From Scribbles on the Stall to Voices in the Drain

"I'm also throwing something in the bowl: elbrauschen.de splash. Flush! narcissistic ass.

Still one of my favorite forum posts. Elbrauschen, that was our Podcast. At the time of this lovely forum comment, I was already running it on my own.

And this podcast, which eventually found its way into the virtual toilet of the internet – which I find especially fitting because blogs had been described a few years earlier as the toilet walls of the internet – this podcast went online exactly 20 years ago today.

Twenty years ago, the intro jingle played for the first time, and Steffen and I welcomed our first listeners with:
“Elbrauschen – Podcasting from the Waterkant.”

Podcasts were brand new. Just the other day, I got an email from Apple celebrating the 20-year anniversary of Apple Podcasts.

Back then, it was relatively easy to land in the iTunes podcast charts. Only when the professionals started showing up – most notably the Tagesschau – did it get harder. These days, you’re lucky if people even find you.

In 2005, something started to blossom that we’d already seen happening with blogs. Suddenly, there were people making funny, wild, serious, amateur, and professional podcasts. While everybody was trying to figure out what exactly a podcast even was.

Today, everyone knows the term, and many well-known podcasters like to claim they were early. Which, in most cases, just means they had a show before 2020. Every so often you want to raise a finger in correction, but what’s the point? Other than some personal satisfaction, and confirming that you’re a self-absorbed asshole.

In 2005, we somehow managed to publish an episode every day. Let me repeat that: EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Alternating between Steffen and me. Weekends off.

We watched what others were doing, which was still easy because the scene was so small, and we especially looked across the pond to the U.S., where the big inspirations were coming from. Especially Adam Curry with his Daily Source Code.

And while we were already seeing this huge new medium full of potential, the traditional media started paying attention. Newspapers began writing about it. One example: the German taz wrote a piece about three podcasts from Hamburg and even met with Steffen for an interview.

Yeah, since then, I have been “the rowdy one” …

Podcasts have come a long way. But at the core, it’s still the same: If you’re into it, just do it! Sure, it’s a lot harder to get discovered and heard today – but it’s still fun!

And from a technical perspective, the topic is still relevant. Before the podcast, there was RadioTux – we called it radio-on-demand back then. A Linux radio show that we ran and that still exists today (as a podcast) – probably one of the oldest still active ones. It was running on a homemade CMS.

Elbrauschen used one of the first CMSs made specifically for podcasts, Loudblog. I think it was a WordPress fork. Later it moved to WordPress directly. Today, I’m developing my own podcast plugin for Kirby – of course, I use it myself.

Elbrauschen didn’t last the full 20 years. Toward the end, around 2009, new episodes only went up sporadically. I tried to relaunch it in 2010, but that remained just a single attempt. The traces on the web are slowly fading, but I still can’t bring myself to let go of the domains.

I experienced that time as incredibly exciting, blogs, podcasts, so many new possibilities! For me, it was mind-blowing. And so I enjoy looking back and, over the past few days and weeks, I’ve found myself getting the urge to maybe start something again, alongside Server Side Stories.

We’ll see. For now, I’m listening to some old MP3s and cringing a little at the stuff I put online back then.

I wonder what Anonymous listens to these days?