Matt May is a Web accessibility specialist, and has written on the interaction of people and technology since 1995. He keeps his own weblog at bestkungfu.com, and produces a podcast called Staccato, which features Creative Commons-licensed music.
Alex Williamsblogs, consults and produces unconference style events, where people immerse in DIY media. These are fun occasions, designed for people who want to get together with authors, artists, technologists and leading thinkers to converse, eat, listen to music, write, shoot photos and post podcasts and videoblogs. Alex also works with companies to establish DIY approaches, where writing, photography, voice and video come together to create new conversations and communities. Alex is currently fascinated with digital photography. His girlfriend calls him a Flickrholic. Send Alex a nice message: alexhwilliams at gmail.com.
Nicole Simon loves blogging and podcasting, dashed with an European view. As consultant she helps to facilitate such tools for business purposes or personal publishing empires. She can be found at cruel to be kind and on her private blog Useful Sounds.
Roland Tanglao is a well known podcasting enthusiast and a passionate advocate of blogs, RSS, and social software as a means of online expression for people, organizations and businesses. He is a prominent participant in the blogosphere and online communities and one of the founders of Bryght and as Bryght's Chief Blogging Officer reads hundreds of blogs daily. He graduated from the University of Waterloo, worked at Nortel Networks where he ran its first internal corporate blog, has has been blogging since 1999, and was the first business blogging consultant in Canada.
The latest rumor on the Web is that podcasts could be a virus vector, installing Trojan horses and turning your computer into a zombie.
Now, this is hardly news. All transfers of binary data have the potential to be exploited in some fashion. It's a safe bet that someone will figure out how to exploit RSS attachments to their advantage in the future (and thankfully, most of what I've read so far about podcasting viruses is really just a gentle nudge to aggregator and media player developers to put this on the to-do list). But let's be clear about this before it gets blown out of proportion: at the moment, this is only a prediction. There are no known exploits along these lines. I'd hate to see listeners frightened away by the big bogeyman of computer viruses while today's podcasts are as safe or safer than a lot of the other activities they engage in online.
Why? We're hoping to get a good crew of podcasters to the Podcast Hotel. The idea is to turn the hotel into a podcast and videoblog studio. If a podcaster can sign up a few folks, the affiliate program can help pay their way. Here's a bit about the program:
Click through to the page and you'll find details on what we're offering - 35% commission for any sales, a pointer to the application page, an example of the sort of ads we'll be feeding out to you, and advice on how to help promote the Podcast Hotel. Also worth noting: a little contest we've set up that will have the top performer getting to attend the Podcast Hotel for free! Check it out and please feel free to send any questions or suggestions about the affiliate program to Dave Evans: devans at corante dot com.
More media players provide their critiques on podcasting. Shel Holtz, who will speak at the Podcast Hotel on podcasting and public relations, gives his take on the big media and how the forces at play can be compared to the heyday of FM radio and his daughter's own quest for new music.
Eric Rice came to Portland earlier this month for his Podcast and Videoblog Road Show. Here is the show that he made in his own Eric Rice style.;-) Eric's road show, which moves on to San Francisco next month, is an exercise in DIY (do-it-yourself) media. You'll never see this kind of show on the local news.
Eric is our host for the videoblog festival at the Podcast Hotel. We'll run the festival over two nights of the event. We'll show videoblogs, discuss how they are made and what people are doing with them in this time of early adoption.
Check out Eric's video. This is a videoblog. But you know what? Eric showed how he put his videos on his phone. And there are rumors of a video iPod. So, what is a podcast? A question we all continue to ponder. And one we will discuss at the Podcast Hotel.
"I decided to port Wimpy over so that i could check out Podcasts BEFORE i download them to my iPod.
Podcast Amp allows you to listen to Podcasts from your desktop, nothing fancy, but at least you don't have to install an "aggrigator" then download the Podcast and then open the file in another program."
KEXP is a staple for music lovers in the Pacific Northwest. They are known for their commitment to the local music scene with their regular feature of local acts in their daily programming.
