Podcasting is a huge business these days, weighing in at $11.07 billion market value in 2020. Expected to grow to $60.50 billion in 2027. WOW!
Long before podcasting became huge, back in 2006, I helped to start the Chicago Podcast Meetup group. The great Leigh Hanlon, one of coworker friends at Tribune Media Services, shared a love for podcasts. He invited me to help with the group.
On October 3, 2006, we had our first meetup. In anticipation of this ground-breaking event, I published a blog post with a list of the planned attendees. Every name in the list has a link to their respective podcast. You’ll see my name on the list at the bottom, but I have no link to my podcasts, because I had no podcast back then.
At that point in 2006, I had been blogging almost every day for five years. Podcasting seemed to be a natural branch from blogging. The podcast meetups were fantastic for meeting other people who regularly put out podcasts, learning how they do it. They were an inspiration. But honestly, I always felt a little silly for being one of the organizers, but not having my own podcast.
And now in 2020, I find five podcast episodes I recorded in February and March of 2005!!!
Whoaaaaa! I have podcast episodes from 2005?! I nearly fell out of my chair when found these exist. I had completely forgotten that I recorded these!
The audio quality is extremely bad. I don’t know what these episodes are recorded with—probably on my flip phone (LG VX6000). But hey, the podcast audio files exist! The episodes are pretty much me rehashing blog posts I made.
Matt Maldre’s five podcast episodes from 2005:
- !!!exclamation party!!! (56 seconds)
- Chicago Cubs not doing good with opening games lately (72 seconds)
- What type of Chicago Cubs tickets sell out first (3 minutes)
- Five reasons why commercials before movies are enjoyable (2 minutes)
- Things i get mixed up (3 minutes)
Later on in 2007, I recorded eight more podcasts that were on my dedicated podcast website, maldreradio.com. But I took the site down in 2012. For now, here’s a screenshot of the 2007 files.
Maybe I’ll start recording new podcasts of my blog posts now. It’s fun having an audio version.