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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."
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!
I'm with you on that one. Though it's syndicated downloading rather than streaming. But yeah, definitely needs to be called something else.
Oh no... it's the future.
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
It simply doesn't matter if 19 of the top 20--or even 99 of the top 100--shows are the product of "big media". The point isn't that podcasting provides an alternative to big media. It's that it provides alternatives, full stop. If your neighbor wants to do a show wherein he spends an hour each week just talking about his dog, Fifi, he can do it, and reach just about anyone in the world who wants to tune in.
Ten years ago, nobody could choose the Fifi Variety Hour. It isn't surprising that big media can garner the name recognition, advertising clout, market research, and (let's face it) talent to keep a large majority of people choosing their product. Podcasting is still a great leveller, because now they have to compete with every no-name garage DJ on the basis of product quality, rather than on the basis of "I have a radio station and you don't."
If some people only want to use podcasting as a convenient way to listen to radio programming, who cares? It doesn't detract from your ability to produce your own show, or my ability to listen to it. As the systems for matching people to interesting content improve (and boy will they ever), big media is either going to have to expand its offerings to cover a wide variety of new niches, or watch their audience reject them in favor of content that more precisely reflects their own interests.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
It implies that they are Mac users ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.