FanFare

A world where artificial intelligence isn’t so artificial. Helen thought her new job would help her forget her dreary hometown, but working behind the curtain on everyone’s favorite A.I. isn’t quite the escape she expected. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA on Jun 17, 2018 - 3 comments

PJ Vogt is the co-host of Reply All. "Every radio story is broken. Everything is missing some piece it's supposed to have. Everything has some weird interview that didn't go the way you thought it was going to go, or you thought you had an answer but you were wrong."
posted by ellieBOA on Oct 1, 2017 - 2 comments

This week, Alex receives feedback about his job performance from his co-workers, friends, and family. Some of it is good, some less so. But there is something else that comes up during the review process that shocks him. We explore what happens when you unpack your emotional baggage—or someone unpacks it for you—and you realize the unexpected effect that it has been having on your team. In this final Gimlet-focused episode of season four, we take a raw and intimate look at a defining moment in the trajectory of a CEO.
posted by radioamy on Oct 21, 2016 - 17 comments

Growth. It can be exciting, it can be motivating, and it can be really stressful. In this week's episode, we take a look at the tensions that Gimlet's growth spurt is creating. We speak with the team producing one of our upcoming shows to see what it's really like to build a podcast from the ground up. Each of them is being asked to step up to the plate in a way that they never have before, and some are realizing that the support they expected, it just isn't there. People are pushed to their limits, emotions run high, and things that have remained hitherto unsaid are finally aired. [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Oct 15, 2016 - 4 comments

Jonathan watched a short experimental video in college in which a little girl sat in silence while her parent sobbed. Now, Jonathan wants to know if that girl is okay.
posted by ellieBOA on Oct 6, 2016 - 3 comments

I got an email from PJ and Alex of Reply All yesterday: "Hello! We have some exciting news, but we need to be a little secretive... Your favorite podcast co-hosts — PJ & Alex of Reply All (duh!) — have a new show. It's called Secret Chatroom. It's live, it's interactive, and it's monthly. It's an hour long, and it's for Gimlet Members only. That's really all we can say. Trust us, though, you won't want to miss it." [more inside]
posted by bq on Sep 20, 2016 - 0 comments

The rats are not what they seem. [more inside]
posted by lunch on Feb 25, 2016 - 23 comments

This week, a story about a big group of people with the same questions. Difficult, complicated, heartbreaking ones. These people all have one thing in common — they’re Mormons. [more inside]
posted by lunch on Feb 20, 2016 - 4 comments

Every night, Catherine Russell puts on a wig, picks up a gun, and defies the logic of Yelp. [more inside]
posted by lunch on Jan 14, 2016 - 11 comments

Amy and Ryan Green's one-year-old son is diagnosed with cancer and begins an agonizing period of treatment. And then, one night in the hospital, Ryan has a strange epiphany: this whole terrible ordeal should be a video game. [more inside]
posted by lunch on Jan 7, 2016 - 14 comments

Yik Yak is an app that allows users to communicate anonymously with anyone within a 10-mile radius. Last year, Reply All did a story about how it brought out a particularly vicious strain of racism at Colgate University. In the second half, Reply All goes beyond Colgate and talks to Jamil Smith to try to understand Colgate in the context of recent campus protests.
posted by lunch on Nov 18, 2015 - 2 comments

This week, Jade Davis loses her dog on the internet, and Alex and PJ go looking for it.
posted by lunch on Nov 12, 2015 - 9 comments

Hope is a photographer. One day her body begins to betray her. It starts with her eyes.
posted by lunch on Oct 15, 2015 - 7 comments

Jamie Keiles is a writer who decided to photograph something that's practically invisible. Her story plus a new Yes Yes No. [more inside]
posted by lunch on Oct 8, 2015 - 11 comments

Ripoff Report is one of the original complaint websites. It's basically the work of one person, a man whom the internet describes as a kind of mythical villain, a Keyser Söze who wields power from behind his janky website. Reply All producer Sruthi Pinnamaneni visits his bunker. [more inside]
posted by lunch on Sep 24, 2015 - 14 comments

Alex and PJ do a Yes Yes No with Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller of NPR's Invisibilia, and discuss the one message you've sent across the internet you wish you could take back.
posted by lunch on Sep 10, 2015 - 6 comments

Chris complained about his cable company on Twitter. He was surprised to get a phone call demanding he delete the tweets or else be banned from the service. PJ looks into the story, and things get much stranger. Plus, a new Yes Yes No.
posted by lunch on Sep 3, 2015 - 10 comments

On this week's episode of Reply All, PJ and Alex go outside.
posted by lunch on Aug 27, 2015 - 28 comments

In the first half Preston Mardenborough has posted the same ad to craigslist over 300 times, Sylvie Douglis finds out why. In the second half Barry Crimmins embarked on on a one-man crusade to stop child pornographers on AOL in the mid-90's. [more inside]
posted by selenized on Aug 14, 2015 - 12 comments

Even though technology evolves at a rapid clip, US government agencies seem trapped about a decade in the past. PJ talks to technologist Clay Johnson about why the government is so unable to adapt, and what it would look like if it could keep pace with the rest of the world. [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Aug 6, 2015 - 3 comments

The Case: A young boy finds an enchanting object in the street.
posted by Cash4Lead on Jun 8, 2015 - 29 comments

The Case:  Andrea's a writer no one reads. Then she makes a shocking discovery.
posted by Tevin on May 30, 2015 - 25 comments

The Case: Laura rents a video. When she tries to return it the next day, the video store is gone. 
posted by Tevin on May 22, 2015 - 17 comments

First comes love...then comes equity StartUp is a podcast series about what it's really like to get a business off the ground. In Season 1, Alex Blumberg told the story of launching this business, Gimlet Media, a podcast network. In Season 2, Alex is joined by co-Host Lisa Chow, to follow an entirely new company. The business is Dating Ring, a dating company that combines technology with old-fashioned matchmaking. The founders are women in their 20s, outsiders in the male-dominated world of Silicon Valley. And over the 10 episodes, we'll take you inside that world. Some of the challenges they face are different from Alex's: founder disagreements, hellish fundraising, and sexism. But just like Gimlet's story, theirs is also a transparent account of something that happens everyday in America, but we rarely get to see firsthand: starting a business.
posted by Tevin on Apr 23, 2015 - 7 comments

Alex Blumberg is a former producer for This American Life and Planet Money. Last year he founded Gimlet Media, a podcast network, and hosts its first show, StartUp. “When someone starts talking about something difficult, when they get unexpectedly emotional, your normal human reaction is to sort of comfort and steer away. To say, ‘Oh I’m sorry, let’s move on.’ What you need to do, if you want good tape, is to say, ‘Talk more about how you’re feeling right now.’ It feels like a horrible question to ask. It feels like you're going against your every instinct as a decent human being to go toward the pain that this person is experiencing.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Lynda and Alarm Grid for sponsoring this week's episode. [more inside]
posted by bq on Jan 30, 2015 - 1 comment