Killing Podcasting One VC Dollar At A Time
If you're one of the wannabes that fawns over every move made by Adam Curry and Podshow then you won't like this post. Ditto for those who aspire to sign the PodShow agreement so that you can cease to personally promote your podcast while hanging with the cool kids of podcasting.
Venture capital funded podcast start ups are aiming to kill the personal voice of podcasting. And given the amount of money and the amount of press heaped on them they may just be successful at doing that.
To be fair let me start off by saying that it's not all Podshow's fault that this is happening. They are not the only VC funded (or mainstream tech) outfit wielding a machete and hacking away. Count in Odeo, Yahoo, Apple and Pluggd to name a few.
I'll explain but it won't (and can't) be brief.
First of all this post is prompted by the launch of PodShow+ this week. I had hoped that the smart minds behind this like Andrew Grumet and Chris McIntyre would do the right thing and create a community that respects podcasters and puts podcasting first. After all, with $9 million in venture capital funding they have the muscle to do so. And I have no problem with folks who do that while garnering nice advertising dollars. You gotta eat after all.
I can honestly say that they haven't done the right thing. And this has nothing to do with all the RSS Hijacking talk from earlier this week. This is about an experience that respects the people who create the content that power these sites. Look at any of the outfits mentioned in this post and you'll see that there attitude is mostly, "Thanks for the content, now screw off!"
I believe that's the attitude because if they either a) knew a freaking thing about podcasting or b) listened to the people that powered the community, they would certainly change some of the things about their site that disrespect podcasters. Here are some examples of things that they do to disrespect podcast producers:
So how is this killing podcasting? First off, the podcast subscriber is hurt. The highly funded outlets for podcasts fail to educate users and they become confused, frustrated and filled with misconceptions. Podcast subscribers (and potential subscribers) are also hurt because the connection between the subscriber and the individual podcaster is castrated. People think they are getting content from PodShow, Odeo and iTunes so they fail to interact on a meaningful level with the podcast producer.
It's the individual connection between the producer and the subscriber that makes podcasts different from other forms of media. So diminishing that ability diminishes the medium as a whole.
Podcast producers are highly damaged as a result of this situation as well. They're cheated out of dollars that they have a right to a share of since the podcasts are the reasons that anyone is visiting these sites. They're cheated statistically because alternate versions of feeds provide invisible statistics that would otherwise improve the value of their podcast to potential advertisers. The folks at iTunes, Odeo and Podshow need to fix this. Either direct all traffic through one RSS feed or make the stats easily available to the podcast producer.
How many podcast producers will alter their shows or leave podcasting altogether out of frustration related to these issues?
Sites that fail to educate and encourage the use of the individual podcast aggregators are also robbing users of the experience that makes podcasting what it is. The whole reason that people got into this thing was so we wouldn't need to check web pages for new content. And outfits like PodShow make it a virtual requirment that you return to their website to see what's new. This will lead to lower subscription rates and the assertion that podcasts are nothing new and nothing special.
The companies with the big money behind them can afford not to listen, for now at least. Conversely, the bootstrap startups like LibSyn and Blubrry can't afford not to listen. Strangely enough those outfits reside outside Silly-Con Valley.
The probation period is over folks. Don't start acting like Microsoft and claim it takes a year to make a software change. Address these issues. Respect podcast producers. The one's who were dumb enough to sign away their content to you represent a small percentage of the podcasts in existence. You may have the right to do what you want with them but you know the best content is not owned by anyone but the producers. Instead of being dogged by that fact, work with people and you'll see how we can all benefit.
So who will be first to acknowledge and take steps to right the wrongs? Podshow, Odeo, Apple, Yahoo, Pluggd? Whoever does can have an inside track on building a brighter future for podcasting.
Venture capital funded podcast start ups are aiming to kill the personal voice of podcasting. And given the amount of money and the amount of press heaped on them they may just be successful at doing that.
To be fair let me start off by saying that it's not all Podshow's fault that this is happening. They are not the only VC funded (or mainstream tech) outfit wielding a machete and hacking away. Count in Odeo, Yahoo, Apple and Pluggd to name a few.
I'll explain but it won't (and can't) be brief.
First of all this post is prompted by the launch of PodShow+ this week. I had hoped that the smart minds behind this like Andrew Grumet and Chris McIntyre would do the right thing and create a community that respects podcasters and puts podcasting first. After all, with $9 million in venture capital funding they have the muscle to do so. And I have no problem with folks who do that while garnering nice advertising dollars. You gotta eat after all.
