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Indie Podcasters vs. Big Radio
skepticality writes "The weekly news and business magazine BusinessWeek has an article coming out in this weeks edition that highlights Skepticality, Coverville, AMP, and other indipendant podcasts and podcast networks. The article explains how a small number of indie podcasts are holding their own against the corporate and big-radio shows in the iTunes top 20 rankings." From the article: "In one of the shortest trajectories yet for a new Internet technology, podcasting has gone from the hands of indie developers to media giants in less than a year. Credit Apple. With typical finesse, it has created a centralized, easy-to-use service on iTunes that makes it a snap to find and listen to podcasts, the audio recordings that can be downloaded from the Net and played on a computer or portable music player. Apple also put out a new version of the iTunes software, which makes it easy for people to create their own podcasts, and invited all to post their creations on the site. Indie podcasters such as Kempenaar and Hallgren rejoiced, ready for the mainstream to embrace the technology they had championed."
Seems like some "Big Radio" stations in Australia are embracing podcasting; ABC Radio National at least is offering some of its programs as podcasts here, and it appears to be going very well for RN...
In radio, nobody knows your spelling sucks.
Can we please stop calling these things 'podcasts'? They're downloadable mp3s, when did iPods start supporting only mp3? Why not call them rivercasts, or zencasts?
The irony of podcasting is that it was created to circumvent big media companies. The itms top 20 suggests that as much as people love to tell themselves "I hate those clear channel motherfuckers" When it comes down to it, thats all people really want.
for iTunes. I'm sorry but the iTunes top 20 is hardly representative of the current health of indie podcasts. The most recent version of iTunes with podcast support has only been around a short while; I've been using it and it is functionally quite satisfying but I certainly wouldn't trust it's charts as a reasonable way to measure any kind of health in the indie movement.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
who hates the fucking "podcasting" name?
Its shitty audio streaming, not something one would expect to hear during some voyager technobabble.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
That is why big stations do market research so that they can target their broadcasts and podcasts to the consumer. A successfull podcaster will have to address the same group (compete) or a group which is now not addressed since it is commercially not attractive. To compete is tough, you have to fight big money, so yes, the big ones win again with this.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Podcast: a pretentious form of audio streaming peculiar to people who unquestioningly digest new buzzwords in the same way that Mac users butts digest fresh cock.
Streaming audio, i never heard of this before.. Apple thinks of everything!!!
Podcasting, like a lot of other deployments of technology (think the Web), was a lot more useful before The Man got a hold of it. Before the new iTunes came along, we had places like iPodder.org and podcastalley to list podcasts, and on those sites it was all about indepedent podcasts. There were a few more "official" ones from radio stations and whatnot, but they just weren't as popular.
Now with iTunes it's back to the same techniques using marketing and flashy graphics for the iTunes banner thingy for a particular podcast, so the same masses that tune into clearchannel will click on these new links. And the worst part is now everyone thinks there "in" because they listen to a podcast.
I think it's sad to see the iTunes top 20 - it's mostly corporate overproduced junk. To me, the whole point of podcasting is to listen to what I want to listen to, not just have another medium for corporate radio junk. Most of the podcasts I listen to aren't even on the iTunes list at all because (oh, the horror) they might play material that is not properly licensed because of copyright issues. It's almost like I feel I have gone "underground" to listen to the *real* podcasts.
--- witty signature
Big radio is a dinosaur.
I have a radio in my car and one in my kitchen. Both are tuned to NPR and never go to any other station. The reason is two-part: One, I can't handle the advertisements, annoying personalities, and repetitive play of commercial radio, and two, I like NPR. Either way, I'll probably never listen to any of the mediocre programming elsewhere on my dial. I doubt I'm the only one.
Satellite radio will be part of the change. My guess is that Podcasting will also be huge. It's the radio's version of the Internet with TiVo. Users decide what they want to listen and when, they do it mostly without commercials, and they get to comment directly to programmers of the media.
Why would I want to listen to some schlock programmed by record company execs, peopled with screaming buffoons who can't stop laughing at toilet jokes, and peppered with advertisements for used cars?
Big radio is dead.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I mean stuff like loooong intros and spending literally half the show talking about how you can contact the show.
I'll second that exact observation.
So we have a /. article that highlights Skepticality. Probably the server hosting the article is being hammered as usual. But I also went to the iTunes Music Store and looked at the Top 20 Podcasts list. Sure enough, Skepticality is up to #2 for the day. The /. effect moves to new technology!
Of course there's an element of luck, too, as well as the '49er effect: that is, the ones that get there first stand a better chance of getting rich. But if you get there early and have a good product, you have a chance of attaining the critical mass that attracts not only listeners but collaborators. Slashdot as a tech website is an example. Among blogs, Daily Kos would be another. And I would put the Skepticality podcast in that category, potentially: it is well produced (decent recording, excellent editing and pacing, smart format), intelligent, has likable hosts, and has started attracting some well-known interviewees like James Randi. It's here to stay, I'd bet.
The distinction between corporate and indie is less important, I think, than the question of how an excellent late-comer can crack the barrier of the existing hierarchy. (The one heartening thing is that firstcomers tend to drop off the top of the pyramid when people realize they're just not that good or interesting, witness Adam Curry's drop in the rankings.)
The rankings are based on how many new subscribers the show has received, not total subscribers for a show. That means established shows will probably have a larger listener base but might not be in the top 20.
