mentioned that with Freddy, his whole CD is podsafe.

Bob Goyetche: Right, yeah. His whole CD actually, yeah, once it’s in your hands, you want to put it on your podcasts, you can. You can drop him a note to say, hey I played this song then, but you don’t have to. You have, by having the CD in your hands, you will have the right to play that on your show. Now I saw this also at Podcamp Boston. Uncle Seth had done this. They handed out CDs and saying here, here’s our single, play it on your show, it’s automatically podsafe. Now, no matter what kind of mechanism you use, if you are playing music on your show, you still have to go through the thing of getting the tune, and then making sure you have the rights, and yadda, yadda, yadda. So artists, if you want your music played, you’ve got a whole whack of podcasters getting together in June.

Mark Blevis: And if your whole CD is not podsafe, simply attach a sticker and indicate which songs are safe.

Bob Goyetche: So that’s it.

Mark Blevis: Or attach a note to the CD and say, these are the songs that you can play on your podcast, the rest of them please enjoy. So if you have any stickers that you want to put up, or another one, is get a Creative Commons sticker. Slap a Creative Commons sticker on the CD.

Bob Goyetche: So if you want your music distributed to podcasters at PAB, we’ll do that for you, that’s fine. You know, as far as I’m concerned, that’s part of the community building thing. And get in touch with myself, Mark and I split up the jobs. I’ll take this one. podcastersacrossborders@gmail.com and tell us how many CDs you want to give and we’ll make sure they end up in the hands of podcasters willing to play your music.

Mark Blevis: Now the other thing, there’s two other things that have happened in the sponsorship game this past week. The first, well not the first one, I guess this is really the second one is a sponsorship in kind. We’ve, Marion McDonald is going to transcribe all of the Conference audio that is released as part of the official Conference podcasts, released on the Canadian Podcast Buffet. So, all the speaking sessions, any of the socializing stuff, obviously any of the concert performances are not going to be transcribed. But all that basic spoken word stuff will be transcribed and released as part of the podcast feed when we release the Conference audio over the course of the summer.

Bob Goyetche: Now if you’ve ever paid attention or were attending a Julien Smith presentation either at Podcamp or Podcasters Across Borders or just if you had a beer with Julien Smith, he has explained to you that Google understands text, not audio. And that is the reason you’ll want to have your podcast transcribed, because that way, if you talked about bowling shoes, you end up with text that says bowling shoes, so when somebody Googles bowling shoes, you come up. That’s the whole idea, and that’s why transcriptions are a great idea and that’s why we are happy to be partnering with Marion about this, and just this is going to be amazing. It makes the presentations searchable.

Mark Blevis: And Marion’s also going to be transcribing this episode of the Canadian Podcast Buffet to demonstrate some of her skills and talents. And so you’ll be able to see that later on this week after the show is published and she’ll obviously be able to be reached if you’re interested in her services. Now the other thing too is we’re waiting to finalize all the details, but we’ve received our first official financial sponsorship offer. And so keep tabs on the Podcasters Across Borders website, that will be announced there in a blog post. And you know who you are, we’re very anxious to partner up with you, and thank you very much for your generosity.

Bob Goyetche: Yes, of course we thank you, and what’s also neat is, people have stepped up to the plate and say listen, I can’t make the Conference, but I’d like to contribute to the event. Remember, last year we had Darryl Cardido gave an iPod.

Mark Blevis: Yeah, this year he’s coming, so that’s…a bit of a loss…

Bob Goyetche: This year he’s coming…I don’t know, iPod – Darryl – iPod – Darryl, uh, I guess we’ll take Darryl. But some people have already contacted us about hey, I’d like to participate in the event, you know, like there’s Freddy with the CDs. There’s some people actually contributing money, saying here, I can’t go but here’s how much the registration costs, please use this money to help offset costs or, you know, buy some drinks or cheese or dip or something. So it’s really great to see this happening. It’s unsolicited but oh, so appreciated.

Mark Blevis: Okay, let’s wrap up our Podcasters Across Borders talk and we’ll jump right into Canadapodcasts.ca. There’s a new listing and you’ve heard of this one before because Sonya has been a guest of our show. Sassy Science is new in the Science category. Matter that Matters and Anti-Matter to You. Sassy Science is a Science and Music audio podcast hosted by Sassy Sonya, science adventurer also known as Sonya Buyting, science journalist, tv host and producer. She’s also into Science News, answers some big questions, super hero science and music, big with a fresh, sassy and scintillating take. It’s a feast for your mind and ears, Science and Music equals Sassy, from Toronto, Ontario.