According to KEXP, they are now offering a podcast of full-length songs by fourteen Pacific Northwest artists, making it the first radio station to offer a music podcast of this scope. This effort compliments their excellent online radio offering.
On the podcast you can hear bands like the Blue Scholars, a hip-hop group that makes its Seattle roots known.
Fans of Seattle radio station KEXP 90.3/91.7 FM now can listen to local artists and live in-studio performances on their MP3 players.
KEXP, known for its unique mix of music ranging from rock to hip-hop to country, offers podcasts -- a convenient option for listeners on the go.
"We know that people can't necessarily tune in live all the time," said John Richards, host of the KEXP "Morning Show" and producer of "Audioasis," a weekly program featuring local musicians. "So we hope to create an environment where they listen to what they want, when they want it."
Trevor Cook points to an interview with the Podcast Network about the revenue question with podcasting. The bottom line: you don't need a car company or a condom manufacturer to make money from your podcasts.
From Trevor:
"The more we talked about the shows they're doing, and the shows I'm subscribed to, the clearer it became to me: podcasters don't need advertisers like car companies and condom makers. There's a whole community of financing in every town that's already supporting niche programming. It's made up of foundations and law firms and home builders who traditionally underwrite local public radio shows and stations.”
iTunes mints podcast stars. The gist of it: stars are born, servers buckled, technical glitches abound but at the end of the day, most podcasters get a real kick from all the attention. Right? If you don't like the attention, can you please tell me why?
Audioblog is offering iTunes support. Eric Rice, one of Audioblog's founders, was in Portland over the weekend for his Podcast and Videoblog Road Show. He talked about iTunes. What I found interesting? Eric said that the volume of support queries about iTunes just skyrocketed since Apple announced its support for podcasting. It's not just the podcasters that are seeing jumps but the service providers are facing challenges, too, as people rush with questions about how their shows can appear in the iTunes directory.
Doc Searls is podcasting. Read the show notes at his "podblog." Isn't that a great portmanteau? Is it a portmanteau if the words put together come from different portmanteaus?
Doc starts the show with his son, who says: "It is working," when he realizes they are actually recording and the music can be heard. Nice.
"Its a perfect pound on the steering wheel song," Doc says.
They go on to talk about the music. Doc says over and over that he would so like to have the rights to play Danny Gatton over his podcast and promote the heck out of him.
It's just like hearing two people talk. But the added bonus is hearing Doc's son, who you can tell is a young guy, just hanging out with his Dad.
"You should have been a drummer," his son says. "You should have been but you are not."
Heh.
"I have to start podcasting," Doc says. "It just has to be done. I'm a radio guy."
No doubt. Doc is definitely a radio guy. He's a natural born podcaster.
Doc -- you like to quiz us about photos you show on your blog. What is the name of the tunnel that you have in the header of the podblog? Where is it? Anyone know?
MSNBC relays a Wall Street Journal report that Apple is in talks with the major entertainment companies to do video iTunes.
I hear a lot of debate about podcasting and what it really means. If you check out Phil Torrone's cool piece on "enhanced podcasts," you can see that podcasting is more about the full use of all DIY media, with audio playing a vital but not all encompassing role. (Torrone's piece for Make is a must read for anyone interested in what the iPod and iTunes means for podcasting and DIY media.)
The iPod is a little, white box. But it means a lot more as we change the way we try to make sense of this world. We're moving out of the mass media, industrial lifestyle. The video iPod tells us once again that we're not on a programmed entertainment schedule.
iPods and podcasts demonstrate that we get the media that we want on our own time. But Apple's efforts are different and some might say is representative of the contradictions that face us all when powerful forces collide. Apple execs are embracing the media giants, who have a mass distribution, which seems to counter the home grown aspects of podcasting and videoblogging.
So, the iPod symbol works different ways. It's a symbol for grass roots, DIY media and the changing view for our world. But it also serves as a symbol for the mass media and the power for controlling distribution. That little white box has power to do a lot for whoever controls it and how it is used.
