This is a difficult post to write. I started CastMedium back in November of 2009 with the hopes of creating a place where podcast fans could feel catered to as a whole. The podcast community is strong and large, but often segregated into communities devoted to singular shows. And while I can’t say that it has been a resounding success thus far, it has been surprising and interesting. One of the things that surprised me the most about the impact of CM over the years is the recognition from the podcasting community. It still blows my mind any...

It’s the holiday season again, and that means it’s time for another round of podcast awards. Look for our official picks on December 30th, writers’ personal picks on the 31st, and your picks on January 1st. The reader/listener’s choice will be decided by poll, as it was last year, and we  have narrowed the choices down to the ones that we felt deserved and needed to be in there. The poll will be accessible through this post, or on the sidebar from any page. So vote, head over to your community of choice, spread the word,...

Mmmm, clipart birthday cake. Another year has past, and thus, another November 29th marks the 2 year anniversary of CastMedium. It’s always weird to look back and realize how fast time flies. /cliche quota filled The podcast space continues to grow, both in size and swath. Looking at the categories we cover here, the gaming podcast scene has again proven to be the most liquid. The staples are still around, if in different forms from different outlets, but there has also been a realization amongst developers about the ability of podcast to...

Here we are, CastMedium redesign 4.0 (yes, we use Windows numbering). The new design introduces a lot of cosmetic upgrades, as we tend to enjoy implementing. We have only been around for a little over a year, but the aesthetic design of the site has been pretty liquid. This is partly due to my fickleness, but I like to think that it can also be attributed to the quickly evolving nature of web design. It is not all vanity this time around though. We are introducing the ability for you to submit your own podcasts. The most frequent request we get...

In addition to our picks for best podcast of the year, we wanted you to have a chance to cast your own vote on the matter. So we have created a poll with the top 10 podcasts on the site (determined by magic and taste-testing), for you to vote on. The poll can be found in this post and in the sidebar. You are limited to 1 vote, but no one is stopping you from getting some of your friends to participate as well. The poll will run until the end of the year, and the final reader pick, along with a list of our personal picks will go up on January 1st,...

November 29th marks the 1 year anniversary of the launch of the site that you are reading right now. CastMedium has come a long way since its inception, but it is surprising how close it is to the original concept as well. The site was born out of an idea of offering recaps of podcast episodes that would provide context for the discussion within. To this day, that is still the cornerstone of what CastMedium is about. There have been many significant moments for the site over this past year, and most of them are due to the games-related podcasting...

Due to scheduling conflicts and unforeseen travel arrangements, there will be no CastMedium podcast this week. Tune in next week when we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the site with special guest Mike Cruz, of at1UP.

In our constant pursuit to make CastMedium more user-friendly, we have introduced a new commenting system, Intense Debate. It is developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress, the backbone of this little website which we like to call home. Intense Debate offers many features that are not available in the standard commenting system that are beneficial not only to us, but to you as well. You can now login with your Facebook, Twitter or OpenID accounts, but if you don’t want to deal with any of those, you can still comment freely without...

One of the most trafficked features on CastMedium has been the Twitter SuperList. We introduced this list early this year and it has been a great help to those who want to follow their favorite podcasters via the social messaging service. Well, Twitter has finally come around to the idea of lists, and we wanted to take advantage of this. We are now utilizing the built in feature to make it even easier for you to follow all of the hosts of a given podcast. The number of lists is limited to 20, so we can only provide them for the biggest podcasts...

We are always trying to figure out new ways to make it easier for you to find out what’s new on the site. To that end, we have introduced a new way to see what podcasts have come with the podcast view. We are keeping the main page the way it has always been, but if you just want a quick, visual way to see what has come out since you last checked, this should do the job. You can always access this view by clicking the new menu option located to the left of the search box at the top. Let us know what you think of this new way to browse in the...

CastMedium has been providing you with weekly summaries of your favorite game and tech podcasts for over 9 months, and we have recently added movie podcasts.  While it has been nice to be able to see what has come out and what is worth your time over the past weeks, we have been lacking a bit in general information that may help you find additional podcasts that suits your tastes. To help rectify this situation, we have introduced “podcast hub overview” pages.  Now, when you scroll down and click on the podcast links in the “currently...

I would like to take just a moment to introduce 2 new writers to CastMedium.  KirePDX and Jon Cole have decided to join our little conquest to bring you the latest and greatest in podcasts. KirePDX will be taking over some of the gaming podcasts that I have traditionally covered, and Jon will initially be handling the recent addition of movie-dedicated podcasts on the site.  They have already gotten their feet wet with their first posts and I think we can all agree that it’s nice to have some fresh voices around here. This is a big step...