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The latest episode of This Week in Tech, Netcast Expo, in a nutshell: The Second Annual Podcast Expo was attended by 2500 people, featured lots of booze, innovative audio hardware and software, podcasters (who, Leo claims, prefer to be known as netcasters) pimping their wares while talking the token "grassroots community" line, and techies with an affinity for trash talking Apple and Microsoft. Web 1.0 is SO 90s.

Below, Gottfried the Intern gives a thorough rundown for those too lazy to listen to the movie-length podcast.

  • Speaking of 1.0, a bit of history for our audio aficionados. NetRadio's Scott Bourne released the first "podcast" in 1994 thru Real Audio 1.0 on 1200 block modems. The streaming radio IPO had a ton of subscribers and made a lot of money. Kinda like TWiT with its big-name advertisers. We're not knocking the Showtime spot, Leo. How else could we have known that David from Six Feet Under is starring in a brand new Showtime show on Sunday nights?
  • A geek conference/Star Trek convention prequisite: At least one man named Elvis running around in a chicken suit.
  • Leo edits the "Podcasts You Love from People You Love" to "NetCasts You Love" segment in the TWiT intro, a testament to his distaste for the term PodCast. Unfortunately, due to the lack of enthusiasm of the crowd over at Expo over his beloved soon-to-be-trademarked NetCast, he might not have much of a following. Then again, Dell and Podcast Ready (which company Apple sent the infamous "cease-and-desist" letter to a few weeks back) is backing this week's TWiTcast. Hey, how 'bout that. I just came up with a possible anti-big business solution to Leo's iTunes xenophobia: TWiTcasts you love, from people who hate the name "podcast."
  • It's not news, but Podcast Ready product "Ipodder Lemon" was forced to alter its name and decided upon Juice Receiver.
  • GigaVox is marketing a new FREE audio product called the Levelator. The Scoop: It makes podcasts sound better and levels out long-term variation. Does that mean we can alter Leo's voice so he can start sounding like that British dude WIl Harris from last week's TWit episode? Wouldn't appear so since TWiT already integrated the "smart normalization" technology in this week's episode as part of a GigaVox Media plug.
  • PopCurrent may or may not be the future of podcasting. At the very least it gets netcasters to the next level of Cro-Magnon socialization: That is communicating with actual parties via Web "cross-pollination" with MySpace. Web 2.0 Translation: Social Networking.
  • IPodder X Sales Pitch: "We're like Microsoft and Vista. Eventually we'll come out with a software package you MIGHT wanna use." Yeah...Does that really work?
  • The Andrew Dice Clay of Podcasting/Vlogging, Martin Sargent, is Kevin Rose's bitch now.
  • Leo tells a tiny white lie to Podcast Ready's Russ Holliman: "I have nothing against iTunes." He then proceeds to ask everyone in the audience to do what they can to help fight against the Evil Empire and shout out to the masses that iTunes is "the worst thing to happen to Podcasting." Scott Bourne believes TWiT's [Commie] social stance is a statement against interest (re: those greedy capitalists). Some anti-Microsoft slurs ensue for good measure.
  • Ben Freedman and Tiffany Young of Neo-Fight plug their Tech show for beginners. Everyday, five days a week, they present a product and they talk about it. They're like a techie consumer reports of podcast, only they "talk about vacuums too." Sure, whatever gets you excited, Tiff.
  • Robbie, one of the younger podcasters at the Expo pitches his site, Teen PodCaster. Robbie is 14 going on 15 and no longer podcasts as regularly since he's working on "other projects" and "working his way into TV." What Robbie really means is he's discovered chicks and likes to sexperiment with his brand spanking new handycam. He then likes to post the finished product on YouTube. Advice: Take a good look at your future over at PodCast Expo and enjoy your youth while you have it, Robbie.

This week's hosts: Leo Laporte is joined by a group of mediafolk including podcast pioneer Scott Bourne; former Podcaster of The Year Doug Kaye; and lawyer and new host of This Week in Law Denise Howell; radio/TV personality Martin Sargent of Sargeworld; and 14-year-old teen podcaster Robbie.

Netcast Expo [TWiT]