Bob Goyetche: And in the Business and Finance category, Podcasting Unleashed. Scott Paton, Canada’s dean of bloggonomics and podology, brings you the latest news on marketing your business on-line from Coquitlam, B.C.

Mark Blevis: Now here are the interviews. We were actually going to play these on last week’s show until Tod grandstanded.

Bob Goyetche: Well, once you have Todd naked and pulling hairs off his hands with masking tape…

Mark Blevis: That’s entertainment.

Bob Goyetche: It’s really not fair to play an interview you’ve already had in the can at that point.

Mark Blevis: That’s right. But who its not fair to, we’re not sure yet.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah, it’s just wrong.

Mark Blevis: We got a lot of audio, or a lot of audio comments, we got a lot of comments on the post, last week’s episode.

Bob Goyetche: Mostly about people unable to sleep and disturbing images and you know…

Mark Blevis: That’s right.

Bob Goyetche: You know.

Mark Blevis: Well, we’re not doing that to you this week, this week we’re giving you the interviews. So Bob, why don’t you kick off.

Bob Goyetche: I had a chat probably about 10 minutes ago now, with Andy Bilodeau from the Andycast. The cool thing is, we did this interview with You Stream, which is a video streaming service and because we were both on computers that had cameras built in and stuff. He streamed his…

Mark Blevis: And because you’re geeks and you’re two of the most sexiest guys.

Bob Goyetche: Once you look at us, you can’t listen to us. We’re both, we’re just like that. So we were both, we both had our channels open and so he was broadcasting via from his end, and I was from my end. And we had actually people in the chat rooms for both channels, proposing questions and it was just, it was a neat way, it was also very unnerving because there was a visual queue. Usually when you interview through Skype or something like that, you’ll get just, here’s the question, answer it, I’ll just stare off into space for 10 seconds and then come back and try, you know, whatever. I mean it’s not always like that but it can be like that. But with video, any facial expression, the other person saw. So it was very much like a face-to-face interview, which was great and having the questions coming in from the floor was fun too. So, this is the interview I did with Andy Bilodeau with his secrets to happiness in life.

Andy Bilodeau: We need a theme song, du du du du, du du du.

Boy Goyetche: Keep going.

Andy Bilodeau: That’s all.

Bob Goyetche: Ah, okay. Joining me this week on the Buffet is Andy Bilodeau from the Andycast.

Andy Bilodeau: Howdy!

Bob Goyetche: How’s it going?

Andy Bilodeau: It’s going great. How are things up in the snowy north?

Bob Goyetche: They’re less snowy now than they were before.

Andy Bilodeau: But still north.

Bob Goyetche: Still north.

Andy Bilodeau: Cool.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah. Before we start, I just, I need to know who did the theme for Uninformed Biography?

Andy Bilodeau: The one and only Geoff Smith.

Bob Goyetche: Because I hear one episode of your show and that song is stuck in my head for the rest of the day, if not week.

Andy Bilodeau: Well, the funny thing is, he did the, he did both of the Andycast opening and he also did the Uninformed Biography and TJ was actually singing both of them. So that’s pretty funny.

Bob Goyetche: It’s, it works. You know a theme should be memorable and it works. So when did you start the Andycast?

Andy Bilodeau: Started the Andycast in July of 2005. I was a little bit of a slow off the mark there but I figured you know, there’s enough podcasts out there and I couldn’t do any worse than them, so I figured what the hell, give it a shot.

Bob Goyetche: Sounds like you heard a calling and answered it.

Andy Bilodeau: Yeah, at first it kept saying busy all the time but then I just kept trying and eventually I got through, kind of like American Idol but, you know.

Bob Goyetche: Okay. So has the form of your show changed at all as, from when you started, like, is this the show you have now, is that the idea you had for what you were going to have for a show?

Andy Bilodeau: No, but it’s a lot easier to do now. When I first started off, I really wanted it to be more of a variety show. I wanted to have like a, like you know, 45 minutes to an hour. But generating that much content really takes a long time. Actually, what I’ve done and I can thank my wife for this, is I’ve pared it down to the bare essentials and the stuff that actually I think, and she agrees, is the best, you know, using the Uninformed Biography as the cornerstone and the centre stone and probably the left stone a little bit. And then tacking on a little bit of chatting around at the front, a little bit of thank you’s at the end, and that’s basically 20 minutes in a nutshell.

