Skepticblog

Own Horn Tooted

“What is Stitcher?” I asked, in reply to the “Click here to set up your account” email. I’d gotten half a dozen complaints, via email and Twitter, from Skeptoid listeners who found that Skeptoid had disappeared from their Stitcher application. I’d had no idea what Stitcher was. My bad, it so happened. Stitcher is a free app that streams your favorite podcasts and other content, plus recommended similar content. And it turns out that, without my even knowing about it, a lot of my listeners already used it and loved it. It’s no flash in the pan; in fact, your next BMW, Chevy, or GM auto will have a Stitcher button to stream your favorite shows to your car stereo wherever you go.

So that’s Stitcher, a significant player in the Internet audio industry. This year they held their first annual Stitcher Awards for podcasts in a number of categories. When I saw the nominees for Best Science, I was intimidated to say the least:

• StarTalk with Neil Degrasse Tyson, a commercial radio program
• Science Friday, a radio program from National Public Radio
• 60-Second Science, from Scientific American
• Ask the Naked Scientists, from the British Broadcasting Corporation and Cambridge University
• Skeptics Guide to the Universe – An independent show run by 5 people.
• Skeptoid – An independent show run by 1 guy. Continue reading…

On September 23rd starting at 8pm Eastern time the cast of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast (SGU) will produce a 24 hour live audio and video streaming event – SGU-24. The event was my idea, which the Rogues never let me forget, especially as we approach the event and panic starts to set in. This is the first time we are doing anything like this, which reminds me of how experimental our entire endeavor is.

I am not just talking about the SGU, but skeptical activism in general. As a community we seem to be willing to take risks and try out new technology. In early 2005, for example, podcasting was a brand new idea. They were not even included in iTunes. Yet several skeptical podcasts popped up – Skepticality was the first, followed shortly by SGU, and before long there were also Skeptoid, Point of Inquiry (which already existed as a radio show) and others. Skeptical podcasts have always had a solid representation among the top science podcasts, and I think this is partly due to getting established early.

As I have observed before – adopting Web 2.0 and social media early on was critical to the recent surge in skeptical activism. We went from a loose collection of small local groups rallying around three national groups to a large and thriving activist community.

Continue reading…