The Crayola Effect

What I don't get about this whole Google thing with the subpoena's and the privacy concerns and all that is this: If the government wants to know what Google has in their database why don't they just ask the NSA. Sheesh, little things like warrants and subpoenas never stopped them before.

Anyways, turning to the mailbag, Brent from Canby MN writes:

"What exactly is podcasting?"

Well Brent, imagine a professional and profitable media business with a staff of highly trained marketers, producers, engineers and on-air talent. Then imagine that business using sophisticated polling data and audience sampling to figure out what type of music and on-air entertainment most appeals to their listeners. And then, having polled their audience and analyzed their listening preferences, imagine that business creating a playlist of songs that their audience has indicated they like. And then imagine that business playing that same list of songs, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, over and over and over and over again until their listeners are sick of hearing them and threatening to burn down the station if they ever play them again. And then imagine those listeners disgustedly scanning through the other stations in their area for anybody playing anything different from that same list of songs they keep hearing over and over and over again. And then imagine those listeners not being able to find any other stations because, it turns out, all the stations are copying that same highly successful station that you've been listening to and playing from the same narrow list of songs. And imagine this goes on month after month, year after year, over and over and over again.

Well Brent, that is what we call terrestrial radio.

Now, instead of that, imagine some guy sitting around the house in his underwear and talking into a microphone about what was on TV last night or what he had for breakfast, and imagine that every now and then he plays a song he heard and liked and plays it for no other reason than he heard it and liked it. Or maybe it's not some guy but a couple talking about their sex lives or a parent talking about his kids or a bunch of geeks rambling on about 802.11 pre N routers, or maybe it's just someone foaming and ranting about nothing at all.

That Brent, is podcasting.

So now that you know what podcasting is I guess the real question becomes "does podcasting have a future?" That's a good question and let me try to address it as best I can.

I should begin with a short history lesson. Podcasting has only really been in the public's eye for about a year and half now, and in that time it has gone through some major changes. When it first started out it was like kind of an underground movement of mostly anti-establishment types who wanted to turn the media business upside down and create a sort of "peoples" radio (Viva La Raza!). That was the honeymoon period of podcasting and it lasted about 9 months or so until podcasters started gaining real audiences and finding that they were just as fascinated by numbers as their terrestrial brothers were.

This led to Phase II podcasting wherein podcasters started looking around and asking themselves "how can I make money off of these numbers." A fair question to ask and I'm certainly not here to libel them as counter-revolutionaries or anything like that. Their shows had become popular and there are people who pay other people for their audiences and, well, the stuff doesn't grow on trees you know. But as podcasters became more and more concerned with growing their audience their podcasts began to sound more and more like, you know, radio. That guy wasn't sitting around in his underwear anymore. He was shaving and showering and putting on a nice suit and checking his breath before he went a-courtin'. At the same time, a lot of those people over in traditional radio who'd been sitting around picking their toes while this whole podcasting thing started to take off suddenly sat up and took notice. They too, it seems, wanted to get into podcasting and did so in a big way, using their clout and influence to cut in front of those early revolutionaries and muscle their way to the top of the podcasting heap.

That pissed off a lot of old time podcasters and lead to the current state of affairs which I guess could be called Phase III. Now we have podcasters forming podcasting networks and hoping that by banding together they can withstand the onslaught from traditional media. "New media empires to replace the old" has become their rallying cry, I guess, and all the while the old empires continue to move in and occupy space. The young turks try to pretend they don't care, but believe me, they care.

So, how is all this going to play out? Does podcasting have a future? Well, sure it does. Podcasting is just portable media and that just means more convenience for the user. The audience is never going to go back to a world of less choice and less convenience. What about podcasters? Do they have a future? Sure they do, provided they're willing to adapt, and that's what I believe you are going to see.

Old media is never going to change. Why should they when they dominate the market. Even a successful podcast with say 4 or 5 hundred thousand listeners is nothing compared to the 200,000,000 or so listeners that terrestrial radio has. There is no reason for old media to come into the podcasting space and change their way of doing things, especially when it's a proven model. It's just a marketing problem for them, not a fundamental business problem.