Bob Goyetche: The standard questions that podcasters get, you know, are you planning to monetize or this kind of thing? What’s your goal with this, where are you going with this show?

Andy Bilodeau: I’m, for me personally, it’s just a whole lot of fun and as soon as it’s not fun, I’m going to stop doing it. And if I have 5 people listening, that’s great because I do this stuff just for me anyway. Whenever I put a podcast on, mine’s the first one I listen to. I don’t know if it’s because I like to hear my own voice or I just find the stuff I do funny so, you know, yeah.

Bob Goyetche: So tell me a bit about your set up, I know that obviously doing a one-man show with all different voices and stuff, there’s a lot of editing involved. So how are you set up? Are you like an audio pro, or are you using free tools or what are you using?

Andy Bilodeau: I’m fortunate enough that, you know, with my current employer that they are very good at handing out hardware, so I was one of the first people to get one of the Macro Pros and so it came with GarageBand and so I’ve been using GarageBand from day one. I tried Audacity and early on, it wasn’t working for me. I lost like 3 podcasts and GarageBand never lost any, so it won zero to 3. And I’ve been trying to migrate over to Soundtrack Pro just to get a little more control of things, but Viv likes the way she sounds better in GarageBand, so we’re staying with GarageBand.

Bob Goyetche: So you mentioned Viv’s project, you might as well mention what that show is, what’s that one?

Andy Bilodeau: Well she has a handful of, her actual main podcast is the CLIP Podcast, it’s the Critical Literacy In Practice. We were looking to call it Critical Literacy In Teaching, but the acronym just didn’t work properly, so we went with the practice side of it. But she has, she’s using podcasting, actually she’s using podcasting as part of the curriculum, not just as a tack on in two of her courses, her literature class and also for her regular teaching class. So she’s getting students to generate audio and putting it in on the K7 line so we clean it up, throw it on a feed for them and that’s part of their course work.

Bob Goyetche: So you have the Andycast that let’s you just mess around and poke fun and laugh, and then you have the CLIP Podcast which is more serious and you are held to a higher standard, I guess.

Andy Bilodeau: Yeah, basically, yeah. And it’s funny because her show we can get done in about an hour because she has, she’s got it really well set up and my show is a trainwreck, so it takes me about 2 ½ hours just to get the whole thing done so.

Bob Goyetche: You’ve been podcasting now like for, going into your second year pretty soon.

Andy Bilodeau: Yeah, it’d be 2 years in July.

Bob Goyetche: So what was the strangest thing or, what’s the thing that you didn’t expect that has happened to you as a result of your podcasting?

Andy Bilodeau: The weirdest thing was sitting on the Metro and having some guy across the train staring at me forever. I know, that’s what I kind of thought, oh what’s this guy want? And he walks up and goes, “are you Andy?”. I said “why?”. And he said “I listen to your podcast”. I said “no way” so that was kind of my big celebrity moment, that’s the weirdest thing.

Bob Goyetche: Did your head fit through the door the rest of the day?

Andy Bilodeau: Barely.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah.

Andy Bilodeau: Barely.

Bob Goyetche: That’s a cool thing to have happen.

Andy Bilodeau: Yeah.

Bob Goyetche: I get that when Mark sees me.

Andy Bilodeau: Oh, you’re that guy.

Bob Goyetche: Yeah, you’re the guy I do a show with.

Andy Bilodeau: Actually PAB was very interesting too, because there was actually people there that actually listened to the show and admitted it, in open public, and so that was kind of cool. You know, I went to the PME and it was just overload. You know, too many people, too many, too much stuff going on and then come to PAB and it was a nice crowd, a nice size, it was manageable for me anyway. You know, I’m kind of person phobic and so it was nice to be able just to go up and you know, quietly shake somebody’s hand without having, you know, 400 people jumping on you trying to talk to the same people, you know. It was cool and I think that was a highlight for me for 2006.

Bob Goyetche: So a question from the floor here, why did you defect from Canada?

Andy Bilodeau: Well, it’s a long involved story involving a lot of espionage and intrigue. No, not really.

Bob Goyetche: Can you make it short and interesting?

