The state of the podcast advertising market

I’m not sure if it’s a indication on the state of the podcast ad market as a whole or just of iHeart’s always awful ads, but it sure is annoying to hear the same 2 minute ad for a dumbass “smart” oven 3 times during a 12 minute episode of a podcast.

And even worse when listening to the The Ticket Top 10, to hear it back to back because the next episode is another episode of the same 8-12 minute podcast.

I mean I guess it’s less annoying than hearing all their ads for other iHeart shows that always sound SO AWFUL. I won’t name names that aren’t huge evil media conglomerates, but pretty much every podcast ad I’ve ever heard on any podcast network (other than RelayFM) always sounds like the absolute dumbest thing ever. Is that what ads for podcasts I like sound like to normal humans?

Valve Announces Steam Deck portable PC console

Steam Deck

Ok, I was already starting getting the itch to buy a gaming PC and then (thanks to watching a lot of LTT) and then today Valve announced the portable PC Steam Deck console.

It looks extremely cool and the price (compared to desktop PCs or even just graphics cards) is surprisingly affordable at $400 for the cheapest model. It looks like a big ass Nintendo Switch with a bit of a kitchen sink approach to control inputs. The claims of power/performance look solid for the tradeoffs of portable hardware and battery life.

As someone who has trouble finding time to sit and game in front of TV, the Steam Deck may be the thing that finally lets me catch up on a huge backlog of games I’ve been missing out on as a console gamer. We’ll see if I pull the trigger tomorrow when preorders open up.