Podcast vs Blog

Well, the firestorm of controversy which originated from my last post basically ended up with these conclusions:

1: Don't bother attempting to get people to subscribe to your podcast. Its just too hard and will remain too hard

2: Most people just listen to your show at their desks anyways so the point is moot.

3: How to get more listeners? Forget point A. Embrace point B. Use a flash app to easily play your show from your site, then use the same old tactics to drive people to your site. You know SEO, blog etc etc etc.

It all comes down to the same thing: a podcast is nothing special. Nothing more special than a YouTube uploaded video, cause the whole downloadable/subscription thing is not worth doing. What makes a podcast a podcast? Obviously not the delivery mechanism.

Maybe podcast = user created audio or video? No, cause YouTube is not full of video podcasts, now is it? So the term podcast means its episodic and you CAN download it. If hardly anyone is downloading, why should we bother.

But thats not the main point of my post. If people listen online, then they can read online. You drive people to your site just like you drive people to your blog. A podcast is a blog.

The Problem With Podcasting

The mainstream market for podcasts is still yer typical horny geek. Look at whats on the top ten - maybe shows like Keith & The Girl are like Stern, and yer typical geek is into technology and scifi. The only easy way to get podcasts is via iTunes, and while there are lots and lots of iTunes subscribers, its still not the biggest part of the population. Podcasting needs to be as easy as: they start playing when you start your car, just like radio. How do we solve this problem? Heres my 2 point plan (can you tell I love 2 point plans?)

1: Since radio is dying, have the biggest podcasting publishers (like podshow) go out and buy some of these radio stations. They don't have to be big stations, just little stations in major markets, and play podcast after podcast. You may have to time delay and bleep out stuff in order to get past the FCC, but it will give the rest of the population access to the podcast. And like in commercial radio, you can run ads in between, make some money, and share it with the podcasters.

2: Right now, iTunes will give you a list of similar podcasts, based on what other people have subscribed to. But this is just connecting podcasts to podcast (tail content to tail content), we NEED some way in which to connect head content (like big radio and TV celebrities) to tail content (podcasts). For example, if you like Howard Stern, you probably like Keith & The Girl, if you like Rush Limbaugh, you probably like THINKfuture Radio, if you like NPR, you probably like Blast The Right. If you read the Chris Anderson whole head-tail content thingy, simply having the tail content available on the net is not enough - you NEED to connect the head content to the tail content in some way. In this way, you can guide folks to podcasts they may like based on the "head" content that they like. Only then can you start drawing people away from the head to the tail. And all of us "tail" folks like that thought.

So ya, its not simple, or cheap, but nothing ever is is it? Although, i don't see how a few programmers in a room cant throw together my point 2. As a matter of fact, one of the big directories should do just that. Are you listening Alley or Pickle or Pluggd?

Is Apple Phasing Out Their Computer Business?

Hot of the heels of the WWDC, I have a comment on Apple's computer business

OK, want I'm about to say may be controversial but hear me out for a second. If you look at Apple over time, when they were just a computer company they were floundering, directionless, and heading to lost even more market share, and possibly die. If you look at Apple, pre-Ipod (I call this the PI era), then they we ready to hit the skids.

Then Jobs said "Let There Be A Consumer Electronics Company Here", instead of a computer company. They launched, iPod and iTunes and saved Apple from the brink of extinction. As the company saw more and more success from the non-computer related divisions, and more and more profit, they have further strayed from the computer by launching Apple TV and soon now the iPhone. Apples profits come less and less from Macbooks and more and more from devices. When the computer business is less than 5% of their business, but 50% of their support and engineering costs, what do you think will happen?

At some point - and here comes the prediction from the Future Hall Of Predictions - Apple will discontinue, or severely restrict, or even allow their computer business to become niche. What is the market share of the Macbook now? 5%? 4%? Barely a blip, barely a market. Sure the Mac faithful will disagree, but look at the overall picture - the overall direction for Mac. When iPod and iTunes and iPhone make up 90%+ of their revenues, what would YOU do if you ran Apple?

the back of beyond

I spent the greater part of the end of last week completely disconnected from the internet and even cell phone service, out camping with my son - and about 100 other parents and kids.

And I hated it. We really do need ubiquitous internet everywhere. Contrary to some peoples belief, the internet augments my life. I don't ever want to be without it. I felt like less of a person when I was disconnected.

Is that wrong? Whats the problem with me wanted to augment my humanity with electronic connections to others all the time? Why not live in the matrix?

Back to People?

When it comes to booking travel, I'm just about ready to give up on the internet. First we have airline sites, then travel sites on top of airline sites, then travel site aggregators on top of them. Even with all of this wonderful disintermediation and reintermediation, we still can't get the best goddamn price! I mean you get the same thing everywhere you go. Whats the point? If you could go through typical cabin and ask everyone what they paid, you would get everything from $200 to $2000, and no rhyme or reason as to why people paid what. You could have rich businessmen paying $200 and regular folks paying $2000 for seats beside each other. I know the airlines like it as is, but there has to be a better way. Is there some kinda secret backroom deal the rest of us can't get access to? Me, I'm ready to go back to an actual HUMAN travel agent.

the battle with technology

my recent battle with technology just shows us how far we need to go. My goal is to get everyone in the world connected to the internet, somehow. We've made some progress with the $100 laptop and now mobile apps being everywhere. Until we get a device in every person in the worlds hands which can both read and write to the internet, then all will probably eventually be lost. Technically, it is possible to have a simple device with a screen and a radio and a recording device which can both play and record off the internet. The problem is not the device. The problem is the infrastructure necessary to support the device. That is going to be the biggest problem going forward. We can create simple mobile read/write devices, but how do we connect them to the internet in the wilds of Somalia, when we cant be connected while driving up Page Mill Road??

Visions

These are cool : Twittervision and now Flickrvision. One wonders how many other visions there are out there. What else can be tracked on the globe? Of course the big difference between these two is that I actually learn more stuff from Twittervision than Flickrvision.