Andy Bilodeau: Yeah, actually Viv was, Viv did her doctorate work at Indiana University and our original intent was to be down there for a year and Viv would do her course work and come back home. But as things turned out, she got all kinds of opportunities and scored a huge job at a university here in the Washington area. And yeah, so we moved, we moved here to the BC area.

Bob Goyetche: So last year you were an attendee at PAB and this year, you’re going to be presenting.

Andy Bilodeau: Spooky.

Bob Goyetche: How do you feel about that?

Andy Bilodeau: I’m excited, I’m stoked. I was really impressed with all of the presentations last year. Some of them actually didn’t make sense to me until after, just because some people were talking on different plains, and trains and automobiles than I was at, at that point. Sorry about that, Bob.

Bob Goyetche: That’s okay.

Andy Bilodeau: So it wasn’t until afterwards that some of them started to make sense and down the road, they slowly started making more and more sense. And then I just thought, you know I was impressed with what, what you and Mark had done and Bruce, and I thought, at least I could bring a chuckle if not even bring a little bit of the 2 years of podcasting experience that I’ve had, and you know, share. I’ve always been very up front about sharing, anybody asks me a question about something, I’ve never held back, even if it’s for someone else’s gain. And, you know, if I can help somebody out or, better still, if they can help me out, I think that will be cool.

Bob Goyetche: So remind me, your session topic is…

Andy Bilodeau: It’s the 4 R’s of Podcasting because we are one “R” better than the rest. You know, they have reduce, reuse, recycle, that’s the 3 R’s. Reading, writing and arithmetic, you know, we give them some slack on that “R”. So I chose 4 R’s which are, let’s see if I can remember them now: Research, Writing, Recording and Releasing. So those, in my mind, those are the 4 big areas and in 30 minutes I’m going to cover all 4 of those in ad nauseam.

Bob Goyetche: So Andy give us the plug, where can we find your show, you and what’s coming up?

Andy Bilodeau: Well, the Andycast can be found at: andycast.net. I just changed that URL so it doesn’t have to be www. anymore. It’s just andycast.net and there you will find the show’s blogs and with links to all the episodes and linked to the RSS feed. The last Uninformed Biography was of Ron Bloom, which was, I think, pretty funny. But, of course, I’m biased because I think I’m funny, but that goes without saying. What do we have coming up? I have some more podshow people I am going to pick on, a few Canadian podcasters to pick on and some international podcasters to pick on. And oh, and some second life podcasters to pick on too. So, covering all the world.

Bob Goyetche: Wow, thanks for the chat.

Andy Bilodeau: Anytime, Bob.

Mark Blevis: You know the video doesn’t really come across when I was listening there, I was trying to imagine it, it just, it wasn’t working.

Bob Goyetche: It was weird how it was unwielding us at first, like it really threw us off when we could see each other and then it took us a while to find the rhythm.

Mark Blevis: Although I have to say, especially since the video was not part of what we just heard, I was a bit confused and worried when you said you both had your channels open. I don’t know if this is a, you know, a disgusting new term that’s making its way through the blogosphere and through this uStream tv. I don’t want your channel open near me, okay?

Bob Goyetche: Okay.

Mark Blevis: Now I sat down with Kathi Simmons and Andy Kaplan-Myrth, both of them will be presenting. They are actually presenting together at Podcasters Across Borders on legal issues and Creative Commons. And especially, and this is a real, I would say this is a real boon for Podcasters Across Borders, Kathi has written the Canadian Podcasting Legal Guide as part of her work at the technology law program at the University of Ottawa. And Andy was one of, I guess, several people who were overseeing some of the work that she was doing. So that will be announced, not announced, that will be released, published if you will at Podcasters Across Borders. And I sat down with them in the coffee shop and talked with them a little bit about legal issues and the Legal Guide.

Mark Blevis: How ever did you get mixed up with podcasters?

Kathi Simmons: With podcasters? I blame Andy entirely. I’m affiliated with the technology law program at Ottawa U, that’s why I chose Ottawa U for my law school. And I’ve sort of been doing all of my research projects, as much work as I can in different areas of the tech law program. And with Creative Commons being such a focal point at the Ottawa U program, I went to Andy when I wanted to do a directed research and he suggested the podcasting guide and it’s been really interesting.

Mark Blevis: Okay, since you brought up Creative Commons, let’s jump to Andy. How involved are you with Creative Commons Canada?

