Why Podcasting Will Fail
There are some things I just don’t get. People voluntarily using Windows is one. And podcasting is another. It is not the technology I don’t, it is the content. Podcasting is absolutely a cool thing. It combines the power of the internet with the storage capacity of the iPod in a (relatively) easy way. Some people have compared the power of podcasting to the power of Tivo.
But here is the problem—unlike Tivo the content we listen to on podcasts is, by and large, made by amateurs. That isn’t to say that what amateurs do is necessarily bad, but when it comes to many podcasts, unfortunately, it is. One issue with podcasts is the ghastly production value. But even on podcasts with good production values the biggest issue is, more often than not, the content.
Podcasts often fall into the trap of becoming narcistic drivel by people who mistakenly think anything they say is interesting.
But I could be wrong. The above sentence about narcistic drivel sounds like something awfully familiar that has become huge recently, blogs. While blogs (with rare exceptions) are not huge money-makers they have undoubtedly changed the landscape of the web and of web publishing. Blogs now are a force to be reckoned with, as many of us spend our surfing time reading our favorite traditional media sites, and blogs (As an aside I do not consider Apple Matters a blog, only because I publish other people’s writing and publish more than blog-like posts, not that there is anything wrong with blog-like posts!)
But the success of blogs have a strong lineage. Diarists and memoirists have been writing for centuries-blogs are just a more public, and immediate version. Podcasting, on the other hand, is akin to amateur radio which has never caught on. Another important element of the blog experience is the ability to quickly chose what you want to read. Sixty percent of the traffic to Apple Matters comes from RSS readers. People view the headline and the first few sentences in their newsreaders and some people click on a story, but many don’t. The blog reading experience is, by necessity due to all the blogs out there, one of filtering and selecting. You can’t do this easily with podcasts. Who wants to listen to 5 minutes of drivel before figuring out that the person isn’t interesting?
I would be very happy to be wrong about podcasting. And maybe I just don’t get it. But long term I think podcasting will be be come and gone by the end of the year.
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Comments
I haven’t spent a lot of time listening to podcasts, at least not yet. But to me the question is whether the medium offers advantages, or rather whether there are specific situations where it has those advantages.
I’ve been writing a blog about music. And I’ve been using the iTunes Music Store as a way of giving the reader samples of the music I describe. How much more natural to turn the whole thing into a podcast and let the reader/listener encounter the music in context?
Or think of podcasts as blogs for people who spend too much time in their cars. Yeah, most podcasts are likely to be poor. But that’s equally true of most blogs, most personal websites, most flickr galleries. And just as budding writers and photographers can discover their audiences on the web, would be DJs and talk radio hosts can have their chance to be in the public ear.
I think it’s way too early to know whether podcasts will go the way of websites, where personal sites gave way to corporate presence and ecommerce (and are now making a major comeback); or be more like blogs, which have started out a mix of personal and professional and have retained that mix. I’m not taking bets either way.
Hmmm. While your points are well taken, there are a few for the other side, as well.
The great thing about a podcast is that it can be produced when, and only when, there is content. Being produced, they can then be their natural length. A minute and a half if that is what the content deserves. Seventeen hours forty-two minutes twenty-six seconds if that is what the content deserves.
Compare and contrast with “normal” “broadcasters” who need to have twenty-two minutes of material ready for 20:00 on Tuesday come hell or high water - or lack of a muse.
I find a certain lack of polish appealing. I have just watched several sporting events broadcast over the weekend. The “professionals” seem to believe that we have tuned in solely to listen to them babble. I am definitely willing to trade narcissistic professionalism for earnest amateurism.
Don’t forget. If you don’t like the content, you don’t have to listen to it. If you don’t like the content over several shows, you can unsubscribe.
As for production values, I am sure that soon there will be some hardware/software packages which will help the situation immensely.
So. Will podcasting fail? I dunno. I thought the fax was the stupidest idea ever - who would want a fuzzy illegible copy when you could have a crystal clear Telex original? I now excuse myself from making predictions about that sort of thing. I can tell you, however, that right now, I subscribe to several, and listen to them in preference to all but my most favourite standard broadcasts.
The low quality of national, slick, commercial radio creates a void that podcasts can fill. I haven’t listened to much of them yet, but if I do, that will be why.
And extremely narrow niche offerings.
Podcasting in some ways is not news. We’ve long been able to record audio files and distribute them via MP3.
What is new is that there is an emerging SYSTEM for creating and distributing media, which consists of a recording device, say a laptop, and a playback device, an iPod, and that there is a degree of integration which facilitates the transfer.
I don’t own an iPod, but can listen to podcasts on my laptop just fine, and these types of files could have been produced at any time, but the IDEA is now catching up with technology.
