Podcasting - A Tentative Critique
Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz will start a podcast in a few weeks time. They will have weekly conversations on communication, technology and other relevant topics via Skype, and then publish the result at For Immediate Release.
I haven't read Shel very much, but Neville often have things to say. In that sense it is a promising initiative. But to tell you the truth I'm not that hooked on podcasting (can I say that today without being regarded a dinosaur?).
I may get back to the discussion in more detail, but basically my objection is about time. The beauty of blogging for me is the possibility to read literally hundreds of views/voices in maybe half an hour. I've got them all served in Bloglines. With podcasting, I need to spend the same time to listen to just a couple of views/voices. Considering that time is a valuable and scarce resource for many of us, podcasting makes little sense to me.
To put it more directly (no offense Neville, Shel): There are very few voices out there I regularly would invest 30 minutes in. It just won't happen.
With this said, I do see one major market for podcasting - internal communications. Many would invest 10 minutes per week to listen to the CEO they never get to meet in person, I think. And under those circumstances the CEO's voice (the actual audio) could add a different value than newsletters or blogs do.