Andy Kaplan-Myrth: I’m one of 3 joint project leads for Creative Commons Canada right now. And so yeah, anything that gets done for Creative Commons here comes down to me or Marcus in Toronto or Tina in Montreal. We’ve got a few projects on the go now, this is the first one we’re going to finish up and this summer we’re going to get 2 or 3 different projects on track. So we’re hoping to be more visible now.

Mark Blevis: How prominent is podcasting in the Canadian Creative Commons movement?

Andy Kaplan-Myrth: I think to the extent that Creative Commons really enables the sorts of things that podcasters do, Creative Commons is prominent in podcasting. I’m not sure how prominent podcasting has been in the Creative Commons movement until now, until this Legal Guide, which I hope will make podcasters much more aware of what Creative Commons can do for them and let them use the licenses much more than they have in the past.

Mark Blevis: Okay, back to you, Kathi. What is in the Podcasting Legal Guide?

Kathi Simmons: All kinds of fun stuff. Well, the Podcasting Legal Guide, the aim of it is to sort of touch on all of the legal issues that podcasters might encounter with the types of content that they use. The primary focus is on copyright law, but there’s some stuff on trademarks, and a little bit on rights of publicity, but that’s not such a big issue in Canada as it is in the U.S. So it’s primarily a focus on copyright law and how to make sure that you clear all the rights for the content that you use.

Mark Blevis: Now is this a legal, is this a document that serves as legal advice?

Kathi Simmons: No, it doesn’t unfortunately. Well, what we’re trying to do is help podcasters understand the law as it applies to them and while we don’t purport to be giving legal advice, we are hoping that we can educate people so that they know how to go about clearing the rights and if they have legal questions, then we’re hoping the Guide can sort of point them in the right direction.

Mark Blevis: Copyright has always been the big issue in the podcasting community. What issue do we not talk about that we should be talking about?

Kathi Simmons: There’s a lot less focus on defamation and libel and those sorts of issues, but you’re right, the licensing is sort of where the money is, so that’s where most of the focus is.

Mark Blevis: How much does defamation and libel get discussed in the Legal Guide?

Kathi Simmons: It’s not discussed directly in the Guide because it wasn’t, didn’t feature very prominently in the U.S. guide. What I do talk about it a little bit and it sort of directs podcasters to specifics to the website. They have FAQs about defamation and resources that can help straighten out those sorts of issues.

Mark Blevis: You guys are both presenting together at Podcasters Across Borders, amazing conference. What can we expect at the presentation?

Andy Kaplan-Myrth: I’ll give an introduction to Creative Commons, talk about the origins of that movement and then what the licenses do, how they work, how you can get them and what they mean. And then Kathi will talk about the podcasters, I’m sort of volunteering you here, right? Kathi will talk about the Legal Guide itself and sort of how the licenses are, how they apply to podcasting in particular.

Mark Blevis: You and I run into each other a fair bit and we’ve talked about Creative Commons licenses before. And one thing that we once talked about was the share-alike clause, and how that might impact your content when it goes upstream to the next level. What can you say about the share-alike clause, you know, are there any gotchas that we should know about?

Andy Kaplan-Myrth: Probably not, I think there’s a conception that there’s a gotcha in the share-alike clause. People talk about it as possibly being viral, and it’s not supposed to be viral. The way the license is written, it’s not intended to be viral in that way. So here is the danger that I think people see. They’re going to write a song and license it under a Creative Commons attribution, share-alike license which will let people make derivative works under the requirement that they then re-license it under share-alike licenses. Now that song gets picked up in a podcast and the question really is, how can the podcast then be licensed? Does the podcast have to be licensed under the same Creative Commons share-alike license, or can it be all rights reserved, or can it be, you know, anything else? The answer is, as long as it’s the song is being included in a podcast and that, as part of a collection of songs in the podcast, it’s not being adapted in any way, it’s sort of just being combined with others, side by side, then that share-alike license doesn’t attach to the rest of that podcast. So the podcast can fall under any license, Creative Commons or otherwise. If the podcaster takes the song and adapts it somehow or, you know, if you remix it with other songs or you completely re-record it, then you’re required to, then the share-alike clause comes into effect and you’re required to re-license your work under the same license. So it’s not, it’s not viral in the sense that it’s attaching to things that are nearby, but it sort of sticks with that work and anything that that work turns into.

