Friday, August 10, 2012

Death of a Podcast

The Living History Podcast is dead, long live the Living History Podcast.

Stephen and I love living history, we've been involved for ages and plan to be for the rest of our lives. But the ways we approach history, and LH change with time.

Over three years ago we thought a good way to connect might be to put out a podcast, focusing on the issues and topics that would be of interest no matter what time period one happened to be interested in. We purchased a domain name, some server space and some microphones, came up with a list of topics, then got all our friends to listen to our first attempts at podcasting before launching the podcast in December of 2009. We actually kept it up fairly well with only a few interruptions until July of last year. We made a few friends through the podcast, but we never reached large audiences. We needed to set aside time each week for the two of us to sit down together to plan, rehearse and record, and while that was a bit of a strain, it was not a bother when we had something to say.

But we still have things to say! We still are very involved in LH, and looking for ways to continue to reach out. Why exactly did we stop recording the podcast? Why did we let the domain expire and the web hosting lapse? I guess we both lost interest in the medium. We were not reaching the amount of people we wanted to, the feedback was not worth the effort anymore.

Now we've got to think of a new way to reach out to the LH community, because we are both still convinced that there is one, and that we could all benefit from more sharing amongst us.

2 comments:

  1. I'm going to be honest and admit that I'm a little miffed at the way LHP has ended. Although it was clear for some time that it might not be coming back I'm extremely disappointed that queries and offers, to help and even to pick up hosting LHP on my server went unanswered. Even if you were/are unable to continue with LHP the podcasts, comments, and forum should be preserved for the information and thoughtful opinions they contained.

    I'm also kind of surprised that as re-enactors (apparently) no consideration was given to archiving that information so that it could continue to be accessed by other reenactors in the future. After all, we know what a pain the lack of archival and archaeological evidence is as we struggle with our historical portrayals.

    Finally, let me be clear that I completely understand the need to end a project that can take up so much time and wasn't meeting your expectations. My issue is HOW it's ended; with no opportunity for archiving, maintaining, or even handing LHP off to others who saw/see its value to the LH community.

    Respectfully,
    Dan Crowther

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  2. Hi Dan,
    And now I've taken 2 months to respond to your comment. Yes, we completely dropped the ball, and should have taken you up on your incredibly generous offers. The fact that the webite is completely gone and all the podcasts now only exist on our home computer is very scary. I wish I had a reason why Stephen and I dropped the ball so spectacularly when it came to LHP, but I don't. All I can say is I'm sorry.

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