The Problem with Podcasting

Podcasting as we know it is a disaster.

Howard summed up a few of the problems in his post this morning:

Podcasts are still hard to get, find, and take with you, except if you have an iPod and are using iTunes. Even then, you have to search, subscribe, and regularly sync and remove old content. Microsoft hasn’t build podcast-catching functionality into Windows Media Player or the Zune (not that we should judge by what’s in the Zune.) But I can listen to audio podcasts or watch video podcasts on my Tivo (some are pre-loaded, others must be tediously typed in). Still not a wonderful overall experience, but Rocketboom looks great on TV.

Howard’s first point is the most important one–podcasting, right down to its name, is fatally tied to the iPod. If consuming DIY Internet video had required the used of a portable player–even one you already owned–a near random search for content, the docking of devices and constant file maintanence, YouTube would have never fetched $1.6 billion.

To thrive, DIY Internet audio needs effortless cross-platform access, content that is uniquely suited in form to Internet listening  (in other words content must do more than emulate traditional radio),  and some useful means of discovery. In short, what podcasting needs is its own YouTube.

There’s legitimate debate about whether or not YouTube could have exploded as a business without the unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted content. But there’s no debate about whether or not YouTube revolutionized Internet video. It did. And it did so for two reasons.

First, it provided a central hub where content could be amassed. Second, it offered a fantastic system for discovery, a system that worked because it was social not only with shared tags and ratings, but also, and most importantly, with social redistribution through an embeddable Flash player.

By giving viewers the opportunity to tag and share video, the YouTube system transformed a media format that was otherwise one-way into something interactive. This spurred viewing and provided feedback to video posters who began creating videos that suited the format that users most appreciated (largely short, often comic).

Podcasting, or  DIY Internet audio (I prefer to think of it outside of the ‘Pod’) may well get its YouTube. As Howard mentions podcasting may be among Joost’s offerings–though the degree of user control permitted by Joost remains to be seen. But without a transformation of that sort I think podcasting will remain a geek’s niche.

How big a niche can that be? It’s hard to tell from the Pew numbers. Howard reads Pew’s survey to show a 71% increase between April and August of last year in the number of people who have downloaded a podcast at least once (although the way Pew presents its research makes it hard to make apples to apples comparisons). And Howard and Mary Madden of Pew arrived at the figure of 17 million for the number of people who had downloaded a podcast at least once, a number Howard compares favorably to that of satellite radio subscribers. But its a bad comparison: one-time downloaders vs. a body of subscribers with a 2% churn rate and an ARPU of $11 a month. Call me when podcasting in the aggregate generates $2.2 billion a year.

I know I sound like a wet blanket (it’s what I do best). But that’s not what I’m trying to be. I would love to see a vibrant Internet audio universe but I think there are many rivers to cross between here and there. (And don’t get me started about the cost of podcasting copyrighted music.)