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May 27, 2005
podcasting: connecting directly via naming and practice
Posted by danah boyd
So, when podcasting first emerged and people told me that it was the answer to blogging, i rolled my eyes. I have zero interest in listening to random blogs. While i’m happy to scan across large quantities of text, there’s no way that i have any desire to listen to blogs or produce a podcast. None.
From the beginning, i said that i would like podcasting when NPR was podcasting, when electronic music was podcast and when it was otherwise adopted by people who know how to turn voice into an art. In theory, amateurism is interesting to me; in reality, i don’t want to listen to it.
This morning, i woke up to the word podcast coming out of NPR every few seconds. ABC is podcasting. Wow… i’m impressed. Podcasting is not that old but it has already reached mainstream news. But this actually make sense. They already produce large quantities of media ready-to-go for mobile listening. Why not just deploy it in a new way? This makes complete sense. They are doing their own TiVo for radio (and for TV). The practice is already there. While audio-bloggers have to develop a new practice, radio and TV folks have this medium down. Podcasting does what i’ve wanted Audible to do wrt radio for a while. And it is simpler and quicker.
Second, think about the value of the term “podcast.” What was the number one device sold at Christmas? iPod. The term “pod” is hip, cool and yet mainstream as hell.
I’m super super stoked that the mainstream media has taken this and ran with it - this is impressively fast adoption. There’s only one problem… how are they going to feel when we forward through the ads and NPR’s annoying requests for money? Are we going to see the same TiVo fights on podcasting? Are deals going to be made such that podcasting is limited to just the mainstream folks or iPods are created to not allow forwarding? Goddess, i hope not. As much as i have no interest in listening to any audio-blogs, by all means, let those who do relish in it.
What are the costs of mainstream adoption during the early adopter phase? What does it mean when it fits so well with a practice and yet, allows for a different form of it?
Comments (5)
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1. Peter on May 28, 2005 10:24 AM writes...
I've recently discovered podcasts and in the short time I've listened (6 weeks) I've found lots of professionally produced material unavailable in any other form. Take a listen to "IT Conversations" which captures conference presentations on trends affecting IT from intellectual property issues to opensource.
Much ot this is easily as well produced and presented as what's available via broadcast networks - except the audience for it is generally smaller.
That being said podcasts don't replace blogs as a source of info but rather augment them. I listen when I'm running etc. As a primary source for information and trends scanning blogs is faster and typically offer more depth than listing to a podcast.
Permalink to Comment2. Jon Garfunkel on May 31, 2005 10:23 PM writes...
It's sort of funny that podcasting is assumed to be a populist medium. It's time-shifted audio like TiVo is time-shifted video.
I heard about Art Mobs through that supposedly stuck-in-the-mud publication, the New York Times. This supplies a fairly novel and populist use for podcasting that rises above amateur radio-- unoffical audio guides to museums that you listen to while walking through (and I presume that guides to other tourable places will follow). Of course, this ultimately demands technology beyond podcasting, since you'd want your generic audio player to help you random access content. My Creative Labs MuVO actually comes up short in this area
Permalink to Commentdanah-- happy vacation, I understand if you can't respond.
3. Markus Sandy on June 1, 2005 7:44 PM writes...
Hi, I know you're on vacation and probably won't see this for some time, but when you come back please take a look at Jay Dedman's recent video (http://www.momentshowing.net/momentshowing/2005/06/video_hundreds_.html) and consider what he has to say about "mainstream" and "casting" in general.
The question that strikes me is: Why are we even discussing what type of media is best? They are like paints on a palette. I choose the one that I feel is most appropriate or the one I wish to experiment with at that moment. Sometimes that is writing, sometimes audio or video.
On another topic (maybe?): you might wish to contact Bruce Bimber over at CITS and check on what they are planning for next year out at UCSB. Seems like some things you might be interested in.
Hope you have a great vacation.
Permalink to Comment4. Tryggvi Thayer on June 1, 2005 9:16 PM writes...
I feel that podcasting is raising some very interesting issues while it is also providing some very interesting possibilities. As 'danah' mentions above, it is in many ways a new take on the "blogging" concept and provides access to that means of communication to those who are not able to type out their lived experiences on a computer keyboard for various reasons, for example language or literacy. But, on the other hand, if we think about the power of Internet communications to shape communal knowledge development through incremental changes, i.e. open source type collaboration such as Wikipedia (see this excellent report from Demos on open source: Wide Open), podcasting is a setback. The main problem with podcasting in this sense is that it's not machine readable. The information conveyed in this format is stuck in the podcast and can't be manipulated the way text can except through a secondary medium, ex. someone who listened to a podcast and posted subsequent reflections to a text-based web site. Unless computers get better at understanding human language real quick, we stand to lose some very important tools and resources currently being made available on the Internet. That having been said, this is one of the coolest podcasts I've come across: Shonaweb. I can count up to five so far...
Permalink to Comment5. tonalina on June 10, 2005 4:05 AM writes...
great article!!
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