Why all the hype? Seriously? Apparently the podcast is a ‘mainstream medium in the making’ but why?
A podcast is simply an mp3 file delivered via RSS, except it isn’t anymore. This has, in the past, always made it a bit confusing and a techie only medium. However, since iTunes 6 every time you open your computer jukebox you can just choose the podcast you want to listen to and download it. Easy peasy.
Quite frankly podcasting is just a flash name for downloading pre-recorded content. If this technology had come about in a slightly different manner, say the radio broadcasters en masse had decided to put up old programmes for download at the listeners leisure (as the BBC did in fact do) we would just see it as a logical connection for radio and the internet to make. Instead, people enclosed mp3 files inside RSS feeds and jumping on the iPod bandwagon downloading audio content from the internet became this revolutionary technology, podcasting.
What I’m essentially saying is that the podcast, for all its hype, is just a rebranded mp3 download.
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Nice thoughts Henry – I think it’s dangerous to call Podcasts mainstream media in the making as what audio online may evolve into something totally different in a few years time – and podcasts will be just a memory.
November 21st, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Henry
I think you’re exactly right. It’s actually comical how over-hyped podcasting has become over the last few months, given that barely anyone mentioned the word just a year ago!
Audio has been streamed and downloaded for ages on the internet, and it’s hard to believe that delivering it with a feed can make THAT big a difference. Time for a reality check?
November 21st, 2005 at 7:10 pm
What a random rant this was. Why do you sound so annoyed? Apple didn’t coin the term “podcasting”–so if your implication is that it’s just a clevert ploy by Apple to get people to jump on “the iPod bandwagon”, it’s a bit misguided.
Granted, “podcasts as mainstream medium” is a bit ambitious, but to write it off entirely as a medium without an audience or without any growth or traction is probably not right, either. The interesting bit about podcasting is what was interesting about blogs–which took a “confusing and a techie only medium” like web publishing and made it easy, enabling millions to write about politics, sport, knitting, and what have you. Maybe not “mainstream media” either, but certainly not one to ignore. Podcasts and podcasting are/is a natural extension (via enabling technologies, of which iTunes certainly wasn’t the first) of the sort of revolution of personal publishing as a new medium. The barriers to publishing are falling left and right, and content is springing up everywhere as a result. Web publishing first, audio now, video next.
November 21st, 2005 at 7:37 pm
Albert, even though your comment is directed at Henry, I would like to point out that the analogy between podcasts and weblogs is a bit erroneous. Weblogs made publishing content far easier than before. “Podcasts” do not make streaming or downloading audio content any easier. If anything, adding a feed only makes it harder to produce it, doesn’t it?
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:36 am
Thanks for the comments guys. Just to clarify; I think that podcasting is a great medium and its roots in the blogosphere add to that.
And to be fair to Apple they’ve been great ambassadors for the podcast. But in effect all they are doing is providing a single site for downloads.
However, podcasting has been overhyped as a medium and a cursory glance at the iTunes top 20 podcasts shows it is a medium dominated by old school radio broadcasters.
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:20 am
All true, but I’d say it took the popularity of the iPod to make place-shifting this content worthwhile enough for content developers to jump on the bandwagon and repurpose their content.
And it took iTunes to simplify the process enough to make it easy for the average joe.
Which makes the process popular enough to make place-shifting this content worthwhile enough for content developers to jump on the bandwagon and repurpose their content.
Which makes iTunes even more worthwhile for the average joe.
As they say, rinse, repeat.
So whether Apple started it or not, they deserve a lot of the credit for creating an environment in which place shifting can reach critical mass …
My $.02.
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:51 am
In effect you are right in that it’s just the downloading of mp3’s. Ever sat with a non-techie trying to download an mp3 and put it on their mp3 player. Do the same thing with someone who has an ipod and itunes, you’ll soon see what the difference is (in that they press a lot less buttons and it takes a lot less time), that is if you term ‘podcasting’ as something only available to ipod owners.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:48 am