Buzz Marketing with Blogs: Podcasting: Will It or Won’t It?

Podcasting: Will It or Won’t It?

Darren Barefoot says he’s Not Smoking the Podcasting Dope.

(Podcasting is a process where you put an MP3 file, kind of like an audio journal entry, on the Web in such a way that it can be automatically downloaded and copied to the MP3 player of people who subscribe to your podcast.)

I was all set to agree with Darren—that the podcasting “phenomenon” is mostly hype-driven, without a significant audience base or event that has truly shown the power or potential of podcasting.

But then I read Darren’s arguments for why podcasting isn’t important, and I found that I disagreed with a lot of them. I now think podcasting will have an impact, someday soon. I paraphrase his arguments slightly below, hoping he’ll forgive me for my presumption.

Darren says:

Mainstream radio is already all over this trend. ... In six months to a year, it’s easy to imagine that most radio stations in North America will offer time-shifted content. (Thus, podcasting will be subsumed and/or is overhyped.)

True, radio stations will do this. But this just shows that podcasting is already influential, counteracting your argument. Also, remember that newspapers launched on the Web ten years ago, but many of them still haven’t figured out how to do things right. So, yes, big companies have started podcasting—but that won’t stop smaller companies and individuals from doing it, and better to boot.

Darren says:

Audio doesn’t compress. I can consume 250 blogs in a day without much trouble, but can I listen to more than 10 podcasts?

Podcasting allows subscribers to listen when they want, and audio publishers to produce when they want, which means that you can fit more podcasts into your schedule, because the listener is never without a podcast to listen to, and the producer isn’t forced into a production schedule. And actually, audio does compress: you can listen to audio books at double speed without distortion, and also you can skip past or through boring podcasts in a way you can’t in regular radio shows.

Darren says:

Only about 40% of North America has broadband access. A fraction of those people have portable digital music players

True. And only 80% of North American homes have cable. More to the point, though—how many people need to listen to a podcast for it to be a success? For some podcasters, 10 would be enough, or 100, or 500. The place I last worked had a subscription base of 45,000 people. It made $80 million in revenue a year.

Darren says:

Personally, I have no commute, and I find that I can’t listen to talking while I’m writing.

I had a 45 minute commute, and love to listen to radio as I work. The biggest mistake you can make when predicting how others will act, and I do this myself, is to assume that you are an example of the typical user. Many more people commute than not, and many peole use radio as a background noise while they work.

Darren says:

Unlike a blog, anybody can’t do it. First, you need the equipment. Secondly, you need the talent. Everyone learns writing in school, so the barrier to entry is pretty small. However, nobody (or very few) learns how to be a radio broadcaster. Finally, if you’re keen to produce professional results, you need to understand how to edit audio files, layer in music, etc.

Suburban housewife in Utah. T.V. production co-ordinator in Los Angeles. Search-engine expert in Vancouver. Saville Row tailor. If I asked you, “Would any of these people be likely to produce compelling and popular daily writing,” you might have said no, but you’d be wrong. Equally, there will be great audio producers found via podcasting, just as there are great writers found via blogs. I can think of three people off the top of my head with no radio experience whose voices can keep me entranced for hours, regardless of what they’re talking about. They would be great podcasters. And guess what, there will be a lot of crap, too, but that’s OK. Oh, and as for the equipment, the cost of a good microphone pales compared to so many other costs associated with people’s hobbies or jobs.

Finally, Darren says:

Say we manage to get simple-to-use technology in the hands of average consumers. Say Apple offers a podcast-listening-ready iTunes. What’s the average consumer going to choose? Some dude like me talking in my pajamas or the CBC?

Ah, that’s an interesting question. Let’s see: how’s TV consumption doing (down)? What about newspaper circulation (down, down, down)? What about movies (second straight year that both box office revenue and attendance are down)? I think it’s clear people are choosing to balance the dude in his pyjamas against the CBC—and Darren must think so too, because isn’t that what blogging is doing?

Frankly, I don’t think all, or even most, consumers will ditch the CBC for home-made podcasts. But in the media mix, amateur-produced (meaning, those who do something out of love) audio content will catch on just as amateur writing, photos and software (open source) have already.

Posted by Travis Smith on 03/31 at 12:24 PM • Audio, Video & Photo Blogging

Comments

All good points, let me summarize:

* On audio and compression. Double speed aside, the 250-10 problem still exists. Your solutions might make it 250-40, but the pool of attention is going to be significantly smaller.

