先週17日、欧州発のポッドキャストカンファレンス、PodcastCon UK 2005が開催され、PodiumからもUK特派員が参加しました。今回はその参加報告をお送りしています。最終回はPodium UK特派員による英文レポートです。

The Berners Hotel looks like a staid City Centre hotel, but they held a bang-up-to-the-minute event last Saturday, when they hosted PodcastCon UK 2005.

The hotel is not that stuffy yet: they have a Wi-Fi network for the benefit of their guests. As part of the registration, Podcastcon attendees had free 24 hour access to the Wireless network.

The signal was brilliant, and some made maximum use of it, with Skypeing and Messenger connections being evident around the room. Our correspondent had Messenger and Skype connections
open, recorded many of the talks on the iRiver, and took digital photos. A Multi-Modal world indeed!

There were about 150 attendees in all, comprising about 20% female, a large phalanx of Scots, also French, American and even English. Most participants were wired in some fashion.

The age range was from Teenager to Grandad, so evidently Podcasting is not just a youthful fad. Podcasting is about eliminating the editorial constraints of traditional media, and the participants included not only Music Mad Techie Geeks, but also niche content providers, and included Simon Toon, a Slam Poetry site host, and Tom Goskar, of Wessex Archaeology. Yes folks, you can hear about live Iron Age digs, just as they are now and were 2500 years ago.

Chris Ritke from 49Media, Stateside, flew in the night before and not knowing that London was an actual Big City, wandered around lost for a while until he spied a gentleman wearing a Tee shirt bearing the legend "Tell the FCC to stick it". This could only be
a Podcaster, who did indeed make directly for the Berners Hotel.

They were not a shy bunch, and questions after each speaker were rather lively. In particular James Cridland of Virgin Radio was subjected to some almost hostile questioning about the puristic motives of his Company. Paul Nicholls having learned from this
experience sought to head off the hostile hordes with a humorous yet factual talk about "Freedom of Speech" (or Not, as the case may be). Still, there was a spirited question and answer session.

Though Podcasting is still a very young phenomenon, in the intervals and lunch break there was a high degree of interaction among people who obviously were well acquainted already, with many virtual acquaintances being turned into real, physical
friends. There seemed to be a fair amount of recording of these interactions "interview" style. These are no doubt appearing on Blogs and Podcasts around the globe.

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