Why podcasting could be even bigger than Adam Curry's hair ever was (that's big)

UPDATE (April 5, 2005): Apparently, the numbers of users listening to podcasts may have been a wee bit inflated. Therefore, please take the update below with a grain of salt. So much for research. Thanks to Micro Persuasion for pointing to the tabulation inflation in "Pewgate." More from The Blog Herald.

UPDATE (April 3, 2005): ClickZ featured an article, today, entitled "Podcasting Grows In Popularity." The article quotes a recent Pew Internet report that estimates "29 percent of Americans over the age of 18 with iPods or other MP3 players have listened to podcasts." Sehr interessant.

UPDATE (March 14, 2005): The Social Customer Manifesto has some interesting insight on podcast creation and distribution services in "Plotting the Trajectory." If you're interested in podcasting (and Adam Curry), it's worth a read.

Original Post

Okay. I hit my saturation point. I have finally heard enough about podcasting. In a good way. In the way that it has finally managed to enter the portion of my brain that sparks epiphanies and makes connections. The part of my brain that, well, really works.

While I still see why podcasting has its detractors, I understand now. I understand why being able to create a miniature, transferable broadcast has power for the creator. I understand why it has the silky smooth ease of digestion for the user, anytime and as many times as they want. I understand how it could be bigger than traditional Web sites, bigger than Flickr, and bigger than blogs. And since I'm sitting here in the afterglow of my epiphany, trying to find a way to use podcasting for everything (What if companies used podcasts for earnings calls? What if NPR were all podcast so that my wife could listen to it privately and our miniscule yearly donation would actually have some legs? What if your senator podcast his/her reasoning beyond his/her latest vote? What if the Jerky Boys had been podcasters? What if Grateful Dead fans podcast bootlegs?), I thought I might play podcast bodhisattva and help a drag a few others a little closer to enlightenment.

For starters, what is a podcast? Think broadcast meets mp3. Think radio meets audio books. Think TiVo meets pirate radio. It's a broadcast, saved in a digital audio format, that listeners can download and play whenever they like.

1) iPod, iTalk, et al. It's becoming easier than ever to manage, share, and create audio content. This will make podcasting easier and more efficient than blogging. No need to be tied to a terminal or a phone. Podcast wherever you want. Upload when you're near a hotspot. (UPDATE: Thanks so much to Amy Gahran over at the genius that is Contentious for reminding me about a device that I missed completely, the MP3 cell phone.)

2) iPodder, Odeo, et al. (I had to work Adam Curry in here somehow, didn't I? I mean, I was an avid MTV watcher, back in the day.) Adam has created an open-source program called iPodder that helps simplify and automate downloading audio files to your portable mp3 device. With it, people will find it easier than ever to keep up with podcasts. Odeo, on the other side of the desk, is the latest project from Blogger-co-creator Evan Williams and Audioblogger creator Noah Glass. While Odeo has yet to be released, it promises to bring the Blogger-esque ease of blogging to the world of podcasting.

3) TiVo, audio books, cell phones, satellite radio, et al. The capitalist cultural pump, for lack of a better oxymoronic term, has been primed for podcasting. In consumer societies, people are becoming more and more entitled to get their information and entertainment where and when they want it. Don't have time to watch? TiVo. Don't have time to read? Listen to an audio book. Don't have time to sit and chat? Multitask by driving like an idiot while you chat on your cell phone. Can getting what audio you want, when you want it, really be that far behind?

4) Ease of content creation. Like it or not, we're all getting older. And when it comes right down to it most of us don't type that well anyway. I like to type, but I often find it far more engaging and thought provoking to talk. Just think how much valuable information you would be gaining if I were to say this instead of write it? What's that, you say? Rude. Anyway... audio recording takes the pain of typing out of the mix. Everyone can create content by just opening their pie hole.

5) No spellchecking. Every time I write, I have a constant fear burrowing into the base of my skull. The fear of having spelled something incorrectly or having made a major grammatical error. The fear that I'll look like an idiot who doesn't know how to use spellchecking. That all of my hard work will be thrown out the window by my readers for some lame-brain mistake. Now, public speeches by certain US officials over the past five years or so should make it glaringly obvious that there is no spellchecking speech. And, isn't it really more insightful than copy that has been carefully checked?

And I haven't even begun to hit the professional side of the table: the degeneration of broadcast media, increased FCC legislation, and media outlets controlled by fewer and fewer companies. We're mad as hell and we're... well, you get my point.

So, just remember folks you heard it here for the 35th, or 78th, or 123rd time: podcasting is getting ready to explode. So start thinking. How can you use it? How can your clients use it? Does it even apply? Because in the not so distant future, someone in your target market is going to ask why you aren't podcasting, just like they're asking why you don't have an RSS feed, today.

And when will hypocritical simply become a podcast, you ask? Oh sweet misinformed youth, your hope is never, because you haven't heard my voice, my friend.

Podcast your thoughts on this and post a link here. Or, just think about it, digest it, and return.