The woman who made podcasting into a must-listen medium is headed to North Texas. Sarah Koenig will be the keynote speaker at this summer鈥檚 in Fort Worth.
News that , host of the is coming to town has generated a lot of buzz on social media.
鈥淚 think there鈥檚 no denying the fact that Sarah is kind of the person right now in podcasting,鈥� said Dan Franks, the .
鈥淭here really was only one main target to try to put as a headline speaker at our event, and the reaction has reflected that,鈥� Franks said. 鈥淣o doubt about it.鈥�
Franks launched the conference last year after a Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $32,000. The event drew about 600 people from around the world. This year, he鈥檚 expecting more than double that. It brings together people just starting to experiment with podcasting to those who鈥檝e launched their own programs that listeners can download online.
Podcasting has been around for a decade, but it never had a breakout hit quite like "Serial." the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a popular high school student in Baltimore. Her ex-boyfriend and classmate Adnan Syed was convicted of murder, but he鈥檚 maintained his innocence.
The show is a spinoff from the creators of another popular series "This American Life". It developed such a following that and parodied it.
鈥淭he fact that Serial was a story that went, you know, from episode to episode, and it gave you that cliffhanger at the end of every episode just like television shows ... 鈥� Franks said. 鈥淪o I think it kind of put that podcast into that TV series mold that we鈥檙e used to seeing and we鈥檙e used to kind of consuming.鈥�
The weekend-long event will take place at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel starting July 31st. Monday at 8 a.m. And podcasting may be free, but this conference isn鈥檛. Price of admission: $297.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATXbJjuZqbc
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