Other Articles in Play
Podcasting Blog
8 step guide to podcast marketing
6/28/2008
Podcasting leader Christopher Penn has published a short PDF guide, 8 step guide to podcast marketing, that seeks to help you jump start how you’re marketing your own podcast. This is a very short PDF and covers topics that include whether your podcast is worthy of buzz, is easily found and how you’re measuring your success. The … Continue reading »
Publishing a Podcast with ExpressionEngine
6/24/2008
If you’re a user of the wonderful ExpressionEngine CMS (this site has been running on it for more than 2 years) and want to easily and efficiently publish a podcast with it, I just released a new screencast you might be interested in.
The latest episode of the ExpressionEngine Screencasts covers … Continue reading »
Voice Over Training
5/10/2008
One of the obvious aspects of podcasting is using your voice. And using it properly. If you’re looking for some more information about how to improve your voice technique in your podcast, I’d suggest checking out the Voice Over Experts Podcast from Voices.com.
Hardware Recommendations
- Kustom KM4 Mic with Cable
- Behringer XM8500 Microphone
- Shure SM58 Mic
- MXL MXL V63MBP Computer Desktop Recording Kit
Masthead
Contact
Ryan Irelan, Editor - listen@podcastfreeamerica.com
The Push and Pull of Podcasting
The technology and knowledge behind creating and listening is unevenly weighted.
Over the last 10 months, I’ve been doing a lot of offline evangelizing of podcasting as a viable medium and important outlet for independent creativity and professional communication and marketing. One of the initial benefits of podcasting is how it gave a voice to independent content producers  anyone who wanted to create a “radio show” could. Any topic, any length, any idea. Of course, success isn’t guaranteed, but access is half the battle.
So, here we are, one year into this podcasting phenomenon and already people are calling it dead in the water, washed up, or like Macworld’s editors, “in its last minute.”
The other day, a colleague of mine shouted over the cubicle wall, “I think podcasting is at its 14th minute.” Of course, he was referring to the proverbial 15 minutes of fame. And of course, I broke into laughter. But his comment got me thinking: where is podcasting going?
Excerpt from MacWorld Editor’s Notes  Is the clock ticking on podcasting?
So, really, where is this podcasting thing going? Short answer: Nowhere. As in, it’s not going away. Long answer: Keep reading.
The explosive growth and popularity of podcasting both inside the tech savvy online communities and (thanks to Apple) in more mainstream circles, has been a time machine to the future  zipping us 5 years forward in 12 months time. That is exactly what happened when you compare the evolution and popularity of podcasting to the growth of weblogs. And because of this, people are impatient and spoiled, wondering and waiting for podcasting to turn the next corner of its existence.
It’s obvious to many what is holding podcasting back and what could be its ultimate downfall: ease of creation and distribution. Up until now creating and distributing a podcast involved several steps and required some basic knowledge of how to set up and use audio hardware and software. Not exactly something for everyone. Unlike weblogs, which require the ability to type and and click a “Post” button (talent and ideas aside, of course), podcasting presents significant challenges to non-technical people.
Apple’s embrace of podcasting in June at WWDC was a major step for the medium, however it also caused it all sorts of problems. Essentially, what Apple did was push podcasting on the receiving and listening end, before it was really mature on the creation and distribution end. What this resulted in was a corporate-heavy offering of content and even higher expectations of the future of podcasting.
Now people are wondering if this podcasting thing was just a bunch of hype. It was a slow summer for podcasting, after Apple’s announcement. But in the last week I’m finally seeing some progress. I’ve been playing with both ClickCaster and Odeo’s online podcast creation tools. Both still in private beta, they are offering another stepping stone to making podcasting easier to do.
These online tools are a significant move, with Odeo offering an impressive in-browser tool, and should help bring more people  especially professionals like psychologists, doctors, lawyers, priests and others  to podcasting as a way to spread their knowledge and have a conversation with their markets and constituents.
There is so much more room for growth, that it’s just plain short-sighted to label podcasting, a medium still in its infancy, in its 14th minute of fame. That’s just skewed perception due to the hyper-growth of podcasting in its first 12 months.
Once the push on the creation and distribution end catches up with the pull on the receiving end, we’ll definitely see podcasting gain speed and become a very mature medium of online content distribution. Not just for web geeks like me, but for everyone.
Discuss
Lend your opinion and thoughts on this article. Join the discussion »
If you find this content useful, won't you consider subscribing to get regular updates? (It's free!)