Podcasting (soon to be renamed "Netcasting" because of legal issues) is stupid. I really don't see the point of it. Why would I want to listen to some dorks talk about what's on their websites? Maybe it's because I don't own an iPod or other easy-to-use portable audio player (my Treo plays music, but it's sort of annoying). Maybe it's because I don't walk anywhere; I drive. And when I drive, I listen to CDs (gasp!) and commercials on free public radio (God I love commercials). People who live in cities tend to walk everywhere, and the best way to isolate yourself from the rest of the world while simultaneously being right in the center of it is to wear headphones at all times. And maybe these walkers walk so much that they've exhausted their pitifully small music collections, so the next logical step is to listen to a bunch of dorks talk about their websites.
Plus, podcasting lets people hear what bloggers sound like. That's sometimes scary. That's why these people are writers and not talkers. Their voices often don't fit your mental image of them, and their spoken rendition of their written language can get real annoying real quick. Also, the podcasts I've heard have been frighteningly poor in audio quality. It sounds like someone speaking into the cheap microphone that came with their Gateway 2000. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it was.
I'm sorry, I just can't get into it. Then again, I've been resistant to new technology in the past. A few years ago, my dad was doing some research into this new thing called "blogging" and he asked me what I thought about it. I said, "Meh, it's just stupid people writing their stupid opinions online." #technology |