What's going to have to happen instead is that podcasters are going to have to change their way of doing things, i.e. become more and more like old media. If they want to change the world then they're going to have to learn from old media and follow their lead. That's my prediction, anyways, and I think that's exactly what's happening. You just wait and see. In a few years you won't be able to tell an independent podcast from a Clear Channel podcast. They'll both sound exactly the same, and don't be suprised if one day you hear former revolutionaries like Adam Curry getting in front of his mike and loudly singing the praises of Sony BMG and the RIAA and all the other enemies of the past.

It's gonna happen.

I should probably mention that I'm an occasional podcaster myself. My podcast is called Old Man Radio and it comes out every couple of weeks, or couple of months, or whenever I have the time to do one. I'm strictly an amateur, though, and all you have to do is listen to one of my podcasts if you don't believe me. So now, you may wonder, is there any future for dabblers like me? Well, as long as I keep paying my hosting bills then I'll be around, but I have a whole different set of problems. That's what I really want to talk about. The problem with the music.

You see my podcast is all about so-called "podsafe" music - music which is freely distributed by the artists for download and play. There's a lot of it around and some of it is pretty good, but I'm finding the musical experience more and more disappointing each day. It's just getting harder and harder to find good podsafe music and I think the blame has to rest squarely on the shoulders of all this new technology.

Yes, that's right. Technology. The bane and boon of modern existence. It's wonderful stuff really. With just a computer, some sound equipment and some software anyone can produce, record and distribute professional sounding music. And that's the problem. The way it works is you take this equipment and lay down tracks. One track may be the percussion, another the base line, another the keyboards, and so on. You record these tracks and layer them one on top of the other until you get a collection of sounds that play together as complete song. It's really amazing what persistence and a little of bit of creativity can produce.

So what's the problem? Well, how many times have you heard someone complain that "all the music nowdays sucks." I've heard the complaint made many times and everyone wants to blame the record companies or the radio stations or the just the music business in general and I tell you none of those are to blame. The real problem, and believe me I listen to a lot of music, is this formulaic approach to music making, this layering, that is so prevalent. These days making music is a lot like making a sandwich, and even though there are some good tasting sandwiches out there, no one wants to eat corned beef on rye for the rest of their life.

Which brings me to my main complaint. Whatever happened to bands? Whatever happened to musicians? Whatever happened to the dynamic interplay of the guitars and the keyboards, or the vocals and the rhythm section. Remember that? Remember when musicians used to sit down together and listen to each other and toss out ideas and play with them and explore. After a few hours spent in the podsafe music world I'm beginning to wonder if musicians do that anymore. Believe me, it's a real problem. When you just layer one sound on top of another, when you introduce a theme and don't develop it, when you just add sound to it and don't play with it and explore it, then you lose the energy of a working band and the whole thing becomes static and lifeless. It's like the difference between Titian nude and a 4 year old with a coloring book and crayons. Will she color the hair orange or brown? Who cares.

Ok, maybe there are still bands around. But good bands? Talented bands? That's what's missing from the podsafe music scene. Where are all the good musicians? You know, the ones who are stuck in a studio somewhere backing up the latest teenage no-talent fashion model pop sensation and wondering if maybe they shouldn't have gotten into the insurance business instead. Is that just a stereotype? The musician who does what he has to during the week, and then goes out on the weekends and plays the stuff he really loves, the stuff no teenage no-talent fashion model pop sensation record company would ever want. Wouldn't it be great if some of those frustrated musicians decided to put some of their music on the internet?

Fat chance, I guess. The problem is that if a musician is good, really good, then he or she is probably still thinking that someday that A & R guy is going to walk into a club one night and make them a star. They're never gonna just give it away for free.

Which leaves the layered stuff. I play a lot of it on my podcast and I reallly do like the stuff I play, but a lot of times I find myself gnashing my teeth and saying "that part was good, now do something with it. Work on it, develop it some more. Don't just layer a bunch of crap on top. Make something new out of it for Christ's sake!". Somehow, though, I don't think today's musicians know any other way. That's why there's so much crap out there.

Yeah, podcasting has a future, but it's gonna be frustrating.