* “How many people need to listen to a podcast for it to be a success?” The term isn’t “a success”, it’s more like “a revolution”. That’s the terminology a lot of people are applying to podcasting, and that’s what I’m skeptical about.

* Cost isn’t the issue on equipment, it’s acumen. I could easily get anybody started writing a blog in an hour. Could I get anybody reliably started with podcasting? Absolutely not. The average person knows how to write. The average person doesn’t know how to record, edit and publish audio.

And personally, I can’t even think of one person who could keep me entranced for more than an hour.

As for the people you cited--of course I would have agreed that those people could be compelling writers. Look at the history of the novelist--it’s anybody’s ballgame. Look at the history of broadcasting? It’s not.

By the way, Tim Bray’s not a search engine expert (well, he’s a lot of other things as well).

* Regarding the history of broadcasting, you omitted by reference to the history of FM radio. It began as a very experimental and amateur technology--see how it’s gotten co-opted?

* Let’s be clear: blogging is having a small impact on the attention diversification you’ve just described. The far-more-powerful factors are all professionally generated: portable devices, video games, DVDs, etc.

Like I say, I’d love to be proved wrong. I just don’t think it’s going to be as big a deal as everybody seems to be making out.

Posted by Darren on 03/31 at 05:42 PM
Bravo Travis,
My daughter (4) and I recorded our first TinyRadio show last weekend and although calling the results “amateur” would be a stretch, it was a valuable learning experience.
* The learning curve for the software (garageband) is short
* Resulting file was small (15mb)
* We received positive feedback from listeners
and most importantly
* it made my daughter smile!!!

Posted by Michael MerchMikey Wood on 04/01 at 04:51 AM
I see podcasting in very simple terms. Radio has become very bland and has lost any real sense of spontaneity or community. Corporate interest dictates content and while this may be good for the bottom line it waters down the experience. Podcasting is fresh, new and an adventure.

My wife and I enjoy the discovery process of podcasting. You never know what you are going to get with a new feed. The fact that we have over 5000 to choose from at this point is fantastic. Remember one mans trash is another mans treasure.

Comparing Podcasting to blogs or radio is just silly. Sure you can find parallels but you can do the same thing with a 747 and a school bus. Both will transport a group of people from point A to point B.

Podcasting is simply a convergence of technologies that has the ability to connect people emotionally because when we hear that magic voice in our ears that entertains or educates us in a way that we could not have discovered otherwise we stay tuned.

Stay tuned to this Podcasting trend and I bet you will see this happen in some shape over the next few years.

We will see a lot of Podcast come and go. Many of the feeds will simply be experimentation just as we have now. Corporations will dabble in this from time to time but unless something changes in Podland the listener will have the choice of listening to the polished, perfectly formatted super clean bland shows or the Beavis and Butt Heads of the world. Don’t count Beavis out.

If it is one thing that we all know and have experienced regarding the media - it is this…. we are all constantly becoming more media savvy. We know when something is canned. Real authentic programming is the strength of this podcasting culture. We know real when we hear it. We want to connect with other people and hear their stories.

My friend Andy Wibbles was on Yeast Radio the other day (April 16) and talked about the power of the narrative in who we are as human beings. So as long as we are human we are going to use whatever technology will give us our fix for the stories we need to make our lives more meaningful and connected to the world around us. Podcasting is not going to be big in terms of numbers but it will be big in terms of impact and sharing information, opinion, education, and simply letting us know that someone else is having a similar experience that we are having or help us discover something we have never experienced. That is something you can bet I will stay tuned for.

Ben

“Why reinvent the wheel when you can reinvent yourself”
http://www.entreville.typepad.com/

Posted by Ben Graham on 04/22 at 12:34 AM
Thank you for writing this. After viewing a similarly strong argument for video blogging by Micheal Verdi (MichealVerdi.com) which you can watch at:

http://www.michaelverdi.com/video/vloganarchy.mov

I am happy to embrace podcasting as well as blogging. The trouble seems to be this need to define, weigh and analyse podcasting. I like the idea precisely because it gives ordinary, everyday people a voice they can share with whoever wants to listen (like the dude with his daughter - which is tre sweet by the way!).

Who cares whether the commercial world is going to trying to dominate the medium? This is the raison de tre of ‘business’ - to dominate for profit. And that’s why stuff like the internet, blogs, podcasts and vlogs keep popping up. It’s because we are tired of having one monothized, structured voice and mind feeding us information with various levels of hidded agenda behind it.

So power to the blog, the vlog, the podcast and everyone doing anyone of them - I’m getting set up to indulge myself in all three.

Posted by LadyD2K on 05/05 at 03:25 AM