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Grassroots conferences: PodcasterCon doin’ it right

The PodcasterCon people are taking a very interesting approach to their conference. I had to do a lot of looking around their site to see who was behind it because I was curious if it was Eric Rice because he mentioned a plan to do one back in the day. But it’s not. It’s a guy named Brian Russel of Audioactivism.org. Good job Brian.

I really like the community-based approach and openness - especially with the budget. Seems like a great way to appeal to newbies and bring more people into podcasting, and an excellent way to throw open a conference’s agenda.

I’m not a podcaster; I’m not even a consumer of podcasting. But this sort of event softens my view of the media, especially in the face of all the fluff in the last week, like this tragicomic piece from Frank Barnako on the Adam Curry/Sirius thing. You have to login to MarketWatch (free, at least) to read the whole thing, but it’s high melodrama and well worth it for gems like “Reaction to the strategy cast has been negative, beginning with comments from a computer programmer who originally worked with Curry to develop podcasting software.” It then moves to cover Paris Hilton, which is probably where the debate belongs.

In the hype and personal driven world of blogging, podcasting and video blogging, it was incredibly refreshing to need to dig thru the PodcasterCon site to find the honchos. Bravo!