Let Me Just Rain on Your Parade

It was a momentous weekend here in the Bay Area as we were visited by not one, but two of the most powerful men in Great Britain today. I'm speaking of course of Prime Minister Tony Blair, England's preeminent politician, and Adam "the Podfather" Curry, the primal force behind the podcasting movement currently sweeping the globe. Personally, I thought it unwise to have both of Britain's biggest wheels in the same place at the same time where one earthquake could put them both be out of action, but evidently the empire is safe and the home fires still burn in Albion tonight.

(Excuse me if I seem a little distracted right now. There is a helicopter and a couple of low flying planes buzzing overhead. Seems there must be a fire around here somewhere. I just hope it's far, far away)

So where was I? Oh yeah, podcasting

(Great, now I smell smoke. Crap! I'd appreciate it if you didn't burn my house down please. Thank you)

Turns out podcasting isn't the fad the everyone said it was. The trickle of data that is starting to appear, like this article from Marketwatch, seem to indicate growing audiences and the possiblity of podcasters making real money, even millions of dollars. Hmmm, I think most podcasters would be glad to see a hundred or so roll in every now and then, but who knows maybe they could be making millions someday. It's certainly a major concern among podcasters and at next month's Podcast Expo monetizing and advertising and getting some coin in the cashbox is sure to be a hot topic.

But you know me. I can always find a cloud in any silver lining and so what I really want to talk about are some of disturbing trends I'm beginning to see in podcasting today. Like, for instance, the glut of tech related material in the podosphere. Seriously, do we need another tech podcast? If so, do we need another tech podcast that just regurgitates and reiterates the same thing a thousand times over? In some ways the podosphere is starting to show some of the same closed-loop, self-referential tendencies of the blogosphere, where everyone is hyperlinked to everyone else and ideas just go around and around and around in a perpetual and vaguely indistinct state of buzz. Granted, the podosphere is still miles ahead of the blogosphere in terms of unique, original content (this blog, of course being the exception. Although worthless, I think most would agree it is nevertheless original), but as the number of podcasts grow it seems the available content is getting stretched thinner and thinner. At least in the tech podcasting space.

Let me cite an example of what I'm talking about. Two or three weeks ago Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska gave a speech about the internet and why the big Telco's that he serves need to increase their rates for certain kinds of traffic. The speech was recorded and posted on the internet and immediately generated howls of laughter from the geek community as Sen. Stevens tried to explain to his audience the inner workings of the internet. Someone tried to send me an email, Sen. Stevens explained, and I couldn't download my internet because the pipes were clogged.

Well, the podcasting community went bonkers, and for about a week you couldn't listen to any tech related podcast without the same speech being played over and over and the host(s) all making smartass remarks about Sen. Stevens ingnorance of how the wired world operates. Of course those smartass remarks got folded into the mix as well and pretty soon all you could hear on any of the geek podcasts was the endless drone of Sen. Stevens echoing back and forth with all the mandatory and attendant giggles. What was truly ironic in the midst of all this cacaphony and evidently lost on the geek world was that in the end it isn't important for Washington to understand how the internet works - it's important for the internet folks to understand how Washington works, a fact that will be brought home soon enough to all those giggling geeks when they see the new telecom legislation making its way through Congress.

But my point is that in some areas the podosphere is in danger of becoming just one big echo chamber. It's not there yet - far from it, but the danger is there, and after all isn't that what we're trying to avoid? Doesn't that fit the perception of big media we all have, of a swarm of locusts all chasing the same fad or scandal? Isn't that why audiences have embraced podcasting in the first place, as a place to escape the bombardment of popular news and entertainment and explore different avenues and areas of interest? If I was giving the keynote at the Podcasting Expo that would be my topic. Is there anyone in this room speaking with his own voice or doing anything different, or are you all just a bunch of hyperlinks?

Anyways, there are lots of podcasts that have nothing to do with technology or the internet or Sen. Stevens, and there are still plenty of people doing different things. I'm hoping that's the nature of the beast and will always be so, just as long as the podosphere doesn't let the geeks take over. It's a great medium and I even tried doing a podcast for a while until I discovered that I kind of sucked at it and that there were other podcasters doing the same thing I was, only much better. I also discovered that podcasting, like radio, is a two-way communications medium. In other words, you can't just send it out there and expect the minions to hang breathlessly on your every word . You need participation and feedback coming back at you to make it work, and I never really got the hang of that.

But I'm listening to how the pro's do it, and if a new podcasting idea ever pops in my head I'd love to have another crack at it. Provided that the new podcasting idea is something original, of course, and not just more geekspeak.