I have just read through Rory Blyth's Podcasting - Let's chat and thought I would add my $.02. I have been following the Podcasting flurry through Dave Winer/Scoble's postings and discussions and occasionally downloaded one or two (I haven't really listened to one right through -- the process is just too painful).
While I think that the process is a useful one -- in many ways it is just digital media blogging (despite the protests to the contrary). It allows the producer of the content to provide it directly to the potential consumers with no middle man. The "hype"sters though tend to gloss over the difficulties though:
- media distribution on the scale that some of these podcasts are reaching ( ~30 Megabytes for Adam Curry's for instance) is massively consumptive of bandwidth. Rory's attitude is "Things will improve.". But if 50 people are to receive 30 Megabyes of downloaded material -- someone somewhere will have to distibute 1.5 gig and 50 will have to receive 30 meg. Bandwidth (at least in some parts of the world) is getting cheaper and maybe someday this will be a drop in the bucket but ... Maybe Adam Curry can afford it but somebody has to pay.
- the content takes time to consume -- and there is no way to search and index the content (maybe some day some analysis will be able to go through audio/video content and make it searchable -- but nothing I know of does that now). It makes it difficult to sort through and find new content worth consuming. "57 channels and there is nothing on" starts becoming a 'casting reality that is as hard to face in internet delivery as it is on cable tv. For speciality content maybe it makes sense or for those with time to burn (I guess commuting time is not usable in other ways so there is some sense).
- media production is hard work and costly (if you want to do it well). I can see here though that lessening the quality requirements (see Scoble's J.P. Stewart - A new hobby: putting Windows XP in your car) can still produce material that is interesting
I don't think "Podcasting" is world shattering technology or any sort of paradigm shift though time shifted delivery of digital media is a useful concept. As my dad would say -- same old shit only softer.
