PME Wrap-up: Back to the Future

I spent the weekend in lovely beautiful sunny (yeah, at least it was sunny) Ontario, CA for the Podcast and Portable Media Expo. In its second year, it brought together over 2,000 attendees who ran the gamut from new podcaster up to some of the most widely-known podcasters around (yes, I met the ninja and lived to talk about it!). I gave a presentation on Friday about the basics of creating and enhancing a feed — I’ll link to the audio when it’s available; I’ll upload my slides as well and will point to them once I get to that. (To those in the audience — sorry for the delay, I’ve had almost no time at the computer since Friday and am now playing catch-up on e-mail. I’ll get there.)

One of the highlights of the show was reconnecting with a former high school classmate, Tim Coyne, who is the host of The Hollywood Podcast. Tim recognized me while walking the show floor, and we spent a fun few minutes reminiscing before we both had to get back to work. I’ve now subscribed to his feed (he wisely uses FeedBurner!) and had a blast catching up on his life while flying back from LA yesterday.

One episode in particular stands out: his interview of Christian Finnegan, another former classmate of mine (Tim was a year behind me, Christian was two years behind me) and fellow St. Elizabeth’s parishioner… Many of you will know Christian as Chad on Dave Chappelle’s Mad Real World sketch, or as host of VH1’s Best Week Ever. I knew him as the lead in Grease (a sophomore getting the lead in a high school play, that was a big deal back then), interacted a bit as a result of the band, and my girlfriend in high school was very active in the theater group (as was Christian). Amazing to find out what a career he’s already had — even moreso given that I’d seen Mad Real World at least a half dozen times and never connected the dots that this was the guy I knew in high school.

The first of many interviews I did while at PME is up at the San Francisco Chronicle, I’ll post links to the others when they’re out if they’re worth listening to. (I progressively lost my voice throughout the show thanks to a late summer cold; by the end I think I sounded like Chewbacca. Not a good thing at a podcast conference.)

It was great to get some time with David Lawrence, who’s just a fun guy and who can cause me to burst out in hysterical laughs with the merest mention of Mexican Sugar Wafers (yeah, you probably had to be there). Other folks who were great to see, in no particular order: CC Chapman, Paul Colligan, Kris Smith, Shel Holtz, Evo Terra, the Sex is Fun crew, Keith & Doug from Ask a Ninja, Scott Simpson and Pete Alcorn from Apple, Mark Chernesky, Frank Barnako, Holland Cooke, Greg Cangialosi, Tim Bourquin, and I’m sure I’m leaving out tons of others.

It was overwhelming to hear such consistently great feedback from podcasters who love FeedBurner — many signed our t-shirt (much like last year’s poster, and the crew back in the office has already had fun seeing a bunch of familiar names on it.