I’ve never really been a huge consumer of podcasts, because I’ve never really had the opportunity to consume them. When I work, I prefer to listen to music. Until recently, I haven’t had a regular commute; since May, I now commute into Manhattan once a week. This gives me close to 2 hours each week where I can listen to and/or watch podcasts.
So far, I’ve only subscribed to TED, which has been incredibly excellent. Today, I added RSA videos. This is the kind of content I’m interested in — stuff that I can learn something from.
I’m surprised no one’s done a “Wikipedia Daily” podcast: take Wikipedia’s “Today’s Featured Article” and do a clear audio reading of it, ideally in various languages, possibly with a video component which could be as simple as a slideshow of the images from the article. Right now, you can subscribe by email, but you just get a portion of the Wikipedia article emailed to you, which is a useful reminder to check the full article, but not very useful on its own. If anyone is interested in pursuing this idea, I’d be happy to collaborate.
I’m looking to feed my brain with new, interesting, useful and preferably factual information. What are your favorite podcasts? What do you feed your brain? Let me know by leaving a comment!
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
I subscribe to a couple dozen podcasts, but most of them are in specific topics that I’m interested in. Still, in terms of general interest, there’s a few that I bandwagon because they’re just so damned good. My two favorite seem to be everyone’s two favorite: This American Life and Radiolab. Both are extremely good. You should also check out Planet Money, Freakonomics and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. There’s certainly no lack of podcasts that you can learn something from.
A wikipedia featured article podcast would be a great idea. Perhaps if I was underemployed it would be something I’d have time to do..
Steve, I guess the “goodness” of the idea can be measured by gathering answers to this question: If you could earn an equivalent salary as you do now working for the “Wikipedia’s Today’s Featured Article” creation entity, would you be willing to quit your job and work there instead?
Honestly, I don’t think I would. As a contribution to society and overall long-term future, I don’t think it’s “enough” to make me happy. I speculate that this is probably why no one has actually gone and done this concept, yet. ;-)
I normally don’t “promote” my podcast, but I dig your blog, so maybe you can suffer through the latest episode of our podcast on your commute into Manhattan. It’s entirely unscripted, and a little off the wall, but people tend to be able to relate to one of us hosts.
If you listen to it and hate it, I promise to join the republican party to punish myself.