Duncan Riley wrote about his recent experiences at TPN’s HQ in Second Life today which is worth a read (link). It includes this screenshot of a spontaneous meetup we had a few days ago.

Duncan’s post is about the combination of using Twitter and Second Life for spontaneous meetups. We’ve been noticing over the last week that if we mention in Twitter that one or two of us are hanging out at TPN HQ, within minutes we have 10 - 20 people show up. And then we sit around having a group VOICE chat for several hours. I’ve never seen anything like it in my 12 years on the net. Duncan sums it up:

The ability to join and discuss anything in Second Life delivers something between a Barcamp or Podcamp, and a discussion at your local bar (or pub) amongst friends. I’ve read elsewhere suggestions that people who spend time in Second Life are sad; to that I can only respond: married with children. Whilst my wife was catching the latest episodes of America’s Next Top Model (streamed over the home network on a Zensonic Z500…which is probably pretty geeky) and my son was asleep I participated in a virtual recreation of many a good blog meetup or barcamp, and better still it was spontaneous.

After a 12 month hiatus (where does the time go?), Dennis Hays is back on TPN with his “Late Night Blues and Jazz Hangout” podcast. If you like blues and jazz, here’s a place to get a weekly dose of free, podsafe music for your ears.

A big congrats from TPN HQ to Wayne Turmel whose Cranky Middle Manager podcast (consistently one of TPN’s Top Ten shows) just got a plug from BusinessWeek! Funny though that it has been categorized as an “HR blog”.

tpnmeetup_001

Originally uploaded by dnwallace

We’ve had a bunch of people visit the TPN HQ in Second Life tonight. All together I’ve counted 20 people. We’ve sat around and talked about Second Life, transhumanism, politics, you name it. A very varied discussion. At one point we were all even blown up by some C4 explosive and killed. Very cool.

Update: We had 30+ people turn up last night at various stages. Lots of great discussions. Hope to you see you all visit soon.
More images here.

You may have noticed that TPN has had a lot of downtime recently. My sincere apologies. It’s been a couple of weeks in hell. One of the joys of running a fast growth start-up on the smell of an oily rag is that you never seem to have enough people or infrastructure. Over the last few weeks I’ve felt the brunt of that like never before.

I won’t bore you with the details, but just wanted to let you know that we seem to be making progress, thanks for a new awesome team of support angels we’re working with in Melbourne, and I hope we’re nearly back to normal.

I want to thank all of you for your amazing patience and consideration over the last couple of weeks. I also want to thank TPN’s hosts who have been incredibly accommodating. I’m very lucky to be working with such great people. I know it’s been very trying for them and for you, our audience. I can’t begin to explain the amount of stress and anxiety it’s caused me. Your patience is appreciated.

I can’t promise yet that we are totally out of the woods, but I feel good that we are going to be there within the next few days.

Peace.
Cameron.

We decided we were running out of room in the old place, so TPN SL HQ has moved! This time we have an entire island to play in. Visit TPN SL HQ!

Green Dragon aka Martin Devaughan has launched his first episode on TPN Rock Monday and it’s a kicker! Has one of my favourite acts in it Planet Of Women! Click on the Rock logo below to have your eardrums pummeled!

Well apparently the Aussie Rules season is over (I know that because I saw something briefly in the news today about a cat doing something, I didn’t quite catch the significance), and Jeff and Paul from TPN’s AFL SHOW have put up their final episode for the year. I wanted to congratulate the boys on their own great season - they were the #1 AFL show in iTunes!

That’s not bad going when you consider the competition they had from professional sportscasters. I hope the boys will be back next year to do it again! Click on the image below to listen to their final episode for 2007!

British actor, writer and comedian John Cleese is to release Headcast, a series of online videos, which he describes as “some humorous, some more thoughtful, giving me a chance to sound off in my old age.”

A free version will be made available over the next few months on The Podcast Network, which John says is “rather good, run by Australians, and none the worse for that.”

A premium version of the Headcast will also be made available.

John’s free podcast, produced by UK new media company Funk, has achieved close to 500,000 downloads in 2007.

Dean Whitbread from Funk said:

“John is really forward-looking when it comes to technology. He got into video early and he reaped the benefits. He’s been investing in online media for some years now, and when we started to produce podcasts for him in 2005, we saw a huge take up from the online audience.

John’s podcast at http://johncleesepodcast.co.uk has been free since we started, and we’re going to maintain that, but its success to date means we can now explore other options, including more video, and adding premium content.

The Headcast is another example of John embracing new technologies to further his creativity - and although he’s well known for being very funny, this gives him the option to do whatever he wants to do and take it wherever he wants to go.”

Cameron Reilly from The Podcast Network said that having a living legend like John Cleese joining The Podcast Network’s growing roster of talent was a coup for the business and a personal thrill.

“Having grown up watching and listening to John, I am extremely pleased that he will be contributing his new material to our site. I have been a fan of his podcasts over the last year and am excited about bringing the Headcast to a wider international audience. Having someone of John’s caliber producing podcasts is another sign of the increasing legitimacy of the medium.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

About: The Podcast Network
The Podcast Network is an privately owned media company in Australia with over 80 audio and video podcasts in production and a monthly international audience of over half a million people.http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/

Contact:

Cameron Reilly, CEO

Tel: +61 400455334 Email: cameron@thepodcastnetwork.com

Ewan Spence, VP

Tel: +44 (0)7966 152772 Email: ewan@thepodcastnetwork.com

About: Funk
Funk is a creative new media company based in London and Brighton, UK, comprised of producers Mark Crook and Dean Whitbread. Funk is a part of social media business Talking Voices www.talkingvoices.com

http://funk.co.uk

Contact:

Dean Whitbread

Tel: +44 (0)7050 644088 Email: jc@funk.co.uk

http://headcast.co.uk

We’re very excited today to announce that Martin Devaughan aka Green Dragon is joining TPN!

Martin helped to make music history when unsigned band Koopa entered the UK charts earlier this year, thanks to exposure in his Bite Size Bonus podcast. He began podcasting in October 2004, is credited as the UK’s first ever podcaster, making the switch from radio and club DJ and artist management to become one of the UK’s best known podcasters.

As of next week he’ll be producing the Monday edition of TPN Rock and in a couple of weeks we’ll be launching his new, top secret music show!

As Australia’s first podcaster I’m excited to welcome the UK’s first podcaster to TPN!

(Press Release Follows)
Read the rest of this entry »