After a good year and a half of varied listening I am more convinced than ever that podcasting and the new approach to media creation and distribution it represents (or extends) will continue its rapid ascent. And you don't even have to understand the many nuances of the approach to see why.
Ok, it's true that it does help to appreciate those nuances. Many
times I've tried, with varying results, to explain how web syndication
is rapidly reconfiguring the way in which we source and consume media
to replace the current shotgun push approach with a model of attraction
such that each individual will have more effective control, and each
content creator will have a much easier time finding those far flung
pockets of consumers (meaning readers, listeners, viewers, as opposed
to potential customers). I've tried, too, to explain how it doesn't
take a population of tech savvy users to make it happen. You don't
have to be an uber-geek to participate in the intelligent flow of
content from like-minded creators to your player device. After all
when someone creates a feed for their content source (ideally every
content creator) they mobilize the links to its underlying stream of
content so that those links, and the descriptors that accompany them,
can be moved around, discovered and processed by smart sofware,
subscribed to by like-minded groups, and republished in more targeted
contexts which then would be just there....ready for one-click
enjoyment by even the simplest of web users. Of course this same
process also makes it easy to automagically (and intelligently) pull
content into your iPod or any Internet appliance for that matter.
Forget TiVo. Forget the 100 channel universe. The Internet will
become a magic content genie with you and your individual tastes,
preferences, and timing as its master.
But like I said...you don't even have to know a thing about all this
intelligent sifting that's going on. There is amazing content out
there. All you have to do is look for a few podcasts that interest you
and then you'll be hooked. Don't mistake the differences in
production values that you may find as defects.....if the content is
good you may find those differences to be inherent features of the
format. You might find that repetition and surface aesthetics doesn't
equate to quality.
Don't get me wrong. We all have our guilty pleasures. We might flip through a tabloid or a cosmo if it's right there in front of us. But that doesn't mean we want it in our library. Once you've been shown that you don't have to settle for the strange, mind numbing, advertising-supported alternatives you are presented with through proprietary centralized channels.....that there are communities, and conversation, and creative minds out there offering intelligent and artful discourse....you won't go back so easily.
You might not be into the same things I am so I would encourage you go out and look for your own. Here's an article that can help. And here are a few podcasts, other than those that we've created at Radio@UPEI, that have really blew my mind lately (March 2006). I love a good music podcast but *warning* these ones are a little brainy I'll admit (not for many). Lectures and documentaries just fit the audio podcast format well. I listen to them while I walk, while I drive or while I work. It's only a matter of time before I'll begin watching them on my TV, I'm sure.
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» The Next 100 Years of Science:
Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method. Kevin Kelly speaks as part
of the Longnow Seminars series. All of the Longnow talks are
incredible.
» » » Suketa Mehta's Maximum City. Keying on Bombay, India, this talk was from the People, Place and Planet session at Pop!Tech. Find more great thinking podcasts at ITConversations. Having recently returned from a visit to Bombay myself, Mehta's characterization really explained a lot for me.
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» The State of the World: Bruce Sterling presents at SXSW. Sterling lectures at the European Graduate School, where I'm doing my phd. His talks are entertaining and thought provoking.
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