Is Podcasting the next Killer App?

Rather than say podcasting will “remain a niche”, I would describe it as an ‘acquired taste’ much like beer, dinner and a movie.

So the Question Is: Will Podcasts become the next big thing? According to Andrew Kantor (former editor for PC Magazine and Internet World) — NOT.

The good folks at Forrester took a survey, and found that only “one percent of online households in North America regularly download and listen to podcasts.”

Until the process makes it to the next generation and some of the chaff disappears on its own - or some shows achieve widespread prominence thanks to the right person (or site) promoting them - podcasting is, unfortunately, going to remain a niche.

What I am saying is that there’s a downside to “everyone’s a publisher”: The quality of the medium goes down.

Because economics don’t act as a quality-control agent, there are a lot of great podcasts, but there are a lot more bad ones. The tradeoff for more choice is more junk to sort through to get the good stuff.

I have to agree with his assessment. Most podcasts seem amateurish at best. Have you ever been disappointed after hearing the shrill voice of a blogger’s unfunny jokes that you (once) respected? I have.

Unfortunately, in their rush to establish themselves as technological firsts in podcasting, most have sacrificed quantity over quality and content. I have always lived by the credo that quality and content comes first, and I hope that has been reflected in my blogs.

Podcasting could end up becoming more of a blog killer than a killer app.

A man’s got to know his limitations. You can read more at Cyberspeak…

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