Beyond Podcasting

Pew’s research into the uptake of podcasts has, as Mark Glaser points out on his MediaShift blog (link in my blogroll on the left), permitted journalists to interpret the data according to their own preferred agenda.

“A quick glance at Google News shows the wide range of conclusions drawn by stories covering the survey results. Here are some headlines culled from that search, listed in order of positivity to negativity: 34 Million Ears Perked for Podcasts from eMarketer. Pew: Podcast Audience Doubles from MediaPost.What Podcasting Revolution? from BusinessWeek. Podcasting’s 15 Minutes Almost Up from MarketingShift blog.Podcasting Falls on Deaf Ears from PC Authority.”

In response to Mark’s post, Howard Owens comments that “…podcasts will evolve into something else. Podcasts as we know them today are doomed, but they are a step toward something. When you figure out what that something is, please tell me, and I'll do it.”

Well, in my view Howard will be waiting for a long, long time and I imagine Mark will agree. There’s not going to be a new ‘something’, a new behemoth with the clout, import and stability that good ol’ mainstream media enjoyed for about half a century.

Podcasts, and any other form of media, will shapeshift in a constant evolution from one ephemeral construct to the next. Is it a podcast if it’s an audiofile embedded on the page of an digital magazine? (I hesitate to use the term eZine which, I think, applies strictly to newsletters distributed by email. Or am I being too pedantic?)

The growth of digital magazines fascinates me at the moment. I’m waiting for the first blog to incorporate ‘page-flip’ display rather than scrolling! (In fact, anything is better than scrolling, which is a haptic contradiction at a time when monitor screens are increasingly used both in lean-back and lean-forward modes. But the page-flip command is nicely analogous to the channel change.)

It seems to me that the first uses of page-flip applications were in the B2B sector. Frankly I find publications which, when digitized, require the use of a zoom tool to read any article annoying. And they demand scrolling in both axes.

But there are more and more examples of digital publications which are conceived as roughly A3-format ‘double-page spreads’ with text legible without any need to scroll.

And some are even gaining credibility with advertisers (NylonMagazine, below) although possibly this is only achieved by publications which are also distributed in ‘dead tree’ versions.

BoardsMagazine is for readers involved in the production of television commercials. Almost every second page includes a video embed. Audiofiles play automatically. Hyperlinks are self-evident. SpoonFork from Germany uses the available tools brilliantly, as does CastleMagazine (which will be migrating from PDF to dynamic digital publishing very soon, if my sources are accurate)

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So Howard Owens is invited to use the tools which are available now to do what he wants to do now, to the extent that he has the skills now or is prepared to acquire them.

Ah, the skills!

Video Nation: Agency Finds A Majority Now Create Their Own Video, But Few Post Them

by Joe Mandese, Thursday, Nov 30, 2006

In a finding that underscores the potential of a vast, untapped market for user-generated video, new research conducted by interactive agency Sharpe Partners indicates that more than half (54%) of adult Internet users currently create their own video offline, but only 11 percent actually upload it to the Internet. That margin, says Sharpe, represents a significant opportunity for software and system providers to help facilitate the migration of a burgeoning consumer generated video marketplace online. It also suggests an even more profound fragmentation of the video marketplace is looming than many industry experts may have predicted. One of the chief reasons for the disparity between producing and posting video is the difficulty consumers said they have with the process. The study, which was conducted online by Harris Interactive, surveyed 2,125 U.S. adults between June 29 and July 2, and found that more than two-thirds of those who create their own video found it difficult to edit their content due to the lack of consumer-friendly software.

"Clearly, given easier solutions, consumers will be far more likely to edit their videos," said Sharpe CEO Kathy Sharpe. "And those who edit their video are presumably more likely to share it with others, which will expand this market even further."

Okay, Ms Sharpe. I would guess that almost 100% of adult internet users currently possess a pen! This does not imply, however, that they have the talent to execute a brilliant drawing. And, frankly, how much simpler can editing software be than iMovie? (see today’s earlier post referencing Jeff Jarvis).

I hesitate, therefore, to concur that there is a “vast, untapped market for user-generated video”. There will certainly be more, much of it un-watchable. But those with the skills and creative vision will emerge and astound us with their vlogs.

Um, or maybe they’ll embed it on the pages of their mind-blowing, page-flipping magazine. Or in whatever media form the shapeshifting of progress throws up as mile-stones on the path to the ever elusive ‘next big thing’.

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A 'page-flipping blog? Possible, perhaps, with tools like these here, or here, or here?