This is a particularly timely question, because the creators of three of the most popular and respected Las Vegas podcasts are about to put on the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza on August 16, an event in which each will perform a half-hour version of their programs before a live audience at the Palms. It's free. Click here for more information.
First, though, a definition is in order for the uninitiated. A podcast is a regular program, either audio or video, that's created on a regular interval and can be delivered to those who subscribe (almost always for free) via an RSS feed. The files may be heard or seen on computers or on portable media devices such as iPods or other MP3 players. If a Web site offers audio or video content, but doesn't make it available for users to consume in a portable manner or without having to be on the site itself, then it's not offering podcasts.
Now, back to the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza. LasVegasAdvisor.com visitors might be familiar with at least two of the three shows to appear at the event, as they involve people who are in some manner part of the LVA family.
First, there's "The Strip" podcast (www.thestrippodcast.com), an hour-long program that features in-depth interviews with Vegas celebrities and moguls that's co-hosted by Huntington Press author and nationally published journalist Steve Friess (www.VegasHappensHere.com) and his partner Miles Smith of KVBC-TV in Las Vegas. The duo has interviewed everyone from Steve Wynn to Sheldon Adelson, Jay Leno to Rita Rudner, Frankie Valli to Harvey Fierstein, and news out of those conversations is routinely picked up in the local and national press. They also provide the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week, and conduct bi-weekly polls and a regular trivia contest in which winners choose from a prize list that includes several Huntington Press titles.
Another Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza participant is the Vegas Gang Podcast (www.vegasgangpodcast.com), a twice-monthly hour-long show in which a roundtable of five Vegas observers discuss business and development news of the day. It's moderated by RateVegas.Com owner Hunter Hillegas and includes our own Stiffs & Georges blogger David McKee, along with Las Vegas Sun/In Business LasVegas writer-editor Jeff Simpson, VegasTripping.com owner Chuck Monster, and UNLV prof and occasional QoD contributor Dave Schwartz. The Vegas Gang often has guests, with notable recents including Christina Binkley and Tim Breitling.
The third in the Podcast-a-Palooza lineup is Five Hundy By Midnight, a weekly one-hour program by die-hard Vegas lovers Tim and Michele Dressen, who live in the Minneapolis area. The couple takes a paying-tourists'-eye-view of the city, sharing their own experiences and opinions about Vegas news and offering their show up as a forum for many listeners who call in to relate their own views and Vegas tales, often under the influence of God knows what.
A few other Vegas podcasts worth mentioning include two other "couplecasts." The Vegas Tourist Podcast (www.thevegastourist.com) is offered by Mark and Sazzy, who offer tourist tips, views and their own experiences. And Scott Whitney and his wife, Melissa, host the Living in Las Vegas Podcast, a monthly look at what residing in Sin City is like, with a bit of tourist information sprinkled in.
Howard Schwartz, owner of the Gambler's Book Shop, offers a regular interview program with authors (gamblersbookclub.libsyn.com). Amy Turner's a local who does a weekly show called Grits To Glitz (www.gritstoglitz.com) with her sister Bay Loftis, who lives in Tennessee, in which they compare what life in each locale is like. And Vegas stand-up comic Brian Mollica helms the thrice-weekly This Ain't Iowa show (www.notiowa.com); at least twice a week it's primarily about Vegas, gambling, and entertainment.
At this time, neither the Las Vegas Review-Journal nor Las Vegas Sun offers any podcasts, nor does either alternative weekly, Las Vegas CityLife or the Las Vegas Weekly. In fact, one of the few print publications to offer a podcast is Global Gaming Business (ggbmagazine.com/podcast), whose publisher Roger Gros interviews gaming executives weekly. And Las Vegas' public radio station, KNPR, offers podcasts of their daily State of Nevada show, but the station is notoriously slow and inconsistent about which of its interviews gets added to the RSS feed.
Vegas.com offers a couple of podcasts, the weekly Vegas In 5 audio podcast and Vegas Minute video podcast. Both are primarily promotional and don't offer any objective views about the city or its offerings. The same goes for E!=20 News' Vegas Report, which is a two-minute weekly video segment about something going on in the Las Vegas entertainment or celeb gossip scene.
Other podcasts are listed in iTunes or Zune, but many have "podfaded"?(stopped publishing new episodes). And other outlets have begun posting audio and video online, but a podcast is defined by your ability to subscribe to it and have it download automatically to your computer and/or portable MP3 device for consuming whenever and wherever you wish to hear or see it.