How is it that a little white box coud be so powereful as a symbol in society? What is the symbolism of the iPod? What is the symbolism of podcasting? By understanding the symbolism can we get a better picture of what podcasting really means to us all?
Eric is the man to teach you about podcasting and videoblogging. Here's what he writes:
"Up the street from the Farmer's Market is a Seattle's Best at Portland (doh!) State University. It's at 1742 SW Sixth Ave., and we're meeting there at noon. We'll hang out for an hour or so and then start walking through downtown for the infamous blog/pod/vlog walks. This is Saturday, July 16th.
Bring a camera, bring a microphone, bring a newbie! There's no set schedule and who knows where we'll end up to eat or drink that oh-so loverly Oregon beer. Comfy shoes, cuz it's an outdoorsy-kind of day."
Eric is the man to teach you about podcasting and videoblogging. Here's what he writes:
"Up the street from the Farmer's Market is a Seattle's Best at Portland (doh!) State University. It's at 1742 SW Sixth Ave., and we're meeting there at noon. We'll hang out for an hour or so and then start walking through downtown for the infamous blog/pod/vlog walks. This is Saturday, July 16th.
Bring a camera, bring a microphone, bring a newbie! There's no set schedule and who knows where we'll end up to eat or drink that oh-so loverly Oregon beer. Comfy shoes, cuz it's an outdoorsy-kind of day."
Financial Content is proposing that the RSS community to consider a new category element for RSS 2.0 in order to standardize the use of stock ticker symbols for the syndication of financial podcasts and other online financial content.
From the press release:
"To ensure compatibility with previous versions of RSS, FinancialContent will follow industry standard by proposing a category element for "stocksymbol" with a domain attribute. The element's value consists of the stock ticker symbol of a publicly traded company, optionally prefixed by the stock exchange on which the company trades. By default, a stock ticker symbol without a stock exchange symbol is considered a U.S.-based equity. FinancialContent also proposes support for international stock exchanges."
It seems like every day that I run across new products and services being offered in the podcast space.
Here are some of recent note:
Wavigo adds podcast support. From their press release: "Wavigo has just added podcast support to its powerful voice, text, information and entertainment service suite. Now Wavigo users can select, manage, and listen to their favorite podcasts with ease. Wavigo's podcast management feature allows users to download or stream podcasts directly to Wavigo, and play them through Wavigo's built-in music and video media player."
Clickwheel offers comics on the iPod through RSS. This is similar to a podcast. They call them podstrips. From their web site:
"Central to Clickwheel's design is an RSS feed that allows you to search,
grab and display comics or toons that have been created for the iPod photo.
And because comics on the iPod is a completely new field, we've commissioned
a number of leading artists to create work for us — these include demian.5, Ted Dewan, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Colin White.
They've each been asked to produce a running series for the feed, so their
work will be appearing over the coming year, with new episodes following on a
regular basis."
Parliant offers Phone Valet podcast bundle. From Yahoo!: "The VST edition of SoundSoap 2 and BIAS Peak Express, the PhoneValet 3.0 hardware and software, are included with the PhoneValet Podcast bundle. The three tools let podcasters to capture, edit and enhance phone recordings. According to the company, PhoneValet records telephone interviews, while SoundSoap 2 is basically the clean-up cres: It removes hiss, clicks, crackles, and other unwanted noises. Peak Express is a version of the stereo audio editor that improves the sound file through sample rate conversion and invert, fade in/out, gain, and other functions."
iPodverts lets podcasters sell advertising space on their podcasts. From their web site: "Podcasts attract very targeted audiences, which makes for a fantastic opportunity for advertisers to target specific demographics. iPodverts will now be able to bring together Podcasters and Advertisers, opening up a whole new category of advertising."
