Podcasting's 95 Theses (or at least half dozen)

[Illinoise]

In the midst of the great Podcasting Boom of aught-five and speculation of a certain company (whose name rhymes with "rodeo") coming in to commercialize our baby, I thought this pretty necessary reading for the purists:

http://www.wholewheatradio.org/jbb/weblog.php?id=C0_21_1

JimBob from Whole Wheat Radio brings up several ideas on self-regulation of this "industry". Without rehashing it all, he points to at least 8 guidelines for podcasting in our utopian society of the future:

1) Strive to foster a sense of mutual cooperation rather than competition between podcasters. "Vote For My Podcast" links to 3rd party sites are strongly discouraged. Competitive 'ratings' are to be eschewed rather than encouraged.

2) Strive to play music that is not released by RIAA affiliated record labels.

3) Strive to provide content that is not otherwise widely available on commercial or public radio / television or other non-internet sources.

4) Strive to report accurate and publicly verifiable statistics about number of podcast listeners.

5) Strive to publicly disclose accurate information about sources of financial support, particularly when that support comes from paid advertisers.

6) Strive to use 'embedded advertising' that is integrated with podcast content rather than traditional 30-60-90 second 'spot' advertising.

7) Strive to provide ongoing interaction with their audience rather than producing static content that does not invite audience participation.

8) Strive to publicly share knowledge gained concerning technical podcast production, distribution, financial support and audience demographics.

Awesome. I invite your feedback on this and encourage you to read the entire aforementioned post. Are we going to be the tobacco (or radio) industry, entrenched in traditional commercialism and 3rd-party regulation ... or the scuba-diving industry, fully self-sustaining and dolphin-safe?

Talk amongst yourselves.

[camilian]

These are amazing! But how do you get everyone to play along?

[allthewhile]

Here's my proposed rules:

1. great, however, the voting is a crude way to bring exposure. But I guess I just disagree with the aversion to competition in general, which is really the underlying complaint. I believe that competition is necessary in order to make the podcasts better and better. HEALTHY and spirited competition AMONGST friends. Not some of the petty stuff that I've caught wind of recently around here.
2. I'm not particularly interested in this fight. Yes, it is a fight, maybe a noble one, but not my ball of wax.
3. We'll have to do this to survive.
4. Truth is necessary.
5. Transparancy is good.
6. I'm more in favor of traditional spot marketing. I have a gut feeling that embeded marketing is more prone to "dupe" consumers. Which would you rather read, one of those advertisements that looks like an article in WIRED and has tiny print, or an advertisement that's clearly an advert? Not sure what the fuss about this is, but I'm probably missing something.
7. Too restrictive. one of my favorite podcasts is verbum domini which is simply the daily readings of the church. i like to have it in my pocket.

I think there's hope in those, although I would add that there needs to be something about striving for technical quality; althought I'm very far off from that.

[Illinoise]

These are amazing! But how do you get everyone to play along?

I think the short answer is that you can't get everyone to play along, Chris. But I suppose that's kinda the point. If you read the rest of JoeBob's lengthy post, he actually has an idea for a self-regulating body. Again, without just reposting his thread, he sees it as a group with members and regulations. I could see how this membership would be able to unify in advertising potential, listenership statistics, quality of podcasting, etc.

I guess my bigger fear is the alternative: free-for-all. 4,000+ podcasts all doing anything and nothing = either failure of the medium or eventual corporate takeover.

IMHO.

[Funtime Ben]

I thought rule number one was no one talks about Fight Club?!

I agree with all of jim-bobs points and especially like the "Strive" part. Jim-bob is a very sensible fellow. Illinoise I'm with you. Keeping content away from the tenants of radio stations - keep it fresh - keep it podcast...

Don't forget not to talk about fight club!

[yaz]

uh oh, allthewhile is gettin that martin luther feeling...

[allthewhile]

uh oh, allthewhile is gettin that martin luther feeling...

http://www.catholicpodsquad.com/images/bait.gif

[yaz]

hahaha...i like fishing...

[Ian]

For the record, even the big bad radio show, Free Talk Live likes many of these. In reverse order, here are the comments of this "radio" person. (I see some of you looking down on me, and I understand.)

Are we going to be the industry, entrenched in traditional commercialism and 3rd-party regulation ... or the scuba-diving industry, fully self-sustaining and dolphin-safe?
Radio really does suck in a lot of ways, it's primarily due to the fact that it's regulated by the government. Abolishing the FCC would go a long way toward making radio more listener friendly and responsive.

7) Strive to provide ongoing interaction with their audience rather than producing static content that does not invite audience participation.
We do this 6 nights a week. People call in to and email our show from all over the world. Yes, we're commercial and "radio", but we're talk radio unlike anything in the world of radio.

6) Strive to use 'embedded advertising' that is integrated with podcast content rather than traditional 30-60-90 second 'spot' advertising.
While we still use the 'spot' advertising, we edit out the commercial breaks from our archives. Therefore, the only advertising in our podcast is indeed 'embedded' or 'live reads' as we call them.

5) Strive to publicly disclose accurate information about sources of financial support, particularly when that support comes from paid advertisers.
"Strive" is an interesting word. What more should be done about "disclosing" advertisers over and above reading/playing their ads? *confused*

4) Strive to report accurate and publicly verifiable statistics about number of podcast listeners.
Probably a good idea, as advertisers find that information quite useful.

3) Strive to provide content that is not otherwise widely available on commercial or public radio / television or other non-internet sources.
We're proud to be the talk radio "alternative", and proud to be part of podcasting, despite how some will label us.

2) Strive to play music that is not released by RIAA affiliated record labels.
We're not a music show, so this doesn't apply, but for those who are musical podcasts, I say this: Do whatever YOU feel is right. If you're into non-label music, put it on. If you're into pop stuff, put that on. What matters is if you have listeners.

1) Strive to foster a sense of mutual cooperation rather than competition between podcasters. "Vote For My Podcast" links to 3rd party sites are strongly discouraged. Competitive 'ratings' are to be eschewed rather than encouraged.
"Communities" can be great, but never forget that "communities" are simply groups of individuals. No one person can define what the makeup of a "community" is any more than any other member of that "community".

In regards to competition vs. mutual cooperation, despite the desires of many of the "purists" around here, competition will continue to go on whether they like it or not. Here's one example: While all the good people behind the various Podcast related websites all want to see the community succeed, some of them will eventually fail. There will be many reasons for this, but like most websites, it boils down to one thing. Users. If no one is coming to your website because Podcast Alley is the best thing around, you did not win that round of competition. That's okay, because you have two options: quit competing or change your approach.

Either choice, the community benefits: If you quit then it just means you're going to focus your positive efforts elsewhere in an attempt to improve yourself and your community. IF you change your approach, you may develop a product or service that is more valuable, and draw users, thereby helping the community.

Competition is win-win, and no amount of wishing and striving will make it go away.

Competition makes everything better.

If you disagree about competition, we'd love to have you call in to the show..
Ian