I can honestly say that they haven't done the right thing. And this has nothing to do with all the RSS Hijacking talk from earlier this week. This is about an experience that respects the people who create the content that power these sites. Look at any of the outfits mentioned in this post and you'll see that there attitude is mostly, "Thanks for the content, now screw off!"
I believe that's the attitude because if they either a) knew a freaking thing about podcasting or b) listened to the people that powered the community, they would certainly change some of the things about their site that disrespect podcasters. Here are some examples of things that they do to disrespect podcast producers:
- Creating an alternate RSS feed or failing to display the original RSS feed altogether. This includes people who put links to .m3u, .mpu of any other format than the original RSS feed. Popular offenders in this category are iTunes, Odeo, Podshow and Pluggd.
- Failing to allow moderation of comments and reviews posted about podcasts. iTunes and Yahoo get a big fat F in this category.
- Using ugly, nonsensical urls that make it very difficult for people to find your podcasts. They all mess this one up badly.
- Placing advertisments all around your content in such an obtrusive manner that visitors are likely to be put off. This means you PodShow. Putting Go Daddy ads in the podcast player is a form of commercialization of content that is released under a non-commercial license.
- Hiding (or password protecting) links to actually download files from unregistered users. Yahoo and Podshow are pulling this crap as we speak.
- Failing to explain what a podcast is or how to subscribe using an RSS feed. They and they being particularly PodShow, Odeo and Pluggd don't want you going off their sites so they leave out info that lets the user make their own choices.
- Stripping out meaningful formatting and otherwise altering the show notes for podcast episodes. Odeo and iTunes are the worst offenders here. At least Odeo allows you to edit the HTML after the fact.
- Creating a presence for a podcast and failing to allow a podcast producer any control over that presence. iTunes and Yahoo are the absolute worst in this category. Some may consider the image and description tags as adequate control but I don't. Podcast producers should control over how every episode is presented.
- Failing to share revenue generated from advertisements included alongside podcast content. This means you PodShow. Someone listens to one of my podcasts in a player with ads for major companies. Then they click on the ad and you're keeping all the revenue. The same thing goes for the Podsafe Music Network. Ads everywhere generating revenue but no sharing with the artists who bust their butts to create the content that brings in eyeballs.
So how is this killing podcasting? First off, the podcast subscriber is hurt. The highly funded outlets for podcasts fail to educate users and they become confused, frustrated and filled with misconceptions. Podcast subscribers (and potential subscribers) are also hurt because the connection between the subscriber and the individual podcaster is castrated. People think they are getting content from PodShow, Odeo and iTunes so they fail to interact on a meaningful level with the podcast producer.
It's the individual connection between the producer and the subscriber that makes podcasts different from other forms of media. So diminishing that ability diminishes the medium as a whole.
Podcast producers are highly damaged as a result of this situation as well. They're cheated out of dollars that they have a right to a share of since the podcasts are the reasons that anyone is visiting these sites. They're cheated statistically because alternate versions of feeds provide invisible statistics that would otherwise improve the value of their podcast to potential advertisers. The folks at iTunes, Odeo and Podshow need to fix this. Either direct all traffic through one RSS feed or make the stats easily available to the podcast producer.
How many podcast producers will alter their shows or leave podcasting altogether out of frustration related to these issues?
Sites that fail to educate and encourage the use of the individual podcast aggregators are also robbing users of the experience that makes podcasting what it is. The whole reason that people got into this thing was so we wouldn't need to check web pages for new content. And outfits like PodShow make it a virtual requirment that you return to their website to see what's new. This will lead to lower subscription rates and the assertion that podcasts are nothing new and nothing special.
The companies with the big money behind them can afford not to listen, for now at least. Conversely, the bootstrap startups like LibSyn and Blubrry can't afford not to listen. Strangely enough those outfits reside outside Silly-Con Valley.
The probation period is over folks. Don't start acting like Microsoft and claim it takes a year to make a software change. Address these issues. Respect podcast producers. The one's who were dumb enough to sign away their content to you represent a small percentage of the podcasts in existence. You may have the right to do what you want with them but you know the best content is not owned by anyone but the producers. Instead of being dogged by that fact, work with people and you'll see how we can all benefit.
So who will be first to acknowledge and take steps to right the wrongs? Podshow, Odeo, Apple, Yahoo, Pluggd? Whoever does can have an inside track on building a brighter future for podcasting.
Recommend Podcast NYC To Your Friends
posted by PodcastNYC.net at 11:48 AM
4 Comments:
I'll address this point by point:
1. Creating an alternate RSS feed or failing to display the original RSS feed altogether. This includes people who put links to .m3u, .mpu of any other format than the original RSS feed. Popular offenders in this category are iTunes, Odeo, Podshow and Pluggd.