The BIG IDEA is going to hit, I think, when iPods can play .mov files, and VIDEO hits iPodding. And isn’t a QuickTime iPod inevitable? Then we all have the ability to iPod (the verb) TV shows to each other.
And can’t iPods also be used to record audio source material, making the computer almost unnecessary for some “shows”?
I think Podcasting will stick.
I see podcasting as a natural extension of the internet. The comments Hadley makes were once made of journalism sites on the internet—that anyone could now post articles and have a web site and that amateurs could not be trusted with the scruples and rigors of a professional journalist. Podcasting is simply an audio version of this.
I agree with StevePod that commercial radio itself is so wanting and more often than not so poor that podcasting could scarcely be much worse.
I welcome this phenomenon because just as is the case with web sites, eventually word will get out as to the truly good podcasters and one can be selective then and in the process perhaps hear some new interesting music and even—gasp—some interesting commentary. (Commercial talk radio is often called squawk radio for good reason.)
Jeff Mincey
If the quality of podcasts is your primary complaint, then what do you have to say for “professional” podcasts?
Sure, then podcasts become nothing more than timeshifted radio (the new “wireless”?). But like Tivo and like the Internet, it’s content you want, when you want it. And isn’t that really the point?
RadioShark anyone?
I didn’t care about Podcasting *until* I realized the time-shifting ability for regular broadcasting. I started using a online radio recorder to “tape” my favorite NPR shows for listening at another time.
Now a few stations like KCRW Santa Monica and WNYC New York are providing wonderful shows like “On the Media” and “Left Right and Center” as Podcasts. Sure it is just an experiment in the Latest and Greatest Tech but I’m already finding it extremely useful and I hope others do to (and decide to pledge to these great public radio stations!)
I dont think podcasting will fail, outright. It may evolve into something grander when increased bandwidth makes quality media downloads possible. But as it now exists, it is definitely a niche market in a niche market (streaming internet media). The latest edition of Wired Magazine makes a big deal out of what emerging technologies, like satellite radio and podcasting, mean to the future of broadcast radio. But taking NPR as an example, much like the print media have added web versions of their content, I suspect that podcasting radio programs will simply be one more option in our multi-modal, multi-media future.
Podcasting might fail. And you bring up some interesting points. Obviously, just like blogs, the podcasts with more interesting things to say will be more successfull. But I’ve already seen at least one example of a non-amateur podcast: the Battlestar Galactica podcasts which are basically the producer/writer’s commentary track to each episode. (http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/)
Also, according to my definition of “blog,” I consider AppleMatters to be a blog, but you probably do straddle the line a bit. My understanding of what makes a blog a blog is that it must meet the following:
(1) It must be frequently updated.
(2) It must be updated as content becomes available (versus putting out issues of content like magazines).
(3) It is written in a casual manner.
Also, blogs usually have feedback mechanisms with readers via comments and trackbacks.
Blogs can have multiple authors, look at BoingBoing.
Not that anything’s wrong with AppleMatters being a blog.
Podcasting is emerging into something interesting. Some people just dont “get it” until they use podcasts for a few days, suddenly that time that was used while commuting or jogging whatever becomes interesting. A UK company loudish.com have developed a system around podcasting to send corporate intellegance to staff members, automating the service with a content management system and “automagically” generating podcasts. This months Wired was titled “The End of Radio” and included podcasting as a contributor this death, I think that is a bit far fetched, but we need to watch this technology carefully.
“Narcistic”? Speaking of amateurs…
i agree that podcasting, as we currently know it, may not be here to stay but for reasons not really emphasized here. like internet radio, commercial broadcasters have there eyes focused on this. already we see blogs decrying the demands for licensing fees from performance rights organizations in the case where podcasts play commercially available music.
in the end, once everyone has their say and the freedom associated with podcasting has been all but legislated away. podcasts will likely be here just in a very different form.
personally, i count myself among those who “don’t get,” podcasting. but my getting something seldom factors into its success, for better or worse.
I used to agree with you Hadley. But I’ve recently subscribed to the MyMac and MacBreak podcasts and have been listening (or watching) for a couple of months now. I think the area of random/useless podcasts is going to die out, to leave the actual information/content-rich podcasts, such as the MyMac podcast. The added personalization humanizes the information very nicely and is what makes the podcast special.
But I do still find it difficult to find time to just sit and listen to my computer without doing any surfing (if I start reading an article, the spoken text on the podcast just gets drowned out by my thinking and 5 minutes later I realized I wasn’t listening at all and have to rewind.) - but maybe that’ll change when I, one day, get an iPod