The origins of the Lifestyle PodNetwork can be traced back to 2007 and an early podcast called Podcasters’ Emporium. It’s a show that covers everything about podcasting from the software used to create podcasts, to how to create those podcasts on your computer. The show focuses on subjects like audio quality, feeds, community, marketing, equipment and software. Podcasters’ Emporium is hosted by Dave Gray and James Williams – and it has attracted a dedicated audience of podcasters from right around the world.
Hosts of Podcasters' Emporium Podcast: Dave Gray (L), James Williams (R)
As the show built a worldwide community of podcasters, one significant theme started to appear: People loved to podcast, but many lacked the technical and marketing know-how to get their show mainstream recognition.
This was happening at the same time that large media companies were entering the podcast market with time-shifted radio and TV content. On one hand this brought podcasting mainstream recognition. The downside was that many podcasters who work hard to create free content, were fast becoming invisible on directories like Apple iTunes, because they couldn’t compete with the sheer audience size of mainstream content consumers.
Driven by a wish to equalize the playing field, and compete with the ‘big guys’ – James Williams launched the Lifestyle PodNetwork in June 2008, with five shows and three hosts. James built the first website himself – and the network was born.
Two years later, the network’s growth makes it Australia’s fastest growing podcast network, promoting more than 40 free shows and serving over 1TB of podcasts to listeners around the world every month.The network has attracted show hosts from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and Australia and it covers a range of audience interests from including Technology, Spirituality, Business, Travel, Music, Sports and Recreation and many more.
You’ll find over 40 different shows through the site, covering many aspects of life! James hosts and produces some of the shows, but as the network expands new hosts and shows appear all the time. Learn more about our shows by clicking its name or an episode from the home page. You can listen to any show by pressing play on the player built into each show’s home page. If you like a show you can subscribe to it using iTunes, Zune player, or using the RSS feed for other programs.
In 2011 Lifestyle PodNetwork created a range of free LPN mobile applications for Apple, Android and Nokia devices, so that listeners could listen to all the latest shows from the Lifestyle PodNetwork on-the-go. These hugely popular applications tap the rapidly expanding mobile entertainment consumer market.
A large majority of our podcasts are free. The Lifestyle PodNetwork is supported by listener donations. A small recurring donation of $2/month through PayPal keeps us afloat and shows your support for what we are doing here. In 2011, the Lifestyle PodNetwork will grow by an extra 20 shows.
We make podcasting simple.
If you like to get behind a microphone but don’t want to mess-around with the technical stuff, then let us do the hard-lifting for you.
We have the technology and the social platform to build a vibrant show community right here, waiting for podcasters like you.
How can we do this? We leverage our resources to secure and share great services like low-cost, high bandwidth and high-availability podcast hosting.
If you already have hosting you will still benefit from our profile, our brand and our network of podcasts and have your independence.
If you have a show you’d like us to consider then send your podcast or blog web address to us.
If you just have a great idea for a podcast, and you’re looking for a partner then you can send that to us as well.
Rob K. 
Petroleuse 
James Williams 
