"Over the weekend, Adam Curry (the self-proclaimed “inventor” of podcasting) released information about his “new company”, BoKu Communications. A quote from BoKu’s front page says “BoKu was founded in 2004 by Adam Curry and Ron Bloom. It is a closely held private company based in Miami and New York, with a core group of developers, editors and producers across the US, UK and in Europe. ”
Did you catch that? “Closely held private company”! His new company promises integrated advertising and marketing campaigns across its network of direct and affiliate produced podcasts and websites.
Adam has also changed iPodder.org! Besides the new layout, the site is now “Copyright 2005 - BoKu Communications”. What about all of the people that were updating “nodes” at the site. The people that were working on it were volunteers, and it now seems that they are working for BoKu Communications, since the site is no longer Creative Commons. Does this mean that they are all going to become “paid editors” for iPodder.org? Is BoKu Communications going to compensate them for all of the work that they have already put into building the directory? If I was a volunteer, I would be pissed off as hell for contributing all of the time it takes to update the OPML files responsible for the underlying directory, and then having somebody else slide the whole thing out from underneath me, and start making money off of “my” work! Even if they’re not mad, I’m mad “for” them!
Besides that, the iPodder directory can only be “browsed”. There is no way to “search” for anything at the site. There will be a lot better places for a true “user powered” podcast directory.
This is no way to have podcasting become a widespread thing that “everyone” can contribute to. Podcasting (to me) is not about making money. It’s not about getting sponsors or even getting the biggest audience. It’s about a “personal” way to communicate with people who want to listen. It’s about connecting with people on a personal level and exposing all of the emotion with your voice. This is NOT radio! Stop trying to turn it into radio!
…and why does Adam Have trackbacks turned off at his blog?
And A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to Dave for seeing this ahead of time, and not becoming a part of it (no matter what the actual reasons were)! "
