Steve Heisler has a life that I’m sure many Earwolf fans envy: He writes about comedy for The AV Club, Vulture and Variety, he produces comedy for the Just For Laughs festival, and he performs comedy of his very own! If you aspire to create a career for yourself in comedy production, you’ll want to hear Steve’s story and his advice for other freelancers. Please visit our store or consider making a donation, and if you have any plans on shopping on Amazon, use our affiliate link on Earwolf!

The week Jeff once again breaks the mold of what The Wolf Den is by podcasting all by himself (and with a little help from our brilliant engineer Dustin and our financial miracle worker Dave). We’d like to give you a once over of where Earwolf is right now: What our problems are, how we’re trying to fix them, and what that means for our future. We love all you listeners and always welcome feedback, so don’t hesitate to email thewolfden@earwolf.comand lay it all on us! Thanks

When we relaunched Earwolf.com, we added a section called Yourcast that would allow podcasters to advertise on our site. For this week’s The Wolf Den, we’ve asked two of our Yourcast users (Jacob Munford from Lobstercast and Cameron Buchholtz from CB Radio) to tell us about their experiences using the service and to teach us about the unique struggles of running a podcast outside of Hollywood. Enjoy, and be sure to peruse Yourcast for what might be your new favorite podcast!

Jeff has used his skills of deceit and trickery to get a truly wonderful guest for the week: Peter Kafka from All Things Digital. This guy has worked for Forbes Magazine and a major Wall Street banker and guess what? He’s a podcast geek! Jeff and Peter hop all over the place from the potential uselessness of graduate school to the issues plaguing iTunes and Netfilx. Too many issues are covered for me to list, so listen in and learn something!

Hopefully most of you have visited Funny or Die since Monday and know about our new partnership with them. If you haven’t, this episode will answer a lot of questions. Even if you have, you’ll learn from Dick Glover, President of Funny or Die, how the partnership came to be, how the website itself came to be, and what it’s like to work for such a popular comedy entity. This is the guy who made ESPN.com back in ’92, so he’s got amazing amounts of insight into the digital world and where it is headed. I’ll give you a hint: QR codes and hoodies.

Cracked.com is one of the internet’s most popular comedy locales. Jack O’Brien is the mastermind behind this magazine-turned-website and he’s here on The Wolf Den to talk web analytics, book publishing, flashbulb memory and more. Learn a bit about the impending FunnyOrDie partnership and get a quick tease of what you can expect from Earwolf in the coming month. Thanks for all the activity in the forums, and as always you can email thewolfden@earwolf.com

Todd Jackson is a comedy writer and entrepreneur who hopped from Cracked Magazine to Comedy Central before creating the comedy website Dead-Frog. He joins Jeff on this unusual episode to discuss 9/11, strange-sounding networking advice, and the potential relationship between our two websites. This isn’t your typical The Wolf Den, but then again what IS a typical The Wolf Den?

If you haven’t asked yourself this question yet, you will after listening to this episode! Part political activist, part social media innovator, and one-hundred-percent hilarious, Baratunde joins Jeff this week to discuss the evolution of entertainment platforms, the creative mindset, and the power of The Thank You Economy. This is a guy who is funny enough to work for The Onion, but is sincere and thoughtful enough to create of one of the only non-ironic or cat-based “viral videos” that I can think of! When you’re done listening, go to Baratunde’s website to learn about the million other things he’s created that we didn’t have time to address.

The Wolf Den is finally back! In exchange for the several week absence, we have a great episode for you all featuring Jeff Rubin of Collegehumor, Nerd Alert, The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show and more. He explains the complicated (yet awesome) science of “enhanced podcasts” and sheds light on the podcasting community on the east coast. There is an economy lesson stuffed in here as well regarding the expenses and complications of selling tee shirts. Sorry once again for the break, and enjoy!

Jeff is back once again from his apartment to give us all a quick run down of Earwolf news. Topics of the day: The Earwolf Challenge, our FunnyorDie partnership, and our forthcoming advisory board. Of course, it wouldn’t be The Wolf Den without “Preachy Jeff” and his advice for young entrepreneurs looking for mentors. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of Earwolf. We’re excited to keep growing and evolving!

For the first time, Jeff records an episode from his apartment and without guests. He monologues about trying to survive a rough week at Earwolf, why you should pursue your passion and how to afford titty bars. He also plays messages from listeners about what they like about Earwolf and what can be improved. He even discusses his thoughts on inappropriate laughter in lactation rooms. Enjoy this weird episode.

It seems like every time you click refresh on the Nerdist website there is new cool stuff happening. What started as a blog and transitioned into a podcast is now a television pilot, a live performance space at Meltown Comics, a podcasting network, and even a book! Chris Hardwick is here to try to discuss all of that as well as his partnership with Geek Chic and the economic difficulties of doing a podcast live. We even get Chris’ opinion on our new Earwolf Live App and a stellar suggestion for a new, simpler term to replace “download.” Listen to the episode and, as always, let us know what you think over on the forums!

We love all our Earwolf listeners and are impressed by their contributions to the network as fans. This episode celebrates those listeners by speaking to three of our biggest superfans: Dustin Martian, Julia Hays, and Mike McCawley. They all started listening at different times, for different reasons, and with different preferences, but they all make our jobs at Earwolf so much easier. Learn who your fellow listeners are and how they’ve developed relationships not only with Earwolf, but with each other as well. We’d love to hear your Earwolf stories in The Wolf Den forums!