Pointing readers next door to Rebuilding Media, a just-launched new blog by Vin Crosbie and Bob Cauthorn that will dig deep into the forces and factors that are reshaping the media landscape. Says Vin, in the introductory post: "The news & information industry has largely lost touch with consumers’ needs, interests, and purses during the past 30 years. The rapid declines in newspaper readership, broadcast viewership, and cinema visitorship are among the evidence demonstrating this. The rapid increases in peer-to-peer file sharing systems, podcasting, and perhaps even citizen journalism, plus the very fact that more than 600 million people worldwide have gravitated onto the Internet despite their already having access to the old media, underline this..."
A story from USA Today speculates that this surge in popularity may make it tough for the indie podcaster.
Almost overnight, the mass media took up podcasting. You can now find podcasts from ABC, CBS, Disney, NPR, and shows like Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.
But most of the podcasts are repackaged from what these media players already produce. Since iTunes adoption, more than one million people have subsribed to podcasts.
Matt and I talked about this in this week's podcast. Apple iTunes may expose a wide larger audience but with it what are the costs for the indie? If a small, indie podcaster gets a surge in interest, then they may also go way over their alloted bandwidth from their host provider. That would cost them a bundle.
What does the surge in popularity mean for the indie? Is there a conflict between the big guys and the indies? Are the indies in danger with the mass media muscling in to the podosphere?
In today's podcast, Alex and Matt talk about the iTunes release, and Matt's controversial reactions to it; more on the upcoming Senate debate over online music licensing; Microsoft's fear of the p-word; and, of course, Philip Torrone.
We're desperately hoping that this will get played on terrestrial radio, since Mark Ramsey says that's the best we can hope for, but in the meantime, please listen to this podcast at a time and place of your choosing, and pretend instead that we're interrupted periodically by ads for car dealerships or monster truck rallies.
Sunday. Sunday. Sunday. At the county fairgrounds. You'll pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge.
Robert Scoble is writing about podcasting with Windows Media Player. He refers to Chris Lanier's list of Windows Media Player plug ins.
Podcasting is a term Robert uses freely. Others at Microsoft are calling podcasting something else entirely. Some call it blogcasting. In his presentation about Microsoft's commitment to RSS at Gnomedex, Dean Hachamovitch, GM of Microsoft's Internet Explorer team , grouped podcasting as part of the term: "feeds of content." What Microsoft seems to say is that it's not just about audio, it's about all forms of feeds. They'll have to come up with a different term but I think I understand what they want to address.
It appears they want to move the conversation about podcasting to a different space that encompasses more than just audio. They want the conversation to be about the feed, through the built in aggregator that delivers it all.
And if they can accomplish such a feat, what does podcasting matter to them? What will podcasting matter to Microsoft if Windows applications and Internet Explorer act as feed machines? Podcasts just are another form of data that gets delivered to people when they want and how they want it.
Does Microsoft need to get all caught up in podcasting? It doesn't seem like they do. Why? Podcasting is only one part of the loosely coupled big aggregating machine that they are building as part of Longhorn and IE 7.0.
More so, it seems Microsoft is seeng a future where RSS is everywhere. Just look at MSN Spaces. When I inteviewed Mike Torres, he said that of the approximate seven million blogs, the far majority opting to have an RSS feed. Couple that with IE, which will server as a giant aggregator and you have a huge RSS ad network that can include blogs, podcasts, videoblogs and more. They don't want to talk about podcasting for obvious reasons. In the Microsoft world, nothing trumps the operating system. They want audio, video and all other data to be fed through this giant aggregator.
"...what Microsoft has done is essentially build an RSS aggregator into the OS and expose API's that any application can make use of to produce or consume RSS. That's a little more interesting (and perhaps would have made for a more interesting talk and discussion)."
What Eric is hinting at is a world far more universal than just syndicated audio shows. It's about feeds of all kinds that are published and consumed.
But do me a favor. Please, call it anything but "feeds of content." As Doc would say, this isn't about shipping, this is about language and how we converse.
In 1993, America Online jumped into the Internet with both feet, and the waves took an awful long time to subside. A huge influx of new users discovered Usenet, and thanks to AOL's poor stewardship of the situation, the newsgroups were overrun with newbies who thought they were merely an extension of AOL. The phenomenon came to be known as "Eternal September," since it came in like the newbie college freshmen, who were suitably chastened by October -- only the freshmen kept coming, month after month, year after year.