TOTALLY in agreement with you on this. You CAN find the feed, but you do have to be signed in and that's something I don't think new potential listenrs will want to do. Provide the friggin XML feed. You have it...make it available in the main podshow page.
2. Failing to allow moderation of comments and reviews posted about podcasts. iTunes and Yahoo get a big fat F in this category.
Depends on what you mean by moderation. I don't care if my iTunes comments (of which I have received NONE) are able to be moderated but if it's on my Podcast's blog I would and do (on my libsyn account) have the ability to delete comments. I have NEVER used Yahoo's crap.
3. Using ugly, nonsensical urls that make it very difficult for people to find your podcasts. They all mess this one up badly.
IF they'd put the XML feed on the main Podshow page for a show, then this would not be an issue. The main podshow page for my Digital Distraction show is at http://digitaldistractionpodcast.podshow.com What could be simpler??
4. Placing advertisments all around your content in such an obtrusive manner that visitors are likely to be put off. This means you PodShow. Putting Go Daddy ads in the podcast player is a form of commercialization of content that is released under a non-commercial license.
Now this I have little problem with. It would be nice if podshow would send me a little check but last I checked, they are not charging a thing and are not even monitoring how much I am uploading. Sounds ok to me if the keep the click thru on the adds. Pays for my bandwidth.
5. Hiding (or password protecting) links to actually download files from unregistered users. Yahoo and Podshow are pulling this crap as we speak.
Yep. My biggets beef. If your not logged in to podshow and you go to my above page, the XML link isn't there! You should be able to play it in browser, but you don't need too. BTW, digital distraction is completely ON podshow. All of my stats are there.
6. Failing to explain what a podcast is or how to subscribe using an RSS feed. They and they being particularly PodShow, Odeo and Pluggd don't want you going off their sites so they leave out info that lets the user make their own choices.
Yep. Podshow wants you to stay there all of the time. They even want you to modify the way you add podcasts to your aggregator.
7. Stripping out meaningful formatting and otherwise altering the show notes for podcast episodes. Odeo and iTunes are the worst offenders here. At least Odeo allows you to edit the HTML after the fact.
This gets under my craw on iTunes. I used to give a shit what my show notes looked like when I view on a iPod but because of this I just don't friggin care.
8. Creating a presence for a podcast and failing to allow a podcast producer any control over that presence. iTunes and Yahoo are the absolute worst in this category. Some may consider the image and description tags as adequate control but I don't. Podcast producers should control over how every episode is presented.
Podshow allows you to customize your page....but you still have some podshow logos. You don't have as much control as say when you have a libsyn account.
9. Failing to share revenue generated from advertisements included alongside podcast content. This means you PodShow. Someone listens to one of my podcasts in a player with ads for major companies. Then they click on the ad and you're keeping all the revenue. The same thing goes for the Podsafe Music Network. Ads everywhere generating revenue but no sharing with the artists who bust their butts to create the content that brings in eyeballs.
Again, they store my shows for free. I don't care. They can keep the money....what I wish they WOULD do is help me find a way to Quit My Day Job....get me a sponser or some ads or some free shit.
Thats it for the numbered comments. Let me leave off with this...as I skimmed the podshow contract when I signed up for it, it specifically stated in the contract that the show was mine. They did not give a crap what I said or did on my show. It also said I could discontinue the show and I saw NOTHING that stated I could not use the show name on another network. MUCH better then TPN or some of the ither networks out there (the Tablet PC Show had to change names to On the Run With Tablet PC's...).
I disagree that Podshow, Apple, ODEO or Yahoo are killing podcasting...if anything, they are giving me so much content I don't have enough time in the day to listen to everything. That surely does not sound like it's killing podcasting.
a great and thoughtful post - rob :)
We've addressed #1 on your list, by adding an RSS feed link for each podcast.
I think you make a lot of good points, and we intend to implement most of them.
I don't agree with all of your positions, however, particularly around moderation of comments and reviews. Podcasts are all about giving users choice, like you said regarding the RSS feed, and giving everyone a voice. I don't think podcasters should be able to delete a comment someone makes about their podcast on a site like Pluggd. That's not being open.
I'll post some more comments on my blog over the next few days/weeks about this.
Alex Castro
CEO, Pluggd
Here is my post about the RSS fix - http://alexcastro.typepad.com/castros_blog/2006/08/we_made_a_fee_t.html
Thanks for responding Alex. Accept my apologies on the timing of publishing this comment.
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