Visually the StamPodCast site is pretty basic. But it’s easy to navigate, easy to understand and very easy to use, which is more important than visual excitement in my book. One very cool feature of the site is that they type out the play list of every episode. Within that play list one can click on the artists name and be directed to the artists website or some site where one could purchase the artists music. Having links to purchase the artists music is a very hip feature, which I’m sure benefits the featured artists a lot. There are also a lot of relevant links on the page. Artists and casual listeners a like could benefit greatly by searching through these links.
This podcast has very, very little talking. The host introduces the show and gives a synopsis of what he plans to do that day and then lets the music do the talking. He likes to remind the listener what they just listened to when the song ends, and what the listener will hear next. He throws in a few tidbits of info here and there about other relevant podcasts and sometimes some info about the artist, but mostly its just music. The wide array of music being played on this podcast is very refreshing. This first episode I listened to played techno, rap and African American folk. The 420 episode was appropriately dominated by a lot of reggae, but even that episode diverged to include some rock/pop induced reggae. Older episodes I listened to played everything from heavier rock, to smooth pop music. He seems to always play something electronica or reggae, but he is willing to play anything as long as its good music.
The big drag about this pod cast is the infrequency that it is updated. I found that in ‘09 he would post a new episode 2 or 3 times a month. One month he had 4 new episodes. So far in ’10 he only has a total of 3 episodes. I did hear, however, that he was being bogged down by another podcast he had been doing. He has since dropped that project, so hopefully he can direct his resources towards creating new episodes more frequently. The new episodes he has created though are quite good. This is definitely a quality podcast. I feel the visual presentation of the website could be better. But as far as functionality is concerned, it is top notch. Great podcast!
