I just read John Hawkin's dismissal of the current state of podcasting. It sounded remarkably familiar, and I realized his argument was almost identical to that used by the MSM to put down blogging.
To give John credit, he does realize that podcasting may have potential, but his advice to take a wait and see approach bugs me just a little bit. The early adopters are the innovators who will shape the medium. Why discourage them? Of course, the early adopters are the kind of people who will blithely ignore any naysayers and do what they want anyway.
As a side note, comparing podcasting to talk radio isn't a very good comparison because talk radio is an interactive medium, while podcasting isn't. A better analog for talk radio would be a moderated chat room, while podcasting would be better compared to community programming on cable.
For a podcast to succeed, it will need one of two things, preferably both: unique, entertaining content and/or high production values. You either have to have something to say that people will want to hear, or enough flash to mask the fact that your show is totally inane.
Posted by Rich at January 25, 2006 11:49 AM | TrackBackWell said, Rich
I do think that podcasting is similar to talk radio, however, especially when it is combined with webcasting. Take World Bridges, for example (http://www.worldbridges.com) - this is truly a kind of talk radio webcast/podcast that is aimed specifically for the educational market.
I'm also involved in trying to organise small conferences on Skype and then put them out as podcasts.
Posted by: Graham Stanley on January 29, 2006 7:03 AM