Ed Hewitt Yet another Tech & Gaming Blog!

More Podcasts Please

A few days ago I read an odd and unnecessary post, which seemed to be a slight attack on other Ubuntu/Linux podcast. I was thankful to see a more balanced look at this post, as well as a defence from a fellow host of the podcast I am part of. I was very quick to response to Tony's post, which in the heat of the moment, may have not come across well. I now want a post a more formal response.

It is true that Full Circle Magazine Podcast have a very similar show order to Ubuntu UK Podcast. After listening to an excellent podcast for a few years, and the show order which works well, its difficult not to use the same formula. It could be argued that UUPC copied from other podcasts, I know two other podcasts (PC Gamer, GameSpot UK) which were out before UUPC, which have the same show order. Though both podcasts share roughly the same order, our content is very different.

I see our podcast aimed towards the end user of Ubuntu. We cover only Ubuntu news, at very non-technical level, such as new end-user features. Our discussion topics are also non-technical, I think the most technical we have ever talked about is bug reporting with Alan Pope. Finally, our hosts are still slightly new to Linux, with the most experienced, Robin Catlin, with 4 years experience.

On the other hand, if you look at UUPC, very different. Their news covers Linux in general, with more technical articles. Their discussions are again more general Linux, for the hardcore users, looking at Freedom and communities. They even have section dedicated to the terminal, which I don't think Full Circle has ever discussed. The hosts are all IT professional, and all have at least 8 years experience of Linux.

Full Circle and UUPC have similar formats, but we attract and entertain different audiences. If you are new to Linux or are a non-technical user, Full Circle is more likely suited to you. More technical and long time users of Linux will likely get more out of UUPC.

Does it matter that we have so many podcasts??? Does it matter that they have similarities??? Linux is about choice and freedom to change the original code, and that also included Linux Podcasts!

Is TuxRadar going to put their two cents in???

I do hope we don't see this...