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Dave Taylor on the Problems with Podcasting
Posted by Chris Knudsen on November 16th, 2006
Ron Hartley (get a blog) sent me a link to Dave Taylor’s Podcast on Why Podcasts aren’t Interesting. However, the link to the podcast is broken. Dave, can you fix the link? Thanks.
If you go to the link above, Dave outlines his argument on the post. Here’s some of what he covers (with my commentary):
- Podcast have many of the same problems that blogs have. Most are boring and most people give up after four or five posts.
- Its way more difficult to be interesting on a podcast than on a blog. Its hard to make it in radio and, in my opinion, its not much different with podcasting. I had lunch yesterday with Jeff Barson and we talked about this problem in detail. With a blog you have time to formulate your thoughts, delete, re-write, etc. With a Podcast you need personality, you need to know how to talk and communicate - you have to be “on”. You can edit and start over but if you are in an interview situation this isn’t going to work. People won’t put up with you sitting there saying “uh, well, welcome, ah, hummm, ok, well…”. They will bail on your podcast and never come back. I have found that the public expects high quality on podcast because they equate it with radio - this is a problem for podcasters.
- Dave says that if you want to be good at podcasting listen to radio and mimic the DJ’s. I think this is good advice. A lot of the people who are making it on podcasts right now have already made it in radio. Â
- Dave asks how you can efficiently digest lots of information via podcasting. Like Dave, I too can cover way more written material in less time than it takes to listen to a single podcast. I think Podango has a good solution to this problem by offering transcripts with each podcast.
- Dave talks about the search engine problem. I think Podango’s station model will be a solution here as well.
- One of the other problems with podcasting that Dave doesn’t mention is the equipment and editing barrier. There are services that allow you to phone in a podcast but frankly I don’t like listening to podcasts that sound like someone is talking over the phone. People are naturally intimidated by recording equipment and most people do not understand basic audio editing. You need basic understanding of both to put up a half way decent podcast (in my opinion).
Dave does end by saying that he is excited about Podcasting and so am I. I think we’re on the very front end of the podcasting revolution and you will see dramatic changes in the industry just as we have seen with blogging, search, etc.
I consistently listen to only two types of podcasts:
1. Radio and other “professional” audio repurposed as a podcast, e.g. Sean Hannity.
2. Lectures and conference talks, like from IT Conversations, which are obviously well prepared by the lecturers.
To me most other podcasts aren’t “dense enough” in good content to be worth the time.
Left by Richard K Miller on 11/16/2006