As you may recall, I recently participated in an SF Signal Mind Meld about the future of publishing. They have followed that up with a podcast, with guests including Lou Anders, John Picacio and Mike Resnick.

There are a couple of things I wanted to mention with respect to this. Firstly I’m glad to see more people trying this “round table” or “convention panel” format podcasts. A podcast that is basically just two or three good friends riffing off each other is a wonderful thing, but not every podcast has to be like that. Other formats are possible too, and the SF Signal guys have done a good job with the style of podcast I do on Salon Futura. Yay!

Also I thought this discussion worked much better than the Mind Meld. It gives the participants the ability to feed off each other and respond to each other’s points. My standard for measuring podcast quality (and convention panels for that matter) is basically how much I wanted to be involved in the discussion. If I did that means the subject interested me and I became involved in the conversation. (I do not include those podcasts where I want to shake those involved and tell them to do some research before opening their mouths.) By my measuring system, this was a good podcast, especially Mike Resnick’s contributions, though he was trying to wind people up at times. Worth a listen.