Eternal September is a valuable lesson in corporate responsibility. AOL didn't pay the least bit of attention to the existing community on Usenet, who had built its value steadily over the years. As a result, the community was altered forever, with long-time users disappearing, and a flood of bad feelings toward AOL for letting the horse out of the barn. Some of that bad blood continues to this day.
The lesson that every corporation should take away from Eternal September is this: beware the unintended consequences of introducing dramatic changes in existing communities. Podcasting is not just TiVo for radio. It's an independent medium consisting of thousands of producers who, rather than spending their energies to compete with one another, have instead pushed each other along. It's the social aspect of rough consensus and running mouths that make it what it is.
Apple has had its blockbuster hits over the years, with the iPod itself likely to go down as its biggest. I'm a huge Apple partisan, myself, having seen them time and time again make it easier for any old user to do what they couldn't before, like make DVDs, arrange music, or buy shape-shifting blue-and-white polka-dotted computers. And Apple absolutely deserves credit for integrating podcasting into iTunes a scant 10 months after it started rolling. Podcast producers will benefit greatly, over time, by having one fewer application that users need to download.
Maybe Apple is losing out in my view because I grade them at the top of the usability curve among software vendors, but the part that pains me about the iTunes 4.9 release is knowing how much better it could have been. As the first exposure to podcasting for many, I think they could have made things a lot cleaner and more comfortable for those users. For example, the Podcasts section could be much more effective if it were an integrated aggregator and marketing tool. It doesn't make sense to shop the iTunes Music Store for free podcasts, leaving users with two disjointed interfaces to navigate.
As I said in an earlier post, there's time to fix all of this, but the iTunes developers have to break themselves of their innately secretive nature and actively engage those folks who have been doing it. Take the built-in RSS aggregator. Its performance, according to people who know, is, shall we say, suboptimal. Sam Ruby, who does know, has been gathering detailed research on iTunes' RSS parser, outlining its limitations based on black-box testing. These limitations hurt end users by degrading their experience. But because Apple is not communicating, Sam has had to beg for links to try to make sure someone gets the message through to them. Again, this would have been a lot easier if Apple had come out to the syndication community a week or two before hand and let them mess around with the parser. We'd have known a lot more about what we needed to do, and they'd have had a chance to fix what is now, after the fact, seen to be broken.
AOL erroneously believed that paying for the connection to the Internet gave them some sense of ownership over the community that was already there. It's a lesson that Apple can take to heart when trying to parlay ownership of the iPod and iTunes into ownership of the content community. Right now, many of the people adding value in this community aren't happy.
A few readers have ascribed my criticism of iTunes to sour grapes for not having been included in their directory. That doesn't bother me: I don't deserve any special privileges simply because I have a mic and a mixer. Really, the only thing that bugs me is that I don't know why I'm not listed. There are dozens of podcast directories out there, and my show usually appears in them from day one, by virtue of its presence in the iPodder directory, and some number of listeners who submit me where they can. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to hear that someone at Apple listened to one of my shows and didn't like it; that information alone would be enough to keep me from having to check the directory every so often to see if I've been added.
It's not hard to put out one sentence explaining how shows are added to the directory. Here, Apple, pick one of these and add it to your submission page:
"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that its content is appropriate for our audience."
"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that it is of suitable quality to our audience."
"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that it is not using unauthorized copyrighted content."
"Apple updates its directory with podcast submissions every (n days|x weeks|y months)."
"Apple will notify the owner of the submitted feed when it has been processed."
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: communication. Not hand-holding, not operators standing by, and not handwritten letters from Steve. All I'm asking for is some participation in the community, at ground level. Podcasting is not something that can be "owned". Podcasting is an organic, collaborative medium, where a large number of players share largely common goals. It's social media. And those players will not respond well to what is perceived as pressure from an external force. Smart people work in Cupertino. Let us talk with some of them.
