Filed under: Features
TUAW Live: Talkcast Thursday 8/2 9:30p ET
If you've listened to any of the TUAW podcasts, you already know what your friendly neighborhood bloggers sound like... but we have no idea what you sound like. That's about to change: announcing the first-ever live audio chatcast from TUAW, via the Talkshoe platform, tomorrow, Thursday 8/2, at 9:30 pm ET (0230 GMT). Our topic is "One Month of iPhone" and we'll be taking some of your questions and comments, audio or text, live during the half-hour show; we might even find the time to give away a couple of genuine TUAW souvenirs to some lucky participants.Since this is the first time we've done a live show, and since there are bound to be a few hiccups, we'd like to limit the audience to invited guests only for this outing. How to get invited? Simple -- go register for a Talkshoe.com account, download the client, and come back here to leave a comment letting us know you're coming. We'll send out an email with the show link on Thursday afternoon. You can listen in via the client or over a conventional/VoIP phone call once you have the show info.
Looking forward to hearing from all of you soon!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Robin said 8:05AM on 8-01-2007
A TUAW Ventrilo Server for the event next week, yes please :)
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Richard Shillington said 8:11AM on 8-01-2007
My username is rickshill. Add Me To The List of Invites.
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Chris said 8:40AM on 8-01-2007
I'll be there - masto
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Max said 8:44AM on 8-01-2007
I'll be there, I hope!
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Victor Agreda Jr said 9:23AM on 8-01-2007
Be aware their site isn't perfect-- took me 3 tries to create an account. But it worked eventually! I should be there, stinkin' up the joint.
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Joe said 9:27AM on 8-01-2007
I tried Talkshoe and was thoroughly dissatisfied with their audio quality. You need to use a phone connection - which makes my recording gear completely pointless. If I want to record something at telephone quality, I'll call a landline and talk to the answering machine.
Plus, a podcast I subscribe to had terrible support issues with them, and Talkshoe inserted these horrible clips at the beginning and ending of each episode. They need to hire someone with actual voiceover experience, rather than stroke the ego of the owner.
I like TUAW, but I won't be giving any support to Talkshoe.
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Michael said 9:36AM on 8-01-2007
Let the good times roll....
I'd like to join in in your talkcast
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Peter said 10:57AM on 8-01-2007
I'll have to listen to the recording, as we have Geek Night here in the 'burgh and I'm committed to that on Thursday. Maybe I'll call in from there and check in.
I do work at TalkShoe, but I'll try to keep my comments concise in response to the other comments. Joe - you can contact us and we'll point you toward some great-sounding tech shows that might just show the potential to do some high-quality shows with TalkShoe. A traditional phone isn't required many do use their recording equipment, as we support VoIP connections (SIP and our own beta client), and we're exploring better quality methods like wideband VoIP and other technologies.
Oops, I went into a little more detail than I thought after all. :-)
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Joe said 11:30AM on 8-01-2007
Peter: Whether it's VoIP or traditional phone, it still gets put through the traditional phone lines, which cuts down quality and adds latency. I'm a bit biased, admittedly, since most of my recording is done onsite rather than remotely, but if the TUAW cast is going to record live I feel they'd provide a better experience if they offer a live stream from their own servers and provide a direct VoIP connection for callers. And I'm not trying to say TS is terrible - just that I think that the service is not as good as it could be and I'm not ready to trade the benefits of onsite recording (or direct ISDN) with the convenience that Talkshoe offers.
The customer service and unprofessional bumps are still an issue though, and service was cited as the main reason that the podcast I listen to left TS.
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Michael Rose said 11:40AM on 8-01-2007
Joe, Peter, thanks for the comments. We're going with Talkshoe as an experiment and we'll see how it works out.
Joe, couple of notes -- a) since we're hosted via the Weblogs Inc./AOL systems we're not in a position to self-host a live audio program, nor are we prepared to manage inbound call setup without something like the Talkshoe client.
b) For your own recordings, is there a reason not to use Ubercaster or Audio Hijack to record your local audio + Skype/Gizmo VoIP connection to Talkshoe? You'd get the full quality of your own configuration with the voice feed from Talkshoe.
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Peter said 11:41AM on 8-01-2007
Joe - feel free to contact us for more detail as I don't want to clutter the TUAW comments section with TalkShoe support, but I do have to correct one thing: everything does come in to a conferencing bridge but a direct VoIP connection which we do offer for callers to one of the VoIP cards on that bridge will not traverse a traditional POTS line. See this FAQ which will lead you to more info on connecting directly with a SIP client (and you can alway sign up for our ShoePhone beta client - which many hosts do if they aren't using a SIP client - which is also a direct VoIP connection for callers): http://www.talkshoe.com/se/voip/
And we do agree that the service isn't yet as good as it can be (nothing ever is though) and continue to make improvements as quickly as we can. Thanks for the input about the bumps and such. I'm not a marketing/sales/exec, so I should stop there - I'm just a techie member of the team and can only speak well to those points :)
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Joe said 12:13PM on 8-01-2007
Thanks for your responses guys, and I don't want to clutter the comments here and risk decreasing TUAW's audience for the podcast. Peter, I'll look into TS a little more when I get a chance (I'm currently swamped in video production).
Mike, thanks for the explanation there - I wasn't taking into account your position within a much larger beast, and the limitations on streaming things yourself. I'll listen to the TUAW podcast later on, to see how the quality comes out. I am interested in both parties succeeding, despite how some of this might have come across.
Regarding using something like Audio Hijack - I use a Presonus Firepod to capture 4-6 separate inputs. Audio Hijack would merge everyone together, which means I wouldn't be able to adjust levels in post. In addition, Skype doesn't support the Firepod, so I'd have to double everyone's inputs somehow into the built-in mic for Skype to pick up. I ended up using iChat for remote audio, and remote guests record their audio locally and send it in to be merged in post.
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Brandon Collins (Cool OSX Apps) said 3:43PM on 8-01-2007
Hello,
I would love to participate in the TUAW Live: Talkcast this Thursday, August 2nd, at 9:30 PM ET.
My username on TalkCast is: coolosxapps
I will be attending, looking forward to seeing you all there to chat amongst one another!
Kind Regards,
Brandon Collins
CEO, Owner & Webmaster - Cool OSX Apps at http://www.coolosxapps.net
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Amy Tan said 6:30PM on 8-01-2007
Hello Michael,
Can you please invite me to your first LIVE telecast tomorrow. I would love to be there!
Thank You.
Amy
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Dave Nelsen - TalkShoe CEO said 7:49PM on 8-01-2007
Hi Micheal and everyone,
I wish you the best of luck with your Talkcast tomorrow night. Be sure to invite me, TalkShoe CEO, and (to this point) lifelong PC guy on the verge of converting to iPhone and possibly a Mac too. I love my video iPod and the iTunes podcast directory!!!
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Michael Rose said 7:58PM on 8-01-2007
#15 -- Dave, looking forward to it... and as a loyal CMU alum, I'll need a weather report from Pittsburgh... :-)
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Peter said 8:10AM on 8-02-2007
MIchael - one word. Rain. :) Actually it is supposed to rain today here (was hoping to take the convertible into the city tonight for Geek Night) but has been clear but super hot the past couple of days. Your loyal weatherman, Peter T live from TalkShoe :)
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Brett said 2:22PM on 8-02-2007
I would like to join as well, thanks.
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joshjagdfeld said 9:20PM on 8-02-2007
I'd like to be invited.
joshjagdfeld
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