One hundred forty characters were not enough. This is why a group of bloggers, social media savants, and pop culture junkies from Puerto Rico decided to expand the conversations they were having through Twitter. On February 11, 2010, @eldifusor, @fetoso, @joeprog, @nerdote, @redod, @reed_rothchild and a “revolving cast of online friends, followers, and collaborators” recorded the first podcast of #EnProfundo [ES] (In-depth) which is now transmitted every week. They started talking mostly about tech issues and pop culture, but now they are also focusing on local political, social and media issues. The crew of #EnProfundo (@enprofundo) forged their friendships through Twitter. They take their online hobby pretty seriously, but they also have a lot of fun. The #EnProfundo crew. Photo courtesy of #EnProfundo. I interviewed them on behalf of Global Voices because they have one of the most innovative and creative online projects in Puerto Rico. Global Voices (GV)- What motivated you to begin #EnProfundo? #EnProfundo- @eldifusor: I remember the day the iPad was unveiled. I had just parked to get some gas at the station and took my cellphone out to read my Twitter time line. I read so many opinions about the device that I was eager to join the conversation, but I realized I had much more to say than those 140 characters where going to allow me. I thought about writing a blog post about it, but then I realized that would only be me sharing my thoughts without having a real conversation with others. Then it hit me: how about we get some bloggers and Twitter users together and start having that conversation out loud in person. We could record that and share it with the world. Mind you, this is not an original idea – podcasting was born out of this exact necessity. There are even some older efforts here in Puerto Rico like “The Wannabes” podcast and the more recent “Fium TV X-Tracto Semanal” video podcast. But those came out before Twitter had such a firm grasp on our lives, and I thought that making this podcast a direct response to the weekly Twitter banter could give us a nice foundation to build upon. So I called @redod up and told him what I had in mind. He loved the idea, so the next week we had our first meeting. Now that I say this, it is funny this whole thing started with a piece of tech news that was being discussed on Twitter, since we now tackle more “serious” news. That evolution happened organically, because since our very first meeting it was clear we all wanted to express ourselves about many other things besides technology. GV- What issues do you cover in your podcasts? #EnProfundo- @redod: Local issues quickly established themselves as our focus, especially as filtered through the local ‘traditional’ media outlets. #EnProfundo, we found, could function as both group think and group therapy. Together we could talk about the gossipy news that dominate media cycles, the poor coverage given to social issues, the current administration’s attempts at… I don’t know what it is that they are supposed to be doing. The strike organized by the University of Puerto Rico’s students was definitely the catalyst for this change. If people were willing to listen to us get things off our chest and give our impressions on what we’re fed daily as Puerto Ricans living on the Island, then even better – and I think our followers want us to tackle those issues more so than the tech/pop-culture stuff we started off covering. We do try to keeps things light and off-beat as much as possible, if the topic allows for it (which is probably most of the time). Exploring local Internet memes is as much a past time for #EnProfundo-ers as reading up on more serious topics – and we’ve had our share of fun discussing those. So if you listen to our most recent podcast, you’ll probably find a mix of all the topics I’ve mentioned here. In the end its just the six of us, with our friends, talking about stuff that piqued our interest during the week. The podcast is always evolving and the loose nature of it allows for that. GV- How has #EnProfundo been received by the Internet audiences? Have you received feedback? What kind of feedback? #EnProfundo- @eldifusor: For a podcast that is rather long and full of strong opinions about so many subjects, I am surprised we have an audience at all. I always thought that our listeners where basically going to be our closest friends and ourselves, but thankfully that has not been the case. Although this effort is something we do mostly for ourselves, we like reading and listening to what our audience is thinking. And the feedback we have received has been both helpful and positive.