I never thought one of our network sites would be outed by Valleywag, but that's what happened today :-) I'm pleased to introduce Read/WriteTalk, a brand new podcasting show produced by Sean Ammirati and myself. Sean is the driving force behind the show, so all credit goes to him for setting it up and doing the podcasts. By day, Sean is the VP of Business Development and Product Management at personalization startup mSpoke - so Read/WriteTalk is a part-time gig for him. There are still a couple of minor design issues that we wanted to fix up before announcing Read/WriteTalk, but now that the site is out there we'll tell you what it's about.
The tagline behind the show is "The People Behind The Web" and Sean will be interviewing a number of major players in the Web Technology industry over the coming months. The opening podcast features Jason Calacanis and - as well as the Samurai quote that Valleywag picked up on - Jason gives a lot of informative details about his background and experiences as an entrepreneur. Jason also reveals how he came up with the idea behind Mahalo, the people-powered search engine he founded this year, and how he went about launching the product (also see our review of Mahalo). To add spice to the podcast, there are also a couple of none-too-subtle digs at Valleywag and in particular Jason's arch-nemesis Nick Denton!
We will be providing complete transcripts for each podcast. For example Sean asks: "If you could give one piece of advice to entrepreneurs, maybe you were at this debut and we’re out doing Silicon Alley Reporter, what would that piece of advice be?". Jason replies:
"Never give up, resiliency and being an entrepreneur is about who can withstand the largest number of challenges, detractors, negativity. Anybody who‚Äôs doing anything that‚Äôs ethic or worthy of attention is going to basically be attacked until that‚Äôs not possible. And you‚Äôre going to face days where you wakeup and the challenge that you see is insurmountable. And the people who do great things in life are the people who look at those insurmountable challenges and say, ‚ÄúI‚Äôm going to try and get through somehow.‚Ä?And the person who would stand the most pain is the one who typically wins. It sounds crazy but you know I‚Äôve seen so many entrepreneurs just give up. And it‚Äôs like, ‚ÄúYou know what, if you just made it over that next hill, you would have made it to the promise land.‚Ä? It‚Äôs like sort of people trying to swim for shore, lost in the desert and trying to get past that final sand dune and the oasis is there. And some people don‚Äôt give up when they‚Äôre 50% of the way there, 80% of the way there. So resiliency and never giving up and pursuing your passion, those are the things that I really think an entrepreneur is made of."
So check out Read/WriteTalk and subscribe to it in your iTunes or whatever method you use to track podcasts. Sean has other great interviews lined up and he'll be out and about at conferences too, with the Read/WriteTalk microphone in hand.
p.s. the irony of launching Read/WriteTalk on the same day Alex Iskold wrote Will Podcasting Survive? hasn't escaped us either ;-)
Comments
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Congrats!
Posted by: steve | August 28, 2007 1:26 PMSo that whole post about the death of podcasting was just to pump us up before you released yours?
Hmmm. Strange tactic.
Tim McCormack
Posted by: Tim McCormack | August 28, 2007 2:16 PMiRent2u.com - the Online Rental Marketplace
Congrats Richard!
Posted by: Allen Stern | August 28, 2007 2:29 PMI've written the post without the knowledge of the launch, so I take the blame.
Congratulations to Sean and Richard and best of luck! The show is off to a great start, because Jason is one of the best people in podcasting today.
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | August 28, 2007 2:37 PMYes it certainly is an odd way to launch a podcast show, but we were planning on waiting a bit longer to smooth out the design some more (e.g. the logo link isn't working right now). But anyway, Alex's post is - as always - very thought provoking about the state of the podcasting industry. Well worth a read, after you listen to Jason's interview ;-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 28, 2007 2:48 PMGood luck. I think the main thing that makes or breaks podcasts is the technical accessibility factor. If you want people to listen, make it easy to listen to and provide many ways to subscribe or download automatically, without people having to go through long technical installations to get your show.
Posted by: Roy Osherove | August 28, 2007 3:09 PMI'll spare the direct link to the blog post in this comment (find it kind of annoying most times). I wrote about this there. if you're interested, my name is linked to the blog.
Congrats guys, cant wait to check it out.
Posted by: sameer | August 28, 2007 3:59 PMCongratulations to Richard and Sean! I expect R/W/T to be an invaluable resource to entrepreneurs and participants in "the conversation". It is always great to hear and learn from the best.
Also, Sean is the best young entrepreneur I have ever worked with and I know he will bring an interesting perspective to the interviews. Maybe he can become the next Charlie Rose, Donny Deutsch, or Kevin Rose - I had to throw Kevin in because I don't think Sean knows the other Fred Wilson-era guys ;-)
Posted by: Dave Mawhinney | August 29, 2007 5:41 AM