Hitting record on #NaPodPoMo: 30 podcasts in 30 days

Creator Jennifer Navarrete tells us what it is, how to listen and how to get involved

Now in its 16th year, NaPodPoMo has become well-known by podcasters around the world as an annual challenge. I caught up with creator Jennifer Navarrete to find out what it’s all about, how you can get involved and why she thinks November is the best time of year to take on a challenge.

What is #NaPodPoMo?

“NaPodPoMo is a challenge to create 30 podcast episodes during the month of November. How you do that is entirely up to you. Do you want to post daily? Great! Do you want to batch record and release in batches? Great! Do you want to show up on November 30, and do all 30 episodes on one day, that also works. We know that life happens. And so when as I was continuing to develop this over the years, it didn't make sense to say that if you miss day 15 that's it, you're out. No, you have time to make up for it over the weekend, or you have time to catch up or you can record things in advance and then release them daily. The goal is to get 30 podcast episodes during the 30 days in November. And again, how you do that entirely up to you.

“It's a space for you to allow your creativity and your curiosity to run rampant and to be amazed. To get the results or to go; ‘well, that didn't work at all, at least now we know.” But you have permission to muck about, and stumble and figure and fail fast and get good. And I think that maybe is the secret sauce to NaPodPoMo it’s creating the space for us to allow ourselves to play and dream.”

This is the 16th year of #NaPodPoMo. Where did the idea come from?

“I created this because I heard about NaNoWriMo. And I heard about NaBloPoMo for the bloggers and I was like, oh, November's about challenges. Okay, cool. Let me go find the podcasting one and join. And there wasn't one and I was stunned that there wasn't one. And so three days before November 1 in 2007. I was like, Well, I'm going to make it. And here we are all these years later. I want to encourage people to create challenges. Think about creating a challenge for yourself in whatever it is that you'd like to do. There may be existing challenges, that doesn't mean that you can't do it. I recommend doing it in November, it seems like we as human beings are primed to be to push and challenge ourselves to have a sense of accomplishment before the year is out. And I think it's a great thing to do. So whatever that thing is for you. create it, share it, do it year after year, have fun.”

Do you have a sense of the type of shows people are uploading this year?

“Yeah actually, because we have what's what I call the mega feed. As we went through the years, we would be subscribing to everyone's individual feeds, and it gets a little overwhelming. So I found an aggregation service that you can pull a bunch of individual feeds and make them into a single feed. And I call that the mega feed. And people are giving me their feeds, I'm adding it to the mega feed and you subscribe to the one mega feed. And you're able to listen to everyone shows. There's a real beauty to this because one is just going to roll right after the other and it's going to be totally random. You have no idea what order you're getting these episodes in and who you're going to hear from, because everyone's releasing their shows as they have time and we're a global challenge, so people are in all kinds of time zones. It's wide. It's varied. It's interesting. It's never boring.”

✂️ Cut The Tape

• Listen to the #NaPodPoMo Mega Feed

  • Copy this url https://feed.informer.com/digests/ZL1ZJYKAFR/feeder.rss

  • Open the Apple Podcasts app on your computer

  • Go to File > Follow a show by URL

  • Paste the feed URL

  • Click Follow

• Find out more about #NaPodPoMo

• Hear the full interview with Jennifer on All Things Audio episode 115

🎧 #Podcasting

• International Women’s Podcast Award winners revealed | Podbible

• 48% of US 3-12-year-olds listen to podcasts at least weekly | Deadline

• Spotify has released its Fan Study - “data-driven insights about creation trends and fan listening behaviours” | Spotify

• Economist podcast to remain free as other content goes behind the paywall | Inside Audio Marketing

• Multi-room playback on Alexa enabled on BBC Sounds | podcastingtoday.co.uk

🎶 #SoundDesign

• London performance of Macbeth to feature binaural sound design | Donmar Warehouse

• Dune Awakening sound design inspired by Villeneuve movies | Gamers Grade

• Amp study shows sonic branding has massive effect on Gen Z | Radio Ink

• Vivo creates festive version on sonic identity | Adgully

🔮 #AudioFuture

• AudioHijack 4 includes speech-to-text powered by Whisper | Rogue Amoeba

• Norway’s biggest newspaper doubles audio audience with AI-read articles | Press Gazette

• Noise cancelling headphones offer sound selection thanks to AI | Mirage

• AI audio monitoring shows where monkeys won’t go | Imperial College London

🗣 #SocialAudio

This week on #AllThingsAudio we spoke about timestamps being added to video on X and what that might mean for Spaces. We also had a chat about my new Sontronics mic and the importance of finding a mic to match your space and your budget!

Follow All Things Audio wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. Leave a rating and/or review to help more people find us.

If you haven’t experienced binaural recordings before then give this a listen. Uncaged is my #NaPodPoMo project. It started out as a post-lockdown project but I wanted to take on the challenge this year and thought it would be a great moment to resurrect it. Uncaged has always been a learning experience for me - how to capture the environment while making sure tiny sounds aren’t missed, telling a story in my self-imposed time limit of 4’33”, to edit or not to edit. These are the creative challenges of Uncaged. Pick one and have a listen (my favourites are 47 Thunder and 48 Rain Rehearsal btw)

Hello to subscribers old and new! We have a far few new subscribers in the Stop. Rewind. Play. community following last week’s post about the Independent Podcast Awards. Thank you so much for letting me take up a spot in your inbox.

Another week in audio has gone by in a flash. I’ve been recording bells of all shapes and sizes to for some festive sound design work I have coming my way in the next few weeks, plus I am working on two brand new shows that will launch in the new year.

Hit reply and let me know what you are working on so I can shout about it here in Stop. Rewind. Play.

Until next week - keep listening!

Suze