As you that follow this blog or podcast know, concision of expression is not my strong suit. I’m trying to boil down a notion I have scattered through casts and blog posts down to an absurdly simple sound bite. If anyone can help me digest this even further, please jump in.
To think that podcasts are about the next step of blogs is wrong in the same way as thinking that the X-Prize is about the next step of taxi cabs.
Here’s a post that is on to what I’m thinking. He begins with the statement ” I have stopped listening to the radio on my commute.” Bloggers who keep saying that blogs work better because you “can skim them, read faster” ad nauseum are, to put it bluntly, fucked. They are complaining that the rules of nickle-ante game don’t apply when you go to the $100K ante. If you think they should, you ain’t got the ambition or vision to play in the big games.
Podcasting is blogging for the rest of us!
I think when your get right down to it podcasting’s only real relationship to blogging is that it uses the same delivery mechanism, namely RSS 2.0, and that its barriers to entry are nothing more than the ownership of a computer and a desire to do it.
But to limit podcasting solely to blogging is cutting it short. As Dave has made clear to me, podcasting is merely the delivery mechanism, what that podcast contains could be anything and is only limited by our own imaginations and current technology.
When I try to give someone a short answer for podcasting I keep coming back to it being like Tivo for your iPod (substitute favorite mp3 device here). I truly believe it will be that, but much more so in that it won’t be just limited to television but virtually any media that can be transmitted and consumed in a digital form is fair game. I forsee a time in the near future when our handheld devices will be playing us back, video, music, images and text. My prediction is that device is going to be the cellphone (or at least what we today call the cellphone), and not only will it consume these podcasts it is going to have the ability to create them as well, with all the tools, camera, digital video, and basic text editing right in the palm of your hand.
Now where’w my flying car, dammit!
The two aren’t fungible. Apples and oranges. Err…for Crikey’s sake, a newspaper and a book on tape. WTF would say the two are the same? I like them both…but one is one, and the other is the other, you know? Why…do they have to fight?
Like it or not, podcasting has more in common with talk radio than with Blogs. By using a few basic broadcasting tips, podcasts can really become something that radio never could – true freedom of speech (as in, no FCC).
Here are a few tips I came up with for the podcasting revolution – http://www.promoguy.net/archives/002590.php
As many have said, comparing blogging directly to podcasting is preposterous. They are, however, analogous. How many independent publishers were there before the advent of blog popularity? Not many. How about now? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Podcasting is to broadcasting what blogging is to publishing.
Picture a square centimeter in a football field; Now, picture 999+ trillion football fields… Which is our Finite Existence? Which is Heaven or Hell? Don’t be ignorant. Repent. Join this sinful mortal Upstairs after our lifelong demise for the ultimate, DHTML experience.
Comparing blogs (or anything else) with podcasts is as meaningful “the web is like a newspaper but on the computer” or “a movie is like a play but on the wall”. People have erred this way in the past and slowed progress. Better to be more zen-like and say “podcasting is podcasting”.
Analogies *are* very useful for introducing new concepts and leveraging experience, but don’t make the mistake of equating two different technologies.
Like blogging and the web before it, podcasting will emerge as a medium in its own right, fuelled by the imagination of podcasters worldwide.
I’ve posted a few things on the podcast faq (http://podca.st) about the difference between audio and text. Long story short: both are good, both have appropriate and inappropriate uses.
I totally agree with you Dave in that Podcasting will end up being so much more than just an audio blog. In fact, thanks to your show and shows from the other podcasting pioneers, my brother and I have started our own sports show called The Skinny on Sports. It’s a 10 minute sports commentary show about the issues in the sporting world.
I don’t think this show would be nearly as effective or even possible in “blog form” – there is just no comparison between the two except for maybe that Podcasting began with a similar delivery mechanism to blogs. But I guess that’s for listeners to decide.
If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for us with the show, let me know since we’re just starting out.
Andy