Buzz Marketing with Blogs: Whither Podcasting?

Whither Podcasting?

Apple has just released iTunes 4.9, which has podcasting integrated. Several months ago, in response to Darren Barefoot, I posted a bunch of reasons why podcasting was going to stick around and be a hugely successful technology.

My prediction seems to be true. Podcasting—the process of distributing serial audio files automatically to subscribers—certainly seems to growing more and more popular.

But I have a sense of foreboding about this latest development. As podcasting gets so popular so fast, some issues arise that aren’t so good for the overall reception and future direction of podcasting.

Quality of audience

I’m not going to be snooty and say that the average podcaster only ought to have “cool people” to be listening to their audio shows. But podcasts have the ability to create a community out of listeners in a way that traditional radio does when it’s at its best. If you want to grow a strong community, a large wave of unschooled visitors can drive away regulars, who quite naturally like to feel they know the people around them, people who behave the same way they do. As any good restaurateur knows, you want to keep your regulars happy or you’re going to end up in trouble in the long run.

Education of Audience

Having a large pool of new listeners also changes the way you have to approach your podcast. Online, newcomers can gradually be introduced into the pool by those who already know the community mores and traditions, and if you only have to deal with a few at a time, you don’t have to bore your regular listeners. The people who listen to Car Talk, for example, have a certain vocabulary and set of expectations, and Clik and Clak can rely on that when they talk on their show. By contrast, imagine the effect on your regulars if you have to reintroduce yourself at the beginning of every audio show.

Bandwidth

KCRW went from 5,000 subscribers to 100,000 subscribers overnight. Can the average blogger handle that sort of growth in audio downloads? Enough said.

Choice

Given the choice between a new voice and a brand name, many people will choose the brand name. New voices that may have been getting a chance to build audience, will be buried under established, mediocre audio programming repurposed from radio. Or, given a choice between too many same sounding alternatives and one traditional brand, people can avoid choosing anything new, instead of giving the one new choice a shot. If choice grows even faster than audience, potentially great podcasters might never find the audience they need to be successful and happy.

Technology Lock-In

Once you have a 500 pound gorilla like iTunes in the market, it can become a lot harder for smaller software developers to innovate, because even if they offer a genuine improvement, it has to be compatible with the gorilla’s system. Otherwise, any smaller competitor’s gain in market share from the benefits of the new functionality is going to be balanced by a loss of those who (have to?) stick with the gorilla’s functionality. I’m not in any way advocating that software companies go out of their way to build incompatible podcasting programs. But certainly there are stages in a software type’s growth when changes that break older versions can become necessary, and it’s a lot easier for the overall market to adapt when multiple programs are sharing the market.

Attitude / Mind Share

This one’s a very hard one to qualify, because it’s so squishy. And I know that, yes, podcasting is called podcasting because of the iPod. But with iTunes now forcing* podcasting to the forefront of everyone’s music listening, there’s a very strong association being created between Apple and podcasting. And there’s a whole lot of baggage tied to that association. Some people will ignore this, some will love it, but there’s clearly going to be a shift in the perception of podcasting now that it’s going to be seen more and more as an Apple-driven technology, down to the names of the tags in the podcasting document.

* I say forcing because I think there’s no way to stop Podcasting from being the second item in the iTunes Playlist pane, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Apple is going to be promoting podcasting in a big way.

Conclusion

Will iTunes be good for podcasting? It’s too complex a question to have a single answer. Thinking back, was Internet Explorer good for web sites? Overall, of course it was. But if Microsoft had delayed entering the browser market by another two years, we might be looking at a very different Web today.

Posted by Travis Smith on 07/06 at 09:51 PM •