Carrying the Lantern

I like Dave Winer's way of thinking. He's like the predator in a pool of fish - helps keep the entire ecosystem on its toes.

The first phase of Podcasting was the long tail leading up to August 13, 2004 - the Friday Adam Curry did his first Daily Source Code podcast. The second phase ended last week, as two of the more ambitious podcast specific enterprises/products were announced - Odeo at eTech and The Podshow at ipodder.org. Dave caught this - see the snippet below. We'll now see what the future holds.

IMHO, the rapid growth in podcasts (over 4000 at this point) tells me that at least for the near future we'll see a mix of people producing them for the fun of it and those who do it cause they enjoy it but get a bit of income to pay the bandwidth bills. In the not too distance future we'll see some podcasters make money like some bloggers have - getting jobs because of their podcast. And eventually those in it for the money will arrive.

Here's Dave's post - go to his site and read it all.

Later, when the drugs wear off.

Doc Searls responds to my essay posted here yesterday.

Also on Doc's site, Lloyd Davis, like Doc, believes in the insiders.

Okay, let me explain why I don't.

First, I don't have a podcasting product, so when you think of me as a competitor of Evan's that's not correct. I'm working on other stuff, not podcasting tools. I may even be a user of Odeo's product, but right now I'm not inclined to, because they are going over my head to sell me, or that's what they think they're doing. All I've heard about Odeo has been second or third-hand, demos at exclusive insider conferences. Frankly, I'd rather use the open source tools, even if they're not quite as good as Evan's, because I get them without the arrogance and bluster. And hey, they actually exist. I have no direct evidence that Evan's software is anything but vaporware.

Doc Searls is a great also. Healthy to see the two of these guys (and others) provide some checks and balances.