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Are Podcasts About Conversations?

I got an interesting reaction from Cameron Reilly in response to my "Cynical View" posting:

I think the problem with your argument here, and it’s a common one, is
that you think podcasting is about "good content and good
entertainment". I don’t. I think podcasting is more like the TELEPHONE
than RADIO. It’s about having conversations. Do you think that good
conversations are about "talent"? Or just about people talking about
things that are important to them?

This "Podcasts are Conversations" angle doesn’t make any sense to me, and I believe it is the result of a mistaken belief that podcasting is an extension of blogging.  After all, it was RSS that started them both, and the blogging community has an almost religious zeal about the notion that blogging will reinvent the way journalism and media operate.  Before podcasts went mainstream, the term "Audio Blogging" was almost used interchangably, since adding an RSS enclosure added audio to a blog.

While it may be true that some bloggers will embrace podcasting as an alternative means of information interchange, there are reasons why podcasting is different, and more oriented toward one-to-many entertainment and information distribution.

Podcasting is one-to-many

For starters, podcasting is a one-to-many medium.  It is hard to imagine it as anything else, as even the suffix "-casting" borrows its name from so many other one-to-many mediums.

Early on, there was interesting discussion about ways to introduce feedback mechanisms into podcasts, so that people could add audio annotation, just like blog commentary.  Read the interesting thread of discussion on Brendon Wilson’s Blog to get good feel for how people envision this working.

One reply noted:

One of the problems that I see with the whole podcasting meme, which is
very related to the points you raised, is that it is a passive, offline
activity, with very few opportunities for feedback. Imagine this
scenario: say you download one of Dave’s podcasts, and go for a walk.
What happens if, while you’re walking, Dave mentions something that
you’d like to respond to? Do you glance at your audio device &
record the time offset? What about the idea? Do you you write it in a
notebook?

So, to really solve this problem, you need to solve some incredible technical problems, plus hope that the player (or mobile phone) vendors cooperate with such standards in order to deliver them.  The bigger question is, do people actually want this?

I believe the question is academic.  In the year that passed since that posting, the idea of audio blogs has all but been forgotten.  Everybody is concentrating on searching, aggregating, publishing.  Instead of conversations, people want to be sure their podcasts are listed in iTunes, or being syndicated by the right people.  The Podshow and Podsquad are trying to push themselves to the top of the audience pyramid.  If somebody once cared about "podcasting is a conversation" I don’t see anybody caring right now.

The Majority of People Will Consume, not Create

Podcasting will be dominated by talented individuals who want to communicate with an audience.  Statistics suggest that those who create blogs are well-educated, high-income internet veterans [Pew, 2005].  In addition, the number of people who contribute audio content to online sources is at the bottom of the list of content publishing activities people undertake, with posting photos and written material at the top, and audio and video at the bottom [Pew, 2004].

I’m not the kind of person to put blind faith in market surveys or statistics, but in this case these conclusions support what my common-sense and industry experience tells me.  Although anybody can record their voice with a microphone, few people are capable of spontaneous dialog or audio journalism of any acceptable or engaging quality.  Those who are must be literate and accustomed to speaking, and also must have the type of personality that enjoys being heard.  Most don’t.

The best guess I can make from the various numbers is that 20% of those reading blogs also write their own blog.  While writing a blog entry takes time, creating an audio blog, or podcast, takes even more time.  Plus, you need to know a little bit about microphone technique, and how to keep your audio show concise and interesting.  Video is even more difficult.  True, anybody can record their voice.  Anybody can hold a camera.  But, with the number of listeners expanding there will be a Darwinian selection that occurs, and people who don’t create very good shows will not end up being able to compete with the talented individuals and organisations who can.

There are no reliable statistics on podcasting yet, and those that exist have questionable quality.  But, I have been tracking weekly the growth in listeners.  I would be willing to wager that the audience size is growing dramatically faster than the content-creation side, and the selection process is already starting as many less talented podcasters are being edged out by the better ones.

Audio Producers Face Challenges

Anyone who wants to produce their own shows faces challenges, not only technically, but legally. 

