release

Krempasky’s not impressed at SxSW:

Back at SXSW, sitting through a panel on podcasting - when, why, how. It’s relatively interesting - but frankly - I’ve not heard anything that distinguishes advice about podcasting from advice about broadcasting events in traditional fashion. Why does everyone seem to think that podcasting really is the GREATEST THING EVER? Yes, you make sure to record the questions - yes, you speak in a way that an audience outside the room can relate to.

First of all, Mike, remember that this panel is geared towards web people with no broadcast experience, rather than broadcast people with no web experience. Hence, the fundamental broadcasting advice.

But to answer your deeper question, podcasting differs from broadcasting in a few ways that make it important.

• Anyone can do it.

  Podcasting is to broadcasting what blogging is to print media - open to all comers, low barriers to entry, no minimum audience required to make it worthwhile. In order to get a broadcast on the air, one must convince a broadcaster to accept your content. That’s much more difficult for small, independent media makers and novices than for established media makers. Because bandwidth is cheaper than spectrum and, by comparison, infinite, even podcasts with a small audience can sustain themselves without worrying that some other, more popular cast will push them off the air.

• Podcasts are portable.

  If you want to listen to a radio broadcast, you listen to it at the time the broadcaster presents it - unless you’re taping your radio. Once it’s broadcast, it’s gone, and if you want to hear the program later, you have to find someone else who recorded it or hope it runs again later. Broadcasts require you to be available and focused on the broadcast at the time the broadcaster choses.

  Podcasts, however, are portable in time and space. You can listen to a podcast anytime you want to after downloading it, and if you missed a previous cast, you can usually download that as well. (I’m a big fan of the official Lost podcast and was able to catch up on on the previously-run podcasts after finding it.) Now that mp3 players are as cheap and available as transistor radios once were, it’s easy to catch a podcast even in a place where you might not be able to get a radio broadcast - such as a plane or a subway train.

The portability of podcasts and the low barriers to entry mean that more people can listen than otherwise might, and more people can broadcast than otherwise might. Podcasting, then, increases both the production and consumption of audio content, and enhances the long tail effect in the process. That’s what’s cool about podcasting.