Life on Mars? Yearly Check-in

Well, a year ago - I announced that I'd be taking a podcast hiatus. Little did I expect it would be a year long one. The move I spoke of back then has turned into two, approaching number three. Real Life 2.1 is now at version 5 due to the contant crashes of the previous versions. Not at all what I wanted but as Mick sings "You can't always get what you want.."

I had hoped sometime to get back to this and at least try to do something with the show, but here we are a year later and still no cast. I still want to do the online gaming show - I just need to find a time my guests and I can set aside and get it done. Beyond that is the vast open expanse of topics to do and guests to find in order to break up the monotony of my "mumbles". On that, however, there is a possible light on the horizon.

Recently I learned about a new service called "Talkshoe" which is a Talkcast/Podcast system that provides a no-login streaming listen-only audio feed, and for registered users, a directed/threaded text chat, and access to a commercial grade voice bridge that allows callers to conference live - and record/stream simultaneously. Registration is free and allows both participation in shows, or the ability to host your own show.

So why is this any different that tossing a bunch of people on teamspeak and doing a regular shoutcast/podcast? While you can get quite a few people on teamspeak with a good server, there is a limit - plus Teamspeak has a ton of lag.

Since this service uses a telephone number as its access, you open it to home phones, cell phones, and VoIP with free programs such as Skype and SJPhone allow computer users to dial telephone numbers at zero cost. Also a commercial grade telecommunications bridge could handle hundreds to thousands of callers at once with very little lag! It's a major change to how this has traditionally been done by the average internet talk shows and opens a huge potential base of both listeners and show hosts.

So I've gone ahead and created a Mars Mumbles Talkshoe show. You can click on the Talkshoe button in the left column to get to the show page. I can't promise how active that show will be but I'll do my best to make at least a few episodes.

And I'll see if I can get it all done before Oct 29th 2007 too. ;)