TechWeek

About a couple of weeks ago I was talking about podcasting (and lack of it in Indonesia) with several friends of mine over Twitter. We were concerned that there was pretty much none in this country. There are actually a few periodic podcasts but none are regular and thematic. These periodic ones are usually associated with particular events and they end when the event ends and the public have not been educated enough about podcasts and how they work.

A while ago there was a long-running podcast by EquinoxDMD. These are the guys who got the deal to distribute Indonesian music on iTunes, the same guys who are now also running Equinox Apps selling iPhone OS apps on the AppStore.

They had two podcasts, New Music From Indonesia, and New Music Videos From Indonesia, to promote Indonesian music and music videos that they have on iTunes. Both were sponsored by cigarette company Djarum and after 100 episodes for the audio podcast and 25 eps for the video podcast, they axed them, apparently due to budget cuts according to one insider. 

Unfortunate that they canceled these shows because the reviews were very positive and they were very well received. Early episodes of NMFI were hosted by Jason Tedjasukmana, the popular former Metro TV newsreader and Times magazine journalist.

It is also unfortunate that to subscribe to podcasts on iTunes, Indonesians have to go to non-Indonesian iTunes Store, which makes the experience much less seamless when their primary iTunes Store access may be the Indonesian AppStore. These podcasts on iTunes are free which doesn't make much sense not to mirror them in the Indonesian store. Hopefully we'll have more podcasts so that more Indonesians become aware of this medium of delivery that allows them to listen to or watch their favorite shows at anytime and any where they wish.

In the meantime, please enjoy the following podcasts by me and my friends. These are in a mix of Indonesian and English and are new.

A podcast about technology and new media by Aulia Masna and Chris Bagus Prakoso

Variety podcast by Thomas Arie Setiawan