FMQB reports that this week, online music licensing will be a topic of discussion in a US Senate subcommittee on copyright. Subscription services and blanket licensing mechanisms will be up for debate. The subscription sites are asking for a blanket license because of the complexity of seeking rights from all of the content owners, while the owners themselves appear concerned that they can't capitalize to the greatest extent possible on their hits.
Naturally, podcasters have a dog in this race, though I'm not confident that we will be represented in any sense in the debate. Some sense will need to be made of how to license music distributed in podcast form. Clearly, the volume of material being made available and its relatively short lifespan on the devices of downloaders should add up to a lot less than the rates charged for duplication, which can be north of a dollar per track per download. Will content owners and performing rights organizations continue to ignore a content marketing and revenue stream that's begging to do business with it, or will podcasts be added to an expanded definition of streaming, for the purposes of licensing? Now may be the time to call your senator.
Mark Cuban makes a point that there is a big difference between repurposed content for a podcast and trying to make a living off starting your own podcast. He suggests folks trying to get into this business to look back at the streaming business ten years ago.
The good news, according to Cuban: podcasting is a low cost mediium for pushing out speeches, trade show presentations, customer education, etc. The bad news, the Internet is one heck of a long tail and there are no hits. They're just blips on the radar.
From Cuban's blog:
"Talk Radio Shows repurposed from radio to a podcast. No brainer. It’s cheap and easy. Repurposing industry specific information from tradeshows, speeches, product presentations for employee or customer education or as sales support. No brainer. These are just extensions of existing content into a new low cost medium.
For those who are tying to jump on the podcasting bandwagon and create a “hit” podcast that you plan on selling advertising in, its cheap and easy to do, but even with Google Adsense for RSS its going to be really tough to do it as a fulltime job and make minimum wage back."
Evhead has announced on the Odeo Blog that the Odeo site is open for business. The podcast creating tools (in which I am most interested) aren't available yet. I'm looking forward to seeing them soon... --JD
Instructions for SmarterCasters
For the nearly 10,000 of you podcasters currently using FeedBurner's SmartCast service, all you need to do is check a box to include iTunes enhancements and then provide your own description, copyright, author names, etc. Don't forget to include a link to your logo (if you have one). You can also select the correct iTunes-provided category so your podcast is assigned to the appropriate directories. If you are already including iTunes tags in your feed, we do not overwrite or edit any existing iTunes tags we find in your feed. To get started, simply log in to FeedBurner, choose the "Edit" link for your podcast feed and look for all of this goodness under the SmartCast Service (located among the other Essential Feed Services)
It's been 9 days since the release of iTunes 4.9, the first version of the media player to integrate podcasting. Reviews have been largely positive, with users praising the aggregation features and integration with the iPod, and noting some hidden items such as videoblog support.
At the same time, though, a growing number of flaws have emerged in both the design of the software and how Apple has communicated -- or failed to communicate -- with the content providers they're now leveraging. Here's an overview of where iTunes has gone astray.
Bandwidth-blowout defaults
The typical RSS feed contains 10 to 15 entries. It's reasonable in an RSS aggregator to display all of them to the user. What is not reasonable, however, is for an aggregator to default to downloading all enclosures for a new feed.
The contents of my music podcast's feed is over a half-gigabyte of data. Now, ordinarily, I'd be happy for anyone to download the last 12 hours of my show -- if only they were going to listen to it. The reason for much of the traffic in the days since the iTunes launch is not new listeners, but existing listeners switching over. It's a duplication and a massive waste of bandwidth, for which a lot of podcasters are paying with real dollars. My site traffic has more than doubled in the last week and a half. I'm fortunate to have enough bandwidth to be able to survive that first wave of iTunes users. And yet, my show wasn't one that was listed.
The earlobe lottery
Podcasters had been told that Apple was sourcing the iPodder directory to generate its own. This was good news: we all wanted to be there on launch. I knew that I was in that directory, so I figured I was in good shape. Then, on the morning of the launch, I searched the database for my show. No results found.
