Isn’t the coolest thing about podcasting the fact that it can be different things to different people? Several comments here allude to that. The fact that podcasting can be hard to describe without references to things people know (blogging, radio, MP3 players…). After all, you can podcast PDF files as well as video and audio. But people do tend to think from what they know.

Longer podcasts can be really nice. Even some fairly dry ones. Some quick and witty ones are also cool. And holding a strict schedule is difficult to do, for a lot of people (including bloggers). Cool thing is, there’s room for all of this. What is podcasting likely to achieve if it comes to the point at which 95% of podcast listeners only listen to two or three main regularly-produced podcasts? Now, something which seems to be missing from podcast directories (haven’t looked specifically, but didn’t notice this yet) is a way to sort and search for podcasts by types. You mostly want short, infrequent, blog-like podcasts? There should be an easy way to find them. You only want podcast versions of professionally produced radio-like shows? That list should include non-mainstream shows. In fact, we should be able to have different podcast subscriptions for different situations. Don’t know about you but I have a hard time listening to people talk when I write. Music podcasts can be cool but most of them have sections of talking. Kind of distracting. On the other hand, it’s fun to listen to talk-intensive podcasts while walking or commuting. It’d be useful to have different playlists for different activities. Actually, same holds true for music. Not everyone listens to the same music while doing the dishes or taking a shower.

Short podcasts are great for those moments at work where I’m waiting for Lotus notes to stop crashing or driving my rather short commute home.

The difficulty with short podcasts is the time that goes into finding stuff that is interesting vs. the time it takes to listen to it seems non-proportional. I’m sure there is great stuff out there that I just don’t want to spend an hour searching for only to get a few minutes of content a week.

I think a meta-feed would be really cool — perhaps a ‘productivity channel’ which has podcasts from 43 Folders and other sites. I subscribed to Ryan and Jen’s Lost podcast (the one the article refers to), and it was great, but HUGE. Although I listened to it every week, I didn’t listen to ALL of it every week.

Frankly, I’d rather subscribe to the “Lost channel” that has some smaller segments from lots of different people, then maybe select the best shows on that ‘channel’ to listen to. I think a higher level of aggregation before hitting the user would be beneficial to all.

I could do a segment every week or two on TiVo for a channel :-) But anything more than that, and I think I’d get a ‘thumbs down’.

[…] 43 Folders: “I think the problem is the expectations podcasters may have created for themselves and for their audience — being cleft to this 1st Generation notion of podcasting as ‘regularly-scheduled MP3 Radio Show.’” […]

Had to look up logorrheic

log·or·rhe·a (lô’g?-r?’?, l?g’?-) n. Excessive use of words.

Hahaa!

Couldn’t agree with you more. Of course, my podcast is, in fact, short, single-topic posts that come out when I (or one of my contributors) have something to say. Crazy, huh?

-R

iFeel PodFaded after iTake some drugs. iKnow the drugs make me Think Different. sometimes, me and my GarageBand will PodCast our PodSafe music via the iTunes music store. Later we might hit the bar where iMac on the ladies.

… seriously, this podthis, pod that, i this i that crap is making me sick… i may need iBucket

Be careful, Chris. “iBucket” requires Firewire 800 and 10.4.4, so be sure to check your current specs, pre-purchase.

Amen.

Imagine my surprise when, after recently upgrading to a new 5G ipod, I decided to subscribe to a few podcasts. Late to the game, I had no idea I was biting off 30-45 minute pieces of audio. Fairly techno-webtwooh-savvy, but absolutely new to podcasts, I thought they were just what you’re suggesting they become. Of the first five I subscribed to, I’ve yet to listen to an entire one.

Who knows what cool stuff might have been buried in the second half hour but who’s got the freaking time.

Never mind already.

You’ve definitely got this whole thing figured out, Merlin. I love how your podcast is brief and to the point, while seemingly every other podcast out there is padded with all kinds of inane blather. Hopefully other podcasters are taking notice.

Amen, Merlin. Podcasts seem like such a great idea, but there’s so much chaff.

One that I used to listen to was about a half-hour long; if it were only the useful stuff, it could be ten minutes long. Instead, every podcast contained about ten minutes of interesting information, and twenty minutes of meta-discussion about how he was sorry he didn’t update more often and what sort of mic he was using and how difficult is was to come up with things to say sometimes and so forth.

It finally chased me away. Put up ten interesting minutes every two weeks or whatever. Don’t post podcasts that mostly apologize that your podcasts are late.

You know, I don’t get together with my sisters as often as I’d like, but when we do see each other we don’t spend 2/3 of the time talking about how we should get together more often.