Mark Blevis: Canada has a surprising lack of legal podcasts, I don’t think we have any, none that I know of. And here you are, you’re now immersed in podcasting, you’ve written the Podcasting Legal Guide, you’re going to the Conference and you’re going to present. And there’s going to be a lot of people hounding you with questions, I’m sure. How likely is it that you will start your own podcast?

Kathi Simmons: Probably not out of the realm of possibility, because I find it very interesting. But as I’m just finishing up law school and starting to try to get my life together, it probably won’t be in the next, next little, in the near future I don’t think it will happen, but it’s definitely a possibility. The more engaged I become with different sorts of issues like this, the more interesting it becomes to me. So I wouldn’t rule it out but I wouldn’t look for it anytime in the super near future.

Bob Goyetche: So I’m really looking forward to seeing that Legal Guide.

Mark Blevis: And you know, I got to, I had a sneak preview of it. It was like attacking them when they announce the budget and everybody gets sequestered into a room and you can read it but you can’t really talk about it until a certain time.

Bob Goyetche: Did you have to buy new shoes? Isn’t that like a tradition?

Mark Blevis: Yeah, you know they didn’t say, and I was wearing old shoes, but I was quite comfortable. It’s actually, it’s really well done and one of the things I think that will really help people out is there’s a chart in the book that they’ve worked really hard to create, which really illustrates the rights that you need to be concerned about and under what conditions you need to be concerned about them. And they’re also, when we spoke, Kathi and Andy were talking about, I guess, the concept of including some examples. So I cited some real world examples I’m familiar with in the podcasting community and I think they’re going to try and put some words around those to help people understand a little bit better.

Bob Goyetche: Now, the Legal Guide will be free, right? We don’t have to buy this or anything?

Mark Blevis: It is Creative Commons’ licensed.

Bob Goyetche: Wow that, wow that rocks!

Mark Blevis: Yeah, so if you’re there and you should also know that Kathi, of course, besides presenting, she’ll be around the Conference. So if you have any questions, now it can’t be legal advice of course, but if you have any questions, make sure you catch her and ask her. And also, put the pressure on her to do a podcast, a legal podcast for Canada, because I think we’re amazingly short in that category.

Bob Goyetche: It’s time for the Podcast Lounge.

Mark Blevis: And we each had one relevant post.

Bob Goyetche: One relevant post. My post was basically a result of me doing some work on the Podcasters Across Borders site, strangely enough. I don’t know why, we’re spending a lot of time on this PAB thing, aren’t we?

Mark Blevis: Yeah, we have and we don’t talk about it often enough, I guess.

Bob Goyetche: It’s like all-consuming. Seriously, if you haven’t done your own Conference, it takes up a lot of your time. But it’s so much fun. I guess it was just the realization as I was listing, adding the registrants to the list on the right-hand side of the page and let me just open something right now. If you’re coming to PAB, you’re going to be meeting a lot of people. I would recommend that you look on the right-hand side of the Podcasters Across Borders page, look at the shows. Those are all links to the shows and web pages of people attending. Go listen to those shows because this person will be in your face in June. Wouldn’t it be cool to say, “I heard when you talked about that Spider and Hammer thing”, absolutely it would be cool. So why don’t you go listen and you get an idea for the people’s shows, you might find stuff you really enjoy, and also you’ll have something to talk about when you meet them face-to-face. It’s really, I’m going to go through every show that’s on that list and listen to at least 2 episodes.

Mark Blevis: I think we’ve agreed that we’re going to try and do that, yeah.

Bob Goyetche: So my post was basically, as I was putting that list, or updating that list, I was just like, wow, this is no vendors, no sponsorship per se yet, just on the strength of the community in Canada and I guess North Eastern U.S. Look at the people attending. I was just blown away by it. We had an idea this was going to be a few beers last year, and then Mark, you got involved and said, “no, no, no”, we can do much better than that. And we did.

Mark Blevis: I have a way of doing those things I suppose.

Bob Goyetche: And it was just great, I mean I was just literally blown away by, you know, this is something we do as a hobby. And all of a sudden, we’re now talking about multiple hundreds of people getting together in a hotel in Kingston to celebrate and exchange with each other. And it’s like, I was just blown away by it. It was very much a Scarborough Dude moment, I guess.

