A few years back, I formulated Slusher’s Law of Podcasting, which roughly states that the more people are involved in a podcast, the less I care about it. Here’s someone who feels like I do about some multi-person podcasts:
Bungie. I tried. I really really tried. Your blog is full of interesting information. But for pitys sake, please, can you PLEASE STOP TALKING OVER THE TOP OF EACH OTHER. After 20 mins I just gave up because a) everyone constantly talked over each other (note, a pod cast is NOT a casual conversation, and even if it was, most of what people feel the need to share IMMEDIATELY is just Not That Interesting, certainly not worth destroying someone elses train of thought) and b) no one was ever explained who they are. Who is Joe whatever his name is? What does he do? Why is he being interviewed?
I’m with you, Jake. That’s why I tend to not listen to panel-type podcasts. The worst are the ones where all the people are friends and make nonstop in-jokes. If you are going to do a roundtable show, for god’s sake don’t constantly keep making inane jokes that interrupt the flow.
One of the reasons I am starting to dislike panel podcasts is that they all seem to be done through TalkShoe or BlogTalkRadio. Their audio quality is basically that of a recorded conference call. I think that it shows poor attention to quality (Skype isn’t that hard to use and record) and it also can turn off newcomers to podcasting (I didn’t make the effort to get this show just to listen to a conference call!)
Yet they seem to be springing up more and more.
–*Rob
All our lives, we’ve had practice at one-on-one conversations over the phone. Probably someone’s done a Thesis on this: Somehow we manage subtle cues through the ether. We can pull off a remote interview quite well if both parties are prepared. As soon as you put a conference bridge into the loop, all of our diligent practice as teenagers carrying on a dialog over the phone goes out the window. The conference bridge *has* to mute everyone who isn’t speaking, and that strips out the cues. Because of this, no matter what you do about the sound quality, it’s still going to have that conference call feel to it.
Guys, I don’t disagree with what either of you say but the conference call quality is not my primary concern. The group podcast I gave more chances than any other, that I was desperate to like, was a 4-6 person show recorded in the same room. However, it very quickly devolved into in-jokes and became unlistenable without any help from the recording process.