The recent flame war between Adam Curry and Joseph Jaffe is ridiculous. In case you don't know here's an abbreviated version of the back story.

Joseph Jaffe, a new era marketing guru and host of the Across The Sound podcast, interviews PodShow CEO Ron Bloom and his partner Adam Curry for a future podcast. Jaffe puts out half of the interview on Episode #49 of his show. In Episode #51 Jaffe announces that he's witholding the second half of the interview until he gets "some love" as in return links, mentions, etc. from Adam Curry. Adam Curry responds quite harshly on his Daily Source Code podcast calling Jaffe "his bitch" and retracting permission to play the second half of the interview. Now I'm listening to Joseph Jaffe stammer and stutter his way through a response to Adam's response.

All I can say is that this kind of exchange is one of the reasons why the medium of podcasting won't be taken seriously in the mainstream as a marketing channel for quite a while. When you have two people who claim to be leaders in their respective fields acting like idiots no one is going to be impressed. And while the flap will certainly draw grins from those in the know, outsiders will be able to use this as a reason why podcasting is nowhere near maturity as a medium.

So who's wrong and who's right? They're both wrong. They're both numbskulls. Thick heads as my Mom used to say.

Jaffe's threat to withhold part two of the interview is just silly. He says it was a joke but in order to be funny you need to have the right delivery. Jaffe's delivery was flat as a penny and sounded more like a Axl Rose trying to squeal his way through Sweet Child of Mine. Jaffe is just not a funny guy and so attempts at humor (if it was an attempt at being 'playful') are not his strong suit. It sounded to me like he was whining.

Then there's Mr. Curry, the podfather. The elder statesman of new media if you will. He responds to Jaffe's whining with a big wah, wah ,wah of his own. He spouts off in such a ridiculous, "Don't you know who I am?", manner that I'm left wondering if he's really upset that people don't recognize him on the streets of major cities. He goes way too far in a very unprofessional and undignified response. All he needed to do was quickly dismiss Jaffe and move on.

Now Jaffe is yapping away, claiming it was a joke, talking about how this is some new marketing Obi Wan technique at stirring up a conversation. People who are (or feel) guilty usually spend this much time explaining themselves. Ridiculous.

Here's my advice to both gentlemen. Put it to bed post haste. Curry doesn't need Jaffe to play the second half of the interview. And Jaffe probably has plenty of new marketing hero stories to tell. "Enough!", as my Mom used to say when I was fighting with my brothers in public.

This medium will not be taken seriously as long as the alleged leaders in their respective areas act like fools. And that condition reflects poorly on all podcasters who want to be taken seriously as informers or entertainers.