RSS feedPodcasting. I’m still underwhelmed.
I’ve tried, I really have, to try to understand what all the fuss is about, giving the odd A-lister the benefit of the doubt. The radio killer, the next big thing, the future of the media. Sorry, still not ringing any of my bells.
A few months back I added enclosures to one of the Sacrament Radio RSS feeds, and after the hour of coding it took to write and test, I sat back waiting for the metaphoric penny to drop. Not even the podcasted recording of a penny dropping, metaphoric or otherwise, I think would change the situation much either. Here we are podcasting, big deal.
Podcasting? Hmm… All I did was drop a URL to an mp3 file into an RSS feed via an enclosure. Enclosure? That’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s not like the file is actually stored within the feed, just the URL is. The file still needs to be stored on a server somewhere, and pulled down by software that knows it is there. I think “external media reference” is a more accurate term to be honest.
I’m an Apple nut, and have been since that fateful day in 1979, so I’d be the last to suggest dropping the pod from podcast, but sitting here seeing an RSS feed containing a reference URL to an mp3 file, I’m thinking perhaps feedcast is a more accurate and appropriate term. Podcast? Pah! Cute iTunes scripts to download files to the iPod, but buddy, it’s still just a URL to a file.
So while I’m taking pot shots at the technology, why don’t I finish up by firing a few broadsides at podcasters themselves. Of course to call yourself a podcaster, would imply that your listeners are downloading to iPods, which is a bit presumptuous if you ask me. You’re a feedcaster, so just deal with it, ok?
So that brings us to the content itself. Most of course are mp3 files, now a substantially old technology, that only still exists because bandwidth hasn’t increased as fast as we’d hoped it would. Where is the interesting experimentation with other kinds of media?
And listening to some of these podcasts is a enlightening experience I must say. Most tend to be amateur umm and ahh merchants who think they’re either experts in their domain or professional stand up comedians, presenting content which would be way quicker to consume by reading it instead of having to hear it, all interspersed with various musical tracks, which if I was interested in listening to, I’d probably have running in the background via iTunes or the radio anyway.
I’ve said it before, in Podcasting: The little brother of RSS, or the future of community radio? and Podcasting — a speed limiter for information flow, podcasting is an interesting hack for delivery of audio content, but it is not like traditional radio isn’t progressing either. XM and Sirius are expanding their satellite options, and terrestrial broadcasters are also raising their game. To then say that podcasting will take over from traditional media, is the same blinkered thinking that took us into the bubble in the first place.
Radio and Internet audio (in some form or another) will converge at some point on personal devices such as phones and PDAs, which are effectively just portable radios anyway. The podcasters’ challenge is to wake up and realise that all they’ve re-invented is community radio, and then take it to the next level.
I’m sorry, but a URL inside an RSS feed, which points to an mp3 file of some guy reading a news story I can read elsewhere, with illegally recorded music spliced in that I have no interest in listening to, isn’t going to impress me. Show me the delivery of high quality time shifted content which feeds me knowledge faster than I can read it, and then I’ll get excited!