Podcasting’s Image Problem

I’m finally getting around to listening to the sessions I missed at last fall’s Podcast and Portable Media Expo. While there, all the sessions felt like we were prepping for a boom. Everyone looking for how to hit the mother lode.

Seven months later, listening to the sessions, that suspicion is confirmed. The tone, pitch, and demeanor (of all but Dave Slusher’s session) is one of snake oil pyramid scheme sales pitch.

From an aesthetic sense, even today, if ‘pod’ is somewhere a company’s name, the presence looks cheap, unpolished, half-baked, and feels as reputable as a payday loan provider.

This is a huge problem. For everyone that publishes enclosures via RSS.

It’s not a lack-of-money problem. It’s a customer experience problem. The latest Web 2.0 toysite is far more polished and thought-through from an experience perspective than people frantically digging for fool’s gold in podcastville.

Hopefully, we’re in podcasting’s dip. A lull. To shake out those that can be shaken out.

“There was no boom in podcasting technology, and there won’t be.” – Dave Winer

So, You Want to Be a Public Radio Star?

I had a great conversation with Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson this weekend at MinneBar, we started talking about the early days of podcasting and how Tim and I both saw podcasting as a farm league for broadcast radio in general – and public radio in particular.

The problem is by the time those institutions start asking, the podcasters have moved on. Realizing they don’t need the broadcast distribution model to be successful and podcasting is no longer the radio farm league, but a completely different game. Then, when the big league starts asking, you know something’s up.

“PRX has launched the first-ever Public Radio Talent Quest, a nationwide search for the next generation of hosts for public radio. Contestants can submit a 2-minute audio demo for their shot at $10,000 and the opportunity to produce a pilot show for public radio.”

Why Buying Local, Frontier House, and the Trade Deficit are All Silly

Russ Roberts’ EconTalk is consistently interesting and engaging podcast covering economics as a perspective and a practice.

I spent the first half of this week listening to his hour long conversation with colleague Don Boudreaux on the economics of buying local for the sake of buying local.

Boudreaux and Roberts expand on many of the same points as Roberts’ conversation with Mike Munger on the division of labor and boil it all down to: the division of labor creates wealth. Trade is simply an extended division of labor and a trade deficit with another country is as silly a notion as having a trade deficit with another state, town, or the local grocery store.

RE: MinneBar 07 Schedule Is Out

This is a test of posting through the feedseeder project. Something I’ll be demo-ing @ Minnebar, check the schedule for when.

MinneBar 07 Schedule Is Out – J Wynia

Update:

“…or an information architect saying things like the browser is dead, I’m looking forward to catching up on your version of crazy.” – Aaron Mentele

Aaron – I’ll see you tomorrow, my crazy’s all warmed up.

The Need for Nichér Yellow Pages

Inspired by a pre-MinneBar conversation, I’ve been thinking more about websites and advertising.

Back when I was a kid on family trips – whether to the grandparents or elsewhere – one of the first things I would do at our destination is pull out the Yellow Pages.

After comparing its size against the thin leaflet back home, I’d page through and find the nearest bike, record, or skate shops. In hopes of having one cross our path in our forthcoming travels. Some of the places I found would just have a listing, others purchased a larger presence.

Google is the new Yellow Pages. Has been for a while. That doesn’t mean that it’s the best Yellow Pages – just that it’s good enough for most everything.

This is where a domain-specific directory (aka “vertical search”) comes in. Something so small, so niche, that it completely misses Goo’s radar.

Say, a directory of places that serve Juicy Lucy’s.

Now three questions:

  1. Can use of this directory be tied to more hamburger sales?
  2. How does the directory publisher get compensated to maintain the directory?
  3. What isn’t an ad in this directory?