Push Comes To Shove

In many ways the rampant podcasting enthusiasm reminds me of the big "push" furor back in the mid-90s, with everyone racing to incorporate the quickly abandoned channel technology (though it re-emerged as the influential and prolific, simplified RSS years later), all desperately trying to get a piece of the short-lived PointCast-style action.

The essence of podcasting - the most important benefit to many users - is really nothing more than the so-called Long Tail of audio files: Anyone can create an audio file (usually an MP3). From a listener perspective, no longer do you have to sit by the radio at a set time to listen to the talk show produced and distributed by the few elite with the money and the power to run a radio station. Instead, you can now subscribe to a wide array of content from around the world, created by both the aforementioned mega-media firms, but also by a guy in his basement talking into his microphone.

Technically podcasting is the inclusion of file references into the so-called "push" technology RSS, which usability-wise means that instead of endlessly searching around websites looking for audio files, manually downloading and then transferring files to your player, your podcast client software automatically detects when new audio files are available for the feeds you've subscribed to, it usually automatically downloads it (alternately it may provide you with a synopsis of each show, letting you manually select which ones you're interested in), and often even transfers it to your audio player (e.g. mp3 player, iPod) the next time you sync. The definition of podcasting has been expanded to include virtually any sort of media (or even non-media) attachment, expanding the scope to an unusably vague level, so I'm just going to focus on the audio aspect because that's the prevalent context.

As mentioned before regarding usability, small usability improvements can dramatically change the usage of a technology. In the case of podcasting, the theory is that while there have been audio programs available online for years, "push" enabling it would dramatically increase consumption.

Listener's Choice

Personally I don't think usability has ever been the limiting factor for audio files - It's more efficient for me to browse IT Conversations on occasion than it is for me to find a selection of good feeds to subscribe to, and then spend all of that bandwidth and memory space on a bunch of podcasts of uncertain quality and topic (even if I like a particular podcast feed in general, the likelihood that a particular episode is going to interest me is actually low). I don't even subscribe to IT Conversations' feeds - despite it having one of the best content records in the business - because the majority of the interviews aren't of interest to me: For every interview that intrigues me, many more are in a domain or with a personality that I can't allocate the time to focus upon.

I'm not going to eat the gruel just because it's what they happen to be serving today.

Is the content and distribution problem really the reason you don't have more talk radio in your life?

At a more fundamental level, though, podcasting is primarily a creation and distribution expansion of the previously mentioned talk radio. Is the content and distribution problem really the reason you don't have more talk radio in your life? Do you even know what talk radio programs exist in your area, available 24 hours a day from any tuner available?

Probably not.

Difficult to Stomach

Talk radio is something that most people aren't interested in. Talk is something that is difficult to consume without a good amount of your attention (I've found it close to useless - and destructively distracting - playing audio interviews in the background while working), it's difficult to efficiently vet (e.g. I can jump to a blog - or scan a newspaper - and know what interests me or not in seconds. A podcast requires some time to gauge its usefulness in your life), and it's often far less efficient than the alternatives. I can absorb someone's point from their writings enormously more efficiently than I can listening to them ramble on about this and that. It's generally difficult with audio files to jump to the pertinent parts that interest you (there are seldom even indexes or transcripts), so you have to take the chaff with the wheat. It's like that guy who leaves the long, rambling voicemail messages, in which are hidden a tiny nugget of useful info, instead of just sending a concise email.

If it's slow to parse, difficult to scan, and requires a fair degree of one's attention, the reasonable expectation nowadays is that it should have useful, informative video going along with it to increase the utility and value. The .NET Show is a pretty good video feed - with a great transcript that lets me jump where I want with ease to avoid the filler - though of course it's infrequent enough, and covering such a variety of topics, that any sort of automation is useless for it: I just visit the site every month or so and see if the latest outing interests me. While one month might be great, the next might be 90 minutes of someone pushing some questionable vapourware with a delivery promised in 2 years.

Of course sometimes rambling in audio interviews - the filler - is extremely valuable, and people betray information and convey knowledge that they would never have put into words - some of the conversations with industry veterans and superstars on IT Conversations are brilliant for this - but in general talk is not an efficient information medium in an information domain. Highly technical audio podcasts are truly absurd.

Everything Old Is New Again

Remember the excitement about webcams a few years back? Several sites made it easy to find people's webcams, so the presumption was that we would all start consuming. For a short while it was true, and people entertained themselves looking at downtown webcams, goofy people with webcams, and so on. Then the interest faded, and we realized that it really wasn't that interesting.

This has repeated in a variety of technology spheres, where a simple repackaging of content that otherwise had little interest earned short-term euphoria and early adopters, but quickly fizzled out as the buzz and the eliteness subsided.

The novelty quickly wore off, and the utility of the underlying content failed to maintain any level of continuing support.