Why with all the Podcasting?

** x-posted on the Blog Business Summit blog. **

After mulling over it for a while, I’ve finally coughed up a half-decent explanation about why I think podcasting is changing the broadcast audio world.

First off—what is podcasting? It’s essentially a name for releasing mp3 files on the internet as a show or a blog. Usually, you can either download a podcast from a web site or subscribe to a feed using something like iTunes, which downloads episodes automatically whenever they’re ready.

So—why is it revolutionary? Podcasting is helping to change audio publishing in three ways:

2. It continues the blog trend of turning mass media upside-down

3. It’s delivered through RSS

4. It’s an on-the-go media solution

First, podcasting is an accessible medium. It started as a grassroots type movement, and has been gaining popularity ever since. Like blogging, however, as larger companies start to utilize podcasting (like Apple), it will become easier and easier to use. Business Week aptly pointed out in their much-blogged-about article, giving literally anyone with an internet connection the opportunity to publish their own writing is literally turning mass media upside down; it’s becoming media of the masses. Podcasting will continue that trend with audio publishing. Allowing anyone with a computer microphone and some spare time to share their version of a radio show, their favorite mixes, or an audio story is going to turn radio upside down. It’s not just that anyone can podcast, it’s that anyone can reach just about anyone. There’s a VC who’s used Del.icio.us to allow any young entrepreneur to podcast a business pitch to him. Like blogging before it, the number 1 reason that podcasting will change the audio world is accessibility.

So the question here is: why would I listen to other people’s audio drivel? and haven’t we been able to put mp3’s online for a while—what makes it revolutionary now?

My answer to the first question is somewhat pointed: you’re reading my drivel right now. Why not listen to it, too? The second question is harder, and the answer is really spread out through my three points. In my mind, putting home-brewed mp3’s onlnine was always revolutionary; it’s only recently that the practice has been given a name, an audience, and a distribution system. What’s changed is that now, pretty much anyone actually can put their audio on the net. This shouldn’t negate the fact that it’s going to change the way we think about audio programming.

Second, podcasts are delivered through RSS. If you’re not familiar with RSS, you’re already behind. RSS is hard-wired in to most every blog on the internet, and now that people are beginning to browse the “content net” (that’s mostly blogs) with Aggregators instead of actual web browsers, we’ve created a system whereby content comes to us, instead of having to look for it. RSS, in short, is the internet equivalent of “everyone gets a broadcast station.” And we can flip through the channels, find the ones we like, and stick ‘em in our newsreaders.

What does this mean for podcasting? This is another third of the “why is it revolutionary now?” question. RSS means that everyone has a distribution method. There’s no cumbersome navigation, you don’t have to remember to check a site on a regular basis; it all comes to you. This just wasn’t possible before.

Third, podcasts aren’t really meant for your computer, they’re meant for your mp3 player. Podcasting doesn’t just mean “hey, I put some audio on the internet”—while that’s the basic idea, it’s supposed to be a placeholder for radio, not a replacement for blogging. It’s true that in the time it takes to listen to a podcast, you could’ve skimmed through plenty of blog entires. The rate of information you recieve is faster in blogging. But that’s not the point. Where blogs are replacing online news and opinion pages, podcasts are going to replace overly-advertised radio broadcasts and expensive programs-on-tape.

Now that some larger stations have started releasing some of their audio programming via podcast, it’s becoming more and more analogous to TiVO for your radio, except that there’s a virtually unlimited number of stations to choose from. Or if you don’t like what you’re hearing, make something you do! Zillions of people listen to the radio on the way to work. Why shouldn’t they listen to a podcast?

This is also the third reason why podcasting is a revolution now—portable mp3 players are finally coming into their own. Thanks largely to the success of the entire iPod line of products, mp3 players aren’t just a niche market of techno-geeks anymore. There’s an audience.

As with all new ideas in tech, there are a fair number of (valid) complaints based on the technology. It’s not easy to search through audio yet, although Apple’s idea of tagging chapters on to podcasts is a great intermediate step. Not everyone has broadband yet. But these are just technical problems, and they’ll become less and less problematic as the technology gets better and better. I say podcasting is in.