Or what I wish everyone who makes podcasts would keep in mind.

I really could do without Joel's "anecdotes" about bad service at hotels and Jeff's ill-conceived off-the-cuff off-subject remarks. Sometimes these things take up most of the hour! Perhaps I should just quit my whining and just unsubscribe. And I would. But then I wouldn't hate it -- I simply wouldn't care.

The reason I don't unsubscribe is that then I would miss out on the 20 or 30 minutes of priceless insight into software development that's in there. I find Joel and Jeff's discussions about software development not only worth their while but worth the while of all the other crap. This doesn't make me like the other crap -- I wish it wasn't there.

I don't know when the council of the tubes got together and decided that the length of a podcast should be an hour, but they were obviously smoking something. Podcasts should be either ~20 or less than 5 minutes. Here's why.

First and foremost it is hard to do pay attention to a podcast and do something else at the same time. Audio-only is not effective enough to warrant exclusive attention e.g. I couldn't teach you quantum mechanics exclusively via podcast. The result: podcasts are for the "down time". They are perfect while I workout, walk, cook, clean. Alright, let's not get crazy, I don't clean that often.

Second, I thought it was known that it is hard to retain someone's full attention for longer than 20 minutes.

Econtalk is wonderful. However, I find that it takes me quite a bit longer than an hour to listen to it and it even becomes a chore since I can seldom listen to the whole episode in one go. I have to context switch -- rewind.
Planet money, on the other hand: perfect.

Seth sez: your blog is not about you, it is about your readers. Corollary: your podcast is not about you, it is about your listeners. Cut the self-indulgent crap and only leave the parts that are could be worthwhile for your listeners. Be brief. Keep it simple, they are probably doing other stuff as they listen.