ReadWriteWeb

Few things in life meet their expectations. Trust me, that is the concept Dave Anthony and I have based our entire Walking the Room podcuddle around. So last month, when, two days before our first WTR-flavored live show, I realized that the 100 Paul Armstrong "Starfish Circus" posters I ordered were going to arrive three days after the gig, I thought, "Here we go!"

Early phone calls to the club revealed that ticket sales were light and the Walking The Room shirts still had yet to be made. The morning of the show, I was filled with dread. My mind racing with the thought, "It's too early in the Cuddle to do this. We don't have enough fans!" Par for the course, I was wrong.

Social media's like punk rock, it knocks down walls for all, and that's good. But it frees up as much, or more, rubbish as it does material of quality. Nevertheless, some people, usually those with a love-hate relationship with radio, were very enthusiastic lo these many years ago, about the platform that podcasting provided. That enthusiasm has waned in recent times. (Though not for everyone.) Lately, comedy seems to be revitalizing it.

Comedy podcasts run the length of the field, from one-man ruminations to frantic bit-factories to interview shows. Some are free, some cost, and many offer a combination of the two options. Below the fold, I offer a far-from-inclusive introduction to different types of comedy podcasts and have tried to include a few that are acknowledged to be influential.

Taylor McKnight has been called a "serial mashup developer" and he's involved in some of the coolest mashup sites we've seen in recent years. Three years ago he won the grand prize at the first ever MashupCamp for his site PodBop ("We podcast bands coming to your town"). Then he came on board at one of the most popular little music sites on the web, Hype Machine. He's also working in a little startup called Sched.org, a service that started by offering an unofficial calendar for the SXSW festival and now pays the bills building custom social schedules for other events.

Today Taylor McKnight launched a new site that he's been working on since Spring, and he says it's like Hype Machine for standup comedy.