So I went to submit my RSS feed, and found that someone had already submitted it. Now, my show is as podsafe as it gets, so I'm unconcerned about whether it's got copyright issues that would concern Apple. Maybe they're manually listening to shows to quality-check them. Maybe they've determined that they can't accept items licensed "non-commercial" under the Creative Commons license (though that's not what the license says). I can only guess, as I wait through week 2, what the problem could be. One thing is for sure: Apple's not talking.
Lack of communication
Almost everything we knew about iTunes, we heard second-hand from people like Adam Curry and Dave Winer. We heard that it was going great, that there'd be some new elements to add to our feeds, and that it was coming really soon. We got 24 hours' notice of its impending release -- and still we got none of the information we needed to prepare our podcasts.
Nobody knows when they're going to update. Nobody knows how they decide which podcasts they host and which they don't. Nobody even knows what the procedure is. All any podcaster can do at this point is to hope that those who do have access to Apple will let some detail slip. This is no way to communicate with independents. The lack of communication on the part of Apple has spawned a rumor mill which serves no one.
Secret schema
Apple published a new namespace, "itunes:", for podcast feeds. The value of much of it is still in question, with parts of it duplicating existing RSS elements or providing value only to iTunes users.
But worse, if you go to the provided document type definition, where you should see a listing of available elements, you instead get redirected to the iTunes homepage. This behavior is, in a word, dumb. In three words, really, really dumb. A number of podcasters have taken it upon themselves to figure out the itunes: namespace (and where it diverges from Apple's published documentation). Their work is impressive in its speed and efficiency, but all that wouldn't be necessary if only Apple would talk to us.
Apple has time to fix all of these problems and regain the goodwill of podcasters. But they will need to deal with us directly, not through some self-appointed ambassadors. They need to get onto the mailing lists, address the concerns, and be responsive. It's not something they are known for doing, to be sure, but they didn't invent this community. We did. And we're going to demand some amount of cooperation from those who are going to benefit from our work.
Boy, the New York Times Business section really loves podcasting! Today's edition has yet another article, this one by David Carr. Once again, I would characterize the article as a kind of primer for those unfamiliar with podcasting, with a particular emphasis on how "big media" are beginning to experiment with it. Carr seems to get it, and in his closing paragraph, he offers a very firm conclusion about podcasting's current state:
For the time being, podcasting is a cipher, a technology that seems to further threaten established media's stranglehold on public consciousness, but offers little opportunity in the way of a real actual business. Big media are aggressively attempting to get their arms around the next big thing. But it remains elusive, a medium that is viral and uncontrollable by nature, and that does not threaten to become a business any time soon. (Emphasis added)
I can't wait to see what's in the paper for the rest of the week! And I'm looking forward to your comments on Carr's views. Please share them here!
First of all, am I the only one who LOVES the word, "portmanteau?" I just think it sounds great...thank you Wikipedia!
In today's New York Times Business section, writer Randall Stross offers a brief primer on podcasting for the uninitiated, and discusses the possible impact of Apple's embrace of podcasting on the fortunes of Audible. It's an interesting article and worth reading.
What is most intriguing to me is just how many articles there are in the print media these days about podcasting. It's amazing how much coverage something that "manages to be a double misnomer" can get from the very media it threatens. It's fantabulous!
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the month of July, during which a small number of Americans explain calmly to those hundred million wearing yellow bracelets exactly why they should care about a yellow jersey. Yes, it's the Tour de France, where Lance Armstrong goes for a record seventh consecutive title, the Outdoor Life Network dedicates itself nearly full-time to obscure mountainous regions of France, and Sirius is hosting a podcast with the Texan himself.
Starting July 2nd, you'll hear daily stage-by-stage coverage of the Tour on "Lance in France: Off the Bike and On the Mic". This beats live coverage for most Americans, since the French daytime is silly enough to take place while we're still sleeping.
Alex Williams
Matt May
Nicole Simon
Roland Tanglao
