The CrapMonkey Podcast began in early 2005 and delivered its final episode in 2010. The podcast was produced and published by me, Travis Petershagen, a media and technology enthusiast from Seattle, Washington. In the beginning, it was just an attempt to better understand podcasting, media publishing, RSS syndication and portable media production. However, as time went on, it became a fun way to get to get to know, and participate in, the emerging tech and media community. During the 5 years the program was produced, the podcast explored beer and brewing, movies, technology, Seattle, and the overall podcasting community. There really wasn't much to the show, but in those days, audiences were starting to look for independent content that offered something different than the bland, cookie-cutter programming being offered by traditional radio.
After the show stopped publishing in 2010, the CrapMonkey Podcast site was left uncared for. Over the course of the next couple of years, the site became a magnet for malware and virus infections. By the end, it was a petri dish for digital infection, so there was no choice but to have it shuttered. Now, Five years later, the contents of the show have been extracted from the database and ported into a new site. This is where you find yourself today. Click below to explore what remains of the CrapMonkey Podcast (and please forgive the many broken links you will encounter in the show descriptions).
CrapMonkey on Evening Magazine
In late 2005, traditional media was just starting to perk up and pay attention to the emerging podcast scene. In the video below, Seattle's Evening Magazine takes a brief look at the podcasting landscape.
Looking Back
In retrospect, 2005 was an exciting time for independent content publishers. Podcasting, the delivery of episodic media content using RSS subscriptions, emerged when RSS aggregators started enabling audio "enclosures." At the same time, the general public was starting to get comfortable listening to media on portable devices - mainly iPods. At that time, the concept of Podcasting was very grass roots. In fact, Apple even refused to officially support or acknowledge podcasts in their iTunes software - even though the iPod was the inspiration for Podcasting's name.
Early shows like Dawn & Drew, Geek News Central, This Week in Tech, and Ask a Ninja garnered large audiences while the community was cheered on by Adam Curry (The Podfather), via his Podcast focused program The Daily Source Code." In Seattle, a handful of us started the Seattle Podcasting Network and regularly met with fellow podcasters to help foster the community. The very first Podcast and Portable Media Expo took place in Ontario, California in October of 2005. It was there where Todd Cochrane (of the Geek News Central Podcast), organized the very first Podcast People's Choice Awards. The awards were well attended and were brimming with energy and excitement. The Podcast Expo was eventually renamed to the New Media Expo and now shares the stage with the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas.
