Pick of the podcasts: Jawbone

Podcasting is being tipped as the next big thing in radio. There are thousands of different podcasts made by ordinary people around the globe that can be downloaded onto a PC and transferred to an MP3 player.

Apple has introduced podcast downloads into its popular iTunes music store and media giants such as CBS, ABC and the BBC are now offering a number of radio programmes in podcast form.

Here are six amateur podcasts which are worth listening to.

Richard Vobes A daily show from the "Willy Wonka" of British podcasting, with help from daughter Georgie Coverville A regular music podcast featuring the best and worst of cover versions down the years Mommycast A weekly show which dicuss all aspects of motherhood and babies

Mr X and Julie Music, humour and quirky slices of life from a married couple based in the state of New York Jawbone The podcast Jerry Seinfeld would have made, if he'd settled down in Cleveland with five children Hometown Tales Stories of the weird and the wonderful from small town America

JAWBONE

WHO MAKES THE PODCAST?

Len and Nora Peralta are a husband and wife team of presenters who record their podcast in the attic of their Cleveland, Ohio home after the children have been put to bed.

Mr Peralta said: "At our college radio station, Nora and I used to do a show called Raw Nerve - a music show that played pretty weird stuff.

"Plus it was a pretty free-form format. Nora and I ended up talking a lot on that show, instead of playing music.

"I started to miss the enjoyment I got out of producing a show and being a host. Plus, I've always wanted to do some sort of talk format show.

"Podcasting seemed to be the perfect answer."

Mr Peralta said he likened podcasts to the dawn of the web.

"There will always be that dinky-looking website out there, and podcasting is the same way.

"I think you're going to see in the near future a real internet celebrity rising out of all of this. Someone born from the internet."

WHAT IS THE PODCAST ABOUT?

"Nora and I ask each other 'what do you want to talk about tonight?' and we go," said Mr Peralta.

"Other times, we have guests lined up and that decides to content for us."

Jawbone tends to feature a lot of comedy of the absurd - humour found in seemingly innocuous events. In that way, Jawbone has a link to TV sitcoms such as Seinfeld, which was famous for being "about nothing".

The most recent podcast features the bizarre, but hilarious tale of missing foam fingers from a They Might Be Giants children's concert in Cleveland.

"We have a very active listener base, which is fantastic," he said.

"We get a lot of listener voice mails which range from silly to complimentary. We also get a lot of tips and comments from e-mails.

"I think we've only gotten one negative review of our show by a guy named Jason. Funny thing is, I contacted him, we had him on the show and we made him a fan."

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Richard Vobes
Coverville
Mommycast
Mr X and Just Julie
Hometown Tales
Jawbone Radio
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