Technically, almost every podcast site features some information about "producing your podcast" and there are frequent discussions about devices, audio recording software, and production values.  This is an aspect of podcasting that is almost totally absent from blogging.  Aside from the technical issues, people percieve audio recordings very differently than they do written journalism.

Back in July, Steve Sloan did some audio interviews with students and put them online.  In a dispute he describes with SJSU, he was chastised for interviewing students without permission of the school.   With live and phone interviews, as well as music, podcasts require clearance and licensing considerations that bloggers can usually remain blissfully ignorant.  The moment a show becomes popular, issues of rights to audio clips and other sources become important, launching the producer into the same content production issues as face broadcasters.

Anyone who really does want to do audio blogging to create truly engaging small audience conversations can still do it, surely.  Just as radio not only entertains Americans in their cars, it also connects airplanes with air traffic controllers.  Podcasts can enjoy similar diversity, creating social groups and connecting people.  Will it really happen?  Perhaps in some small niche.  But, if the "podcasting as conversation" crowd does survive, it will be an increasingly uphill battle as the technologies themselves begin to mutate quickly to afford better and better "radio-like" features for the more profitable one-to-many services.

My primary interest is in how podcasting will transform media and consumption, not just for the few, but for the many, and especially for the average consumer.  While I can see the "conversation" aspects, especially among those pioneers who launched the podcasting revolution, the future lies solidly with news and entertainment, and is a huge opportunity for new market entrants.  That’s where I’d put my money.

——-

(By the way, I don’t think Steve Sloan was being naive or "blissfully ignorant".  I think has good points in his blog, and frankly I’m surprised SJSU objected.)

[tags: podcasting]

Google and Podcasting

Has anyone noticed how silent Google is about podcasting?

Lately, I’ve been helping Grace collect KPI’s for her new podcast business.  It’s interesting comparing the myriads of "podcast directories" with Google.  The world of podcasting reminds me to the Internet "Portals" of 1997.  Everybody thought having a portal was the thing to do, and directories sprung up everywhere.  PodNova, Yahoo Podcasts, The Podcast Network, Idiotvox, and Odeo are all essentially the same product: directories.

Some will argue that these are more than that.  That they are "content aggregators".  Or that they "empower podcast developers" with tools and technologies to make podcasts easier to do.  But really, they will end up as directories where search is their most important feature.

Why?

Podcast Tools and Techniques: Going, Going, Gone

There used to be a mystique about streaming media.  There was a time when even competent web developers would seek specialists.  But, at a recent visit to Streaming Media World in New York, it was clear that having conferences about Streaming Media was about as sensible as having conferences about "How to use JPEGs!".  Streaming Media is mainstream.  The conference focused on "special corporate applications" and media management platforms.  Everybody who was really involved in streaming media was elsewhere.  That’s because if you want to use streaming media, it’s pretty easy once you learn a few of the basics.

The same is true of Podcasting.

Anybody can do it, really.  OK, right now, it’s difficult to learn the vagaries of RSS and to understand a lot of the details.  Just like CSS, there are some specs which are hard to read, some competing tagging standards, and of course XML is still a bit of a bugaboo to some people, especially those who don’t know the technical jargon.

But, that will end.  Within a year, a combination of some downloadable "wizard-like" tools (such as FeedForAll), along with the eventual increase of knowledge will eliminate the learning curve and people will realize that creating podcasts is easy.  Well, maybe the content is hard, but that’s nothing new, and none of these sites will help you be a great content producer.  Just the mechanics, maam.

Podcasters will learn that aggregator sites are a waste of time, and independent brand building by successful podcasters will result in side-by-side competition with other content sites using search tools, like, er…, um, Google!  The term podcasting will be downplayed, and suddenly, what will be important to people is the brand.  Sites such as Coverville will last as a content brand, and the fact that they use podcasts to reach their audience will become a trivial footnote.

So, any aggregation site which relies on tools and techniques and wizards really won’t have much purpose or differentiation.

Content Aggregators: Who Owns It?

Some believe that they are becoming new content powerhouses.    For example, Adam Curry’s Podshow and The PodSquad are an example of this.  In reality, I don’t think Curry really believes in the long term aggregation schtick.  He’s reformulating radio and using podcast as content fodder. 

