Aloha! My wife Jen and I were the “Lost” podcasters mentioned in the Wired piece. Your mention of self-imposed expectations definitely hit close to home. In our case, I guess listeners could have been satisifed with something less frequent, less structured, more spontaneous… but I didn’t think I could be. And as we said up front when we retired, “It’s not you. It’s us.”

I love podcasting as a phenomenon, and enjoy just as many stream-of-consciousness random rants (or “posts”) as I do topical, focused, meticulously produced programs. I think both are fantastic, and while I presume the “radio show” model you mention makes less sense coming from the “podcasters as audio bloggers” standpoint, I wouldn’t dismiss it as people simply mimicking or getting stuck in an “old school” paradigm.

Listeners, after all, can sometimes prefer something well packaged and presented - like, say, preferring a carefully composed book or guide to a zine or blog. Both have their place, as does everything in between.

I agree that podcasts sure sound like they should be something like blog posts, short, sweet, and to the point. And, fortunately, many are. (One of my favorites is a three-minute daily nugget… though I tend to catch up in ten-episode gulps!) But some of the most popular ones are basically recordings of panel discussions and interviews — grass-roots CSPAN for your ears! I think podcasts are as free and unconstrained as you say they should be. No need for a fixed half hour or hour or other program in the vein of TV or radio with ad spots.

Some folks might choose to be as much like a slick FM talk show as they can, but I’d bet most really are letting it “be what it is, allowing it to evolve without all the herding and expectations.” I guess I just need to learn to let go a little myself.