I'll Take Mine Foamy, Please
This podcasting thing has me a bit frothy.
It's been almost 18 years since I last set foot in a radio station as an employee. I swore up and down that I'd never crack another mike again, so help me. . . blah-dee blah-dee blah blah blah. . . .
As much as I am on the internet, I'm surprised that I didn't hear about podcasting much sooner than I did. But once I heard about it, the first thing I did was to check on the existence of a local podcasting Meetup group. [Ed. note: Please don't make us explain Meetups, too. We're barely over the stress of explaining podcasting.] Not finding one, I immediately organized the Dallas Podcasting Meetup Group here in Dallas.
Podcasting -- the thoughts are rushing at me so quickly that it's hard to slow them down enough to grab just one. . . . Podcasting is everything radio used to be, long before I ever got out of the "biz." What I mean by that is that it's about communicating -- really connecting with people -- in a way I haven't seen since the late 60s to early 70s, but not in a way that even resembles the radio of that time. After that it just became a corporate rat race and, of course, you see what it's become today as a result of deregulation.
It's also about fun and sharing. When's the last time someone took you on a sound-seeing tour of their neighborhood? In the rain? And you didn't even have to get wet?
Podcasting allows everyone to step up to the mike and have their say. No one has to listen. . . but no one ever has had to listen.
Which brings us to content.
Who knew that there might actually be some untapped reservoirs of content (not necessarily the same thing as talent) out there that had never even been considered as something anyone would ever want to hear? A catholic priest reporting from Rome about the passing of the Pope. An odd young married couple living in southeastern Wisconsin sitting around the kitchen table talking about nothing in language that would make a sailor blush. An ex-VJ rambling on about how podcasting is going to change the world and sharing every belch, cough, and groan caused by drinking overly-acidic coffee. Who knew?
As podcasting becomes more "mainstream" -- whatever the hell that means -- the content will grow up, it will change and settle in to something even more people are comfortable listening to as they jog the mp3 highways. To be sure, there will always be odd podcasts and I think that's a good thing.
Mike O’Connor, of the very laid back Sex and Podcasting podcast, made an interesting point on his show, "NPR vs CPB:" When a more conservative "regime" [gotta love the way a liberal uses the language], such as the Bush administration comes into power, funds previously budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting tend to be cut. But, he says, that is no longer the horrific scandal [my phrase] that it once was because the liberal voices who claim that they're being silenced or censored now have podcasting to turn to. Why? Because the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. Hence, you may notice a much louder, stronger presence in podcasting of liberals than their traditionally less strident, less vocal brethren from the other side of the aisle. I've casually noted about a 5 to 1 ratio of liberals to conservatives in my daily search through the podcast realm.
Obviously there's not a 5 to 1 ratio of liberals to conservatives in the country or we'd have a whole different set of problems to deal with than the ones we have. However, I think It serves to remind us that we don't all speak with a single voice. . . and that every voice, regardless of how different from the rest, can be heard and find an audience. For that reason, I think podcasting will help to counter the movement toward group identity, for which liberals are largely responsible, with a swing back to honoring the power of the individual. And not a moment too soon.
It's been almost 18 years since I last set foot in a radio station as an employee. I swore up and down that I'd never crack another mike again, so help me. . . blah-dee blah-dee blah blah blah. . . .
As much as I am on the internet, I'm surprised that I didn't hear about podcasting much sooner than I did. But once I heard about it, the first thing I did was to check on the existence of a local podcasting Meetup group. [Ed. note: Please don't make us explain Meetups, too. We're barely over the stress of explaining podcasting.] Not finding one, I immediately organized the Dallas Podcasting Meetup Group here in Dallas.
Podcasting -- the thoughts are rushing at me so quickly that it's hard to slow them down enough to grab just one. . . . Podcasting is everything radio used to be, long before I ever got out of the "biz." What I mean by that is that it's about communicating -- really connecting with people -- in a way I haven't seen since the late 60s to early 70s, but not in a way that even resembles the radio of that time. After that it just became a corporate rat race and, of course, you see what it's become today as a result of deregulation.
It's also about fun and sharing. When's the last time someone took you on a sound-seeing tour of their neighborhood? In the rain? And you didn't even have to get wet?
Podcasting allows everyone to step up to the mike and have their say. No one has to listen. . . but no one ever has had to listen.
Which brings us to content.
Who knew that there might actually be some untapped reservoirs of content (not necessarily the same thing as talent) out there that had never even been considered as something anyone would ever want to hear? A catholic priest reporting from Rome about the passing of the Pope. An odd young married couple living in southeastern Wisconsin sitting around the kitchen table talking about nothing in language that would make a sailor blush. An ex-VJ rambling on about how podcasting is going to change the world and sharing every belch, cough, and groan caused by drinking overly-acidic coffee. Who knew?
As podcasting becomes more "mainstream" -- whatever the hell that means -- the content will grow up, it will change and settle in to something even more people are comfortable listening to as they jog the mp3 highways. To be sure, there will always be odd podcasts and I think that's a good thing.
Mike O’Connor, of the very laid back Sex and Podcasting podcast, made an interesting point on his show, "NPR vs CPB:" When a more conservative "regime" [gotta love the way a liberal uses the language], such as the Bush administration comes into power, funds previously budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting tend to be cut. But, he says, that is no longer the horrific scandal [my phrase] that it once was because the liberal voices who claim that they're being silenced or censored now have podcasting to turn to. Why? Because the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. Hence, you may notice a much louder, stronger presence in podcasting of liberals than their traditionally less strident, less vocal brethren from the other side of the aisle. I've casually noted about a 5 to 1 ratio of liberals to conservatives in my daily search through the podcast realm.
Obviously there's not a 5 to 1 ratio of liberals to conservatives in the country or we'd have a whole different set of problems to deal with than the ones we have. However, I think It serves to remind us that we don't all speak with a single voice. . . and that every voice, regardless of how different from the rest, can be heard and find an audience. For that reason, I think podcasting will help to counter the movement toward group identity, for which liberals are largely responsible, with a swing back to honoring the power of the individual. And not a moment too soon.
posted by Tanguero at 11:18 PM
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