Why we rebuilt the site.
The Arkansas Podcast Collaborative has a new home online. New address, arkansaspodcasts.org, brand new house. If you are reading this, you are already standing in it. Welcome.
Here is the short version of why we did it. The Collab outgrew the old site. We were founded in Spring 2023 as the first nonprofit for podcasters in the United States, built out of years of meetups and festivals that needed a roof of their own. Since then the member directory has grown to 170 shows, and ARKAST is heading into its fifth year. The old site was built for the group we were at the start. This one is built for the group we are now, with room for the group we plan to become.
We had three goals for the rebuild. Make it easy to find every member show. Put every event, class, and festival date in one place. And make the whole thing load fast on a phone, because that is where most of you will read it.
The directory, front and center.
If you only visit one page today, make it the podcast directory. All 170 member shows are listed there, and every one of them has its own spot with cover art and a description. This is the heart of the whole site, because the directory is the heart of the whole Collab. It is the proof that Arkansas has a real podcast scene, show by show.
The directory now has genre pages too, so every corner of the scene gets its own shelf. True crime and paranormal, comedy, sports and outdoors, business, faith, and the rest each have a page where you can browse just that slice of the state. If you tell a friend you know a great Arkansas comedy podcast, you can now send them a link that lists all of them.
One more thing, and it is our favorite little feature. See that ticket in the top corner that says Surprise Me? Click it. It hands you a random show from the directory, like pulling a name out of a hat. It is the fastest way we know to meet an Arkansas podcaster you have never heard of. We built it because the best part of every meetup is the person you did not plan to talk to.
Chapters, meetups, and the Halloween show in one place.
The Collab runs on gatherings. The Central Arkansas chapter meets in Little Rock, the Northwest Arkansas chapter meets up north, and both hold monthly meetups where members trade gear advice, guest swaps, and honest feedback. Then there is the ARKAST Halloween live show, a date on the calendar all its own.
Before now, keeping track of all that meant checking a few different places. The new events hub fixes that. Both chapters, the monthly meetup dates, and the Halloween show all live on one page. Bookmark it, check it once a month, and you will never miss a gathering again.
The ARKAST hub, ready for Year Five.
ARKAST is where the Collab came from. The festival gave us our start, and this October it comes back for Year Five. That milestone deserved more than a single page, so the new site gives ARKAST a full hub of its own, including a home for the ARKAST Awards.
As Year Five details are locked in, that hub is where they will land first. Dates, sessions, speakers, tickets, awards news, all of it. If you have been to ARKAST before, you know why we are excited. If you have not, the fifth one is a very good place to start.
The blog and the press list.
You are reading the first post written for the new site. From here on out, the blog is our press list. Festival announcements, member news, advocacy updates, and the craft posts our members ask for will all publish here first.
We brought the archive along too. The gear guides, the member interviews, and the advocacy posts from the old site all made the move, so nothing you linked to is lost. If you want a feel for what the blog covers, the sidebar on this page is a good sampler.
Built fast, built for search, built to grow.
A quick word on how the site is made, since it affects members directly. Every page is plain, fast-loading code with no heavy page builder behind it. That means the directory loads quickly on phone data in a coffee shop, and it means the site costs the nonprofit very little to run. Every dollar we do not spend on hosting is a dollar that goes to programs.
It also helps member shows get found. Every show listing and every genre page is a real page that search engines can read, which helps a listing turn up when someone searches for Arkansas podcasts. As the directory grows past 170 shows, the site grows with it, new chapters and events included.
Where to start exploring.
Here is a short tour to get you going.
- Browse the directory. Look up your favorite show, find your own listing, or hit Surprise Me and meet someone new.
- Check the events hub. Find your chapter's next meetup in Little Rock or Northwest Arkansas and put it on your calendar.
- Peek at the ARKAST hub. Year Five news will land there as it firms up.
- Look at membership. If you make a show in Arkansas and you are not a member yet, membership is $15 a month, and it funds the classes, mentorship, and long-term programs that keep this scene growing.
- Read our story. The about page tells how a festival turned into the first nonprofit of its kind in the country.
If you find a broken link or a page that acts up, tell us through the contact page. A new house always has a squeaky door somewhere, and we would rather hear about it from a friend.
Thanks for being part of this. The site is new, but the mission is the same one we started with in Spring 2023: give every Arkansas podcaster a place to learn, plug in, and grow. Come on in and look around.