What, me worry?
success or failure for mass marketted stuff often comes down to its "hypability".
give it a name that evokes mental links with other hyped up buzz words and you can sell it more readily...
googles pods blogs.. they're all nice rounded names and they all allude to some culture/club (not culture club) that people feel they might want to be a part of.
ipods are the pogo sticks or yoyo's of today... (hell.. probably for the very kids who grew up with them only to buy an ipod at age 30)
We might as well just get used to all the baby talk (sure beats EEE.822b's or VNCs or whatever other names techies like to give really innovative technologies IMHO)
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
OK, so who feels threatened by this format?
Why the need for this denigration?
Unlike broadcasters podcasters have to pay for every listener (yes, there is blog torrent but it does limit the audience)
I live in a town (Canberra, Australia) which is off the map as far as music producers are concerned, yet nothing can get on the air if it hasn't come from the big studios.
So we gather around a condensor mic once a week. We drink some beer, we talk some crap, and we get local musos to come in and play their stuff.
We like how it sounds, quite a lot of audio snobs like how it sounds.
A few hundred people around the world like it enough they send us postcards.
Where's the harm?
We belch, fart, spark up, talk in away that would get a broadcaster thrown off the air and we ask nothing of you at all. So where's all this agro coming from?
To anticipate the next question the feed is here:
http://the-riotact.com/?cat=39
A summary of the content is here:
http://loadedog.com/pod/pod.shtml
(and quietly scope my karma and user number before accusing me of being some kind of shill)
To return to the point, some podcasts will be crap, some (ok a very few) will be good. Much like blogs. But as no-one is forcing you to listen, or blasting it through the local spectrum, what'ss the problem exactly?
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
While I don't disagree that Apple can ALWAYS do a better job with their talent -- I would also say that iPodder is hardly acceptable compared to iTunes. iPodder is a total abomination and extremely confusing for users. iTunes doesn't bring podcasting mainstream simply because of its numbers -- it does so because it lets people finally say, "Oh, THAT'S how this shit works!"
:-)
Put an average person in front of iPodder (or any variation -- and I've used 'em) and they will either fall asleep or slit their wrists.
Only a Linux community would say that iPodder is "just as good."
Furthermore, advanced features are great and they'll be coming down the line I'm sure -- but keep in mind this is a 1.0 release if you think about it -- and it's already cleared products that were out for well over a year. That's pretty damn good in my book.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
The Internet is even less strict than that. There are so many different podcasts out there that you don't have to listen to "14 year old boys." Its the whole principle of "if you don't like it, change the channel."
That being said, I agree with you that "program quality comes before audio quality," but just because a local broadcast radio station is what it is doesn't make it better [programming-wise] than a podcast (or group of podcasts). Don't forget what Strongbad thinks about college radio (I know, it's not the same as a "local station")
College radio can pretty much be summed up in 5 words:
Dead air. umm, dead air.
Actually the logic is far more false. The itunes rating shows *new* subscriptions, not ongoing ones. So any show that gains a following will peak and then drop down the ratings. It's like saying that 'Band X' is more popular than the Beatles because they have a song in the charts and the Beatles don't any more....
In Soviet Russia you own your cat
While I would generally agree, I've found a single station that has redeemed FM in my eyes...90.5 WBER. It's a small rochester-native college run radio station that actually plays good music, and being private does not have to worry about commercials.
You can visit their website and listen to their stream if it sounds interesting enough. (They mostly play Alternative from both mainstream and indie but take requests for a good deal more)
But even with this station...FM makes me so terribly sad. I don't live in rochester for all of the year, and I can't get their signal from lower NY, so I have to make do with what is on. And what is played are commercials with music interspersed, annoying DJs, and rap/pop. Out of nearly 20mhz to choose from, I have a whole *one* station which I can tolerate, 94.3. In the past, 90.7 WFUV had a good set of programs, but they've shuffled their program playlist and no longer appeal to me. Because of this, I've ended up subscribing to XM, but only for my periods of break at home. Perhaps if it were less pricey, I'd consider it as a more regular deal with them.
Is there any hope anymore? I suspect not. *sigh*
After Apple made the iPod, along came the iRiver -- it's basically a cheap knockoff without the scroll wheel or iTunes music store support. If you want to buy music online to listen to with your iRiver, you have to be a Windows user.
Cheap? Nope, iRivers are more expensive than iPods by a large margin. Knockoff? No, iRivers aren't knockoffs because that implies low-quality. An iRiver is currently the top-of-the-range when it comes to MP3 players. And has a matching price.
iRivers primarily play MP3 files. Since when was MP3 windows-only? They can also play Ogg Vorbis and WMA, of course.
iTunes? Nah, I'll buy my music on CDs thanks. Once I've listened to it and decided whether it's worth buying, anyway. And with the accurate navigation buttons it has, I don't need to look at the player to see what I'm doing.
And for me, one area where you cannot in any honesty say that an iPod is better than an iRiver: Recording. Once music's recorded on an iRiver, due to Apple's DRM you can't get it off directly.
Other people's mileage may vary. But I don't believe anyone who's really looked into the issue can say that an iPod is any better than an iRiver - except price, and when you buy top-of-the-range goods you expect to pay for it.
An iRiver is as much a copycat of an iPod as, say, any mobile phone is of another, simply by virtue of having the same purpose.