Birth of a notion

Birth of a notion: Doc Searls (a noted radio-lover) overviews the concept (Note: link updated) of podcasts or podcasting. And just in case the concept gets too attached to one specific digital listening device, he’s coined an acronym Personal Option Digital casting. The concept is this: The podcaster (anyone) creates and posts to the web an audio file on whatever topic or interest he or she wants. Listeners then download the file to enjoy on their computer or iPod (or other such device) whenever they want. With Adam Curry’s iPodder, someone can do that automatically.

Some examples are Adam’s Daily Source Code (which I haven’t heard) or Dave Winer’s Morning Coffee Notes (which I have listened to but warn it requires an ‘acquired taste’).

Doc explains:

The key virtue of this new breed of radio is that it’s Net-native. That is, it’s archived in a way that can be listened to at the convenience of the listener, and (this is key) that it can be linked to by others, and enclosed in an RSS feed. It’s because of that last feature that Adam could create iPodder, which automatically routes a podcast to an iPod (it’s what Adam calls “an iPod filling station”).

I can see magazines, associations, churches schools and companies utilizing podcasting to distribute regular audio content to their audiences. Lots of companies have dial-in conference call presentations that could be easily made asynchronous via podcasting. And how hard would it be to post a church worship service each week? Or a wrap-up of a Friday night high school football game? Heck, I might start doing my Titans game-day review via a podcast.

And, as I’ve been designated by some as a “CEO blogger” poster child, I can see a much quicker adoption timeline for CEO podcasting than CEO blogging. Stick a microphone in front of a CEO and say, “What would you like to tell your employees today?” and you’ll get a much quicker buy-in than sitting a keyboard in front of them and saying, “blog a message for the world to read.” A word of warning to corporate communicator-types: Don’t script it for the CEO…with “podcasting” voice is not a metaphor for writing in a conversational, believable fashion. Voice is actually voice. (Will this be something like when talkie movies started and some silent stars couldn’t make the transition? Will the way some bloggers sound not synch with how we’ve come to perceive their voices?

Interesting development to watch, or should I say, listen for.

Oh, and Doc warns that if we call this Radio or “broadcasting” the folks at NAB will start lobbying against it.

rexblog bumper music: Radio Fodder (Cloud Cult)

Published by

Rex Hammock

Founder/ceo of Hammock Inc., the customer media and content company based in Nashville, Tenn. Creator of and head-helper at SmallBusiness.com.

  • greg.org

    It’s interesting that P.S. 1, the contemporary art space in NYC specifically calls their audio programming “art radio”; they even named it WPS1 (wps1.org).

    But when audio blogging is called audblogging, it’s mostly that: odd. And unsearchable. Check out Idleword’s Audioblogging Manifesto, a good explanation of what should–and shouldn’t–be converted to audio just because we can.
    http://www.idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt

  • Hudge

    Unedited recordings of interviews would be great for this. Listeners would catch the inflection of a source being slowly grilled to perfection, as well as snooze thru the reporter’s sometimes fumbling and speechifying questions. I still have some interview tapes I would consider posting, had I but world enough and time.

  • Sonta

    Your site is realy very interesting.
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