“In the early days, it really was this group of geeks and hardcore people that wanted to create media and hardcore audiences that wanted to listen to it.”
How do you go from a career in the military to one in podcasting? Just ask Todd Cochrane, the founder and CEO of Blubrry, a podcast hosting company.
“Life has these right and left-hand turns and I had a right-hand turn in June of 2004,” Todd told us.
That right-hand turn put Todd among the pioneers of a new medium being raised by rebels.
While recovering from an injury that changed the course of his career in the US Navy, Todd discovered the work of Dave Winer and Adam Curry and this thing they were talking about called “podcasting”. Todd was sucked in and before he knew it, he was at the nearest Walmart purchasing his first microphone.
Podcasting since 2004 with his tech show Geek News Central, Todd Cochrane also established the first podcast advertising deal and wrote the first book on podcasting. He also founded the Podcast Awards and is a member of the Podcast Hall of Fame.
“The industry was exciting, it was basically pioneer days, we were making stuff up as we go, we didn’t really know what we were doing, but things progressed very, very quickly,” said Todd.
In this special episode of MetaPod, we talk to Todd about the early players of podcasting and what it was like to work with the techies, geeks and hardcore audiences of the medium. We also discuss how podcasting has evolved to this day, including investment, leadership, its increasingly diverse field of creators and the entry of big media platforms in the space.
Todd also tells us what the most important thing is for new podcasters to understand about the medium and why the first two episodes of Geek News Central no longer exist.
Show notes:
About Todd Cochrane
Todd Cochrane is the founder and CEO of Raw Voice, Inc, also known as Blubrry Podcasting. Todd has been podcasting since 2004. He is credited with the first podcast ad deal (with GoDaddy) and the first book about podcasting (published by Wiley). He also founded the Podcast Awards and was inducted into the inaugural class of the Podcast Hall of Fame in 2015. Before going into podcasting, Todd served in the US Navy for 25 years. He retired with the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer. Todd spent the majority of the past 25 years in Honolulu, Hawaii, but now resides in Michigan.