Mark Blevis: It really has the feeling of being friends. Like it’s small enough that I really feel like I’m meeting friends that I’ve known for awhile and I’m getting together with friends I haven’t seen in a bit. Now my post was actually coming back to some of the press coverage that we received and we talked about earlier in this episode, that traditional print publications really haven’t gotten this on-line thing yet. And their two biggest failings is, and one of them is a bigger failing than the other, I suppose. I mean they haven’t really connected with the idea of the Internet being the Web. And by Web, everything is kind of spiders off and connects to each other somehow. So they fail in two ways: one is, they are not putting URLs, type-written URLs next to the, whether you know it’s a podcast or a blog or an event or a company. They’re not saying the URL, how to find these places. But more significantly in their on-line editions especially, they’re not linking to these places. So they’re really doing a disservice to their readers, if they are trying to attract people to their site and as offering a worthwhile service and a convenient service, they’re really falling short. And if they’re doing it for, you know, the same thing, you know, falling short on the paid subscriptions, boy that’s, you’re not getting value for your money.

Bob Goyetche: It’s a hard bridge to cross into, you know, from traditional media to on-line media.

Mark Blevis: Well you know, and if they’re concerned if it’s just like this devil, you know, they’re worried about this and I think I put a quote in my post, about Michael Corleone saying “I keep my friends close and my enemies closer”. If you don’t embrace it, and somebody else does, you’re done for, because it’s not like a newspaper. When you’re on-line, people will flock to places and once they’re comfortable, they’ll stay there.

Bob Goyetche: So it’s time for the Buffet Special and you know what, I’m looking at the fridge and the time. We don’t have time do a Buffet Special.

Mark Blevis: Well, and it appears to be all sold out.

Bob Goyetche: Right. So let’s save it for next week.

Mark Blevis: Which happened actually at the Clock Tower Brew Pub, some of the food that we wanted to order was actually sold out that night. So if it can happen at a Pub, it can happen on the Buffet. Okay.

Bob Goyetche: When is the next Meetup at the Clock Tower Brew Pub?

Mark Blevis: I don’t know, it’s, this one, there’s usually a monthly Meetup on a Thursday night, with the Ottawa Podcast Meetup Group. And I haven’t seen an announcement of the May one as of yet. But I have a busy May and I don’t know, I might actually end up doing some work travel so I don’t know if I’ll end up attending it if it does happen.

Bob Goyetche: Well, let’s try to get the Buffet Special going for next week then.

Mark Blevis: Okay.

Bob Goyetche: Okay. So I’m thinking this would now be a good time to wrap it up.

Mark Blevis: Let’s wrap it up then.

Bob Goyetche: Alright. Our website is: canadianpodcastbuffet.ca. Note the “ca” domain, and if you have a “.ca” domain, oh I’m sorry for you because it’s such a pain in the butt. But anyways, you can leave us a message on our phone system, 267-220-3701. And if you called last week based on Todd giving out the phone number, he got the area code wrong. He did. Go back and listen to #62. He actually gave out the phone number wrong.

Mark Blevis: And I didn’t catch that in the edit, I guess.

Bob Goyetche: No, so what that tells me is nobody is bothering to call except for Brent, who needs a ride to PAB.

Mark Blevis: Would somebody please give Brent a ride.

Bob Goyetche: Give him a ride or call the Buffet comment line, 267-220-3701, long distance is cheap now, you can call and say “Hi, Bob and Mark, we love you”. That’s all we ask.

Mark Blevis: And you don’t even have to call with your phone line, you can use Skype Out.

Bob Goyetche: Call from work.

Mark Blevis: Just don’t tell us you’re calling from work.

Bob Goyetche: Right. Our e-mail address Mark is…

Mark Blevis: Is canadianpodcastbuffet@gmail.com. Yeah, I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention, I don’t know what else you did, did you do the forums?

Bob Goyetche: No.

Mark Blevis: We have the ROGIC Forums and there’s a link to those from the Canadian Podcast Buffet website and Bob has added the Podcasters Across Borders Forum in that section. And if you’re on Facebook, Bob has also added a Podcasters Across Borders Group and there’s some activity in there including and I said earlier in the show, both the Forum and the Facebook Group discussions for hotel room sharing.

Bob Goyetche: And if you’re on Twitter, you can add Podcasters Across Borders as a Twitter Friend, because we’re nothing if we’re not social media whores.

Mark Blevis: The Canadian Podcast Buffet is a proud member of the ROGIC Podcast Conglomerate.

Bob Goyetche: See you next week.

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