Such efforts have sprung up all over the place.  Australia’s Podcast Network is a fine effort to become a content aggregator.  But, who really owns the content?  An aggregator will have staying power only with exclusives, and unless aggregators have a very, very narrow niche content focus, they will be competing with large general aggregators like Yahoo who rely upon search technologies and community building to deliver what people want.

So, unless an aggregator has signed exclusive deals with top talent, they’ll fall by the wayside and just be another directory.  And top talent does not mean Dawn and Drew, in case you wondered.

Back to Google

One thing is clear.  When you regularly visit PodNova, Yahoo, and Odeo to collect analytical data, you realize that their search algorithms are toys compared to Google.  Google is a living, breathing machine powered by complex heuristics with a great deal of data to sample.  The podcasts we’ve been tracking on PodNova and Odeo have had exactly the same ratings and positioning for the past week.  Google’s position of these sites and podcasts changes hourly!  It is clear that these sites don’t do search very well.

So, if podcasting becomes childsplay, and the aggregators don’t own their content, say goodbye.

Whether Google decides to launch a podcast site or not isn’t important.  Right now, you can go to Google and find "news podcasts" more easily and reliably than any other method.  I predict that Google will add a "Podcasts" link right next to their "News" link.  If they’re smart, they won’t try to help people with the technology, they’ll just focus on search.

For podcasters, this is a great time.  Every directory under the sun wants to list you.  Without even trying, your podcasts are scattered through tens of thousands of pages, and being seen is easier than ever.  The smart podcasters will stick to their brand, and use podcasting as a "launch vehicle" rather than becoming romantically involved with the technology.

But, in the end, it will be the podcasters that focus on high-quality exclusive content that will win, not the aggregators.

Google is already better, and I’m not sure they’re trying that hard.

Podcasting: The Cynical View

Much of the podcasting hype is fueled by unrealistic views about the impact of technology.

Time and time again, futurists and techno-pundits have predicted that widespread availability of content creation and distribution technologies would unleash the creative powers of the masses and democratize media.

The radio-vision machine, transmitting and receiving living and moving
objects, will come to the fireside as a fascinating teacher and
entertainer, without language, literacy or age limitation…  [C. Francis Jenkins, 1925]

While such optimistic hopes of a benevolent, enriching technology were shared by many, industry executives like David Sarnoff realized that the same economics of advertising and content that fueled radio would triumph in the world of television.

I remembered when the Internet was born and the first time I sat down with Mosaic in 1993.  I believed it myself then: that the lines between rich and poor would blur and the democracy of media was on the horizon.  Today ADSL assures that consumers receive content and cannot serve it.  Hosting centers are dominated by expensive arrays of equipment to serve the truly successful sites such as Amazon, and CNN.  Blogging compartmentalizes, rather than frees, the content creator, much as Yahoo Groups and Geocities eventually established "lower expectations" for visitors by collecting the average ramblings of the average person in one "safe" place.

Podcasting is no different.  Initially, fueled by true visionaries, it was not only new, but a reasonable proportion of content was engaging.  Popularity of the medium has diluted the value of the content, and soon hundreds of thousands of podcasts will end up in their own compartments on Yahoo, iTunes, and other aggregators.

Good content and good entertainment don’t rely upon technology.  They rely upon talent.  No matter what technology is present, talented individuals will find ways of expressing themselves.  Podcasting is not creating more talented individuals, rather it will create so much clutter than the truly talented individuals will succeed only if they can afford to.  As licensing and regulatory issues are put to rest, it will be new podcasting media giants who are the most successful.  Some of these will clearly be new  giants.  Good shows like Coverville have staying power, and "being there first" will create opportunities for many.  Sirius has already seen the light, and as soon as the dust settles, the few, not the many, will emerge triumphant.

But to hear the words of many of these "pioneers", a new world is being born where anyone can now be a radio star.

Just as digital distribution made it possible for anybody to be a successful musician.

Everything, everything, starts with a mystique and ends in politics. The founders come first and then come the profiteers. [Charles Peguy, 1888]

[tags: podcasting]