And yes, I'm just jealous since i wanted Ivan's job in the first place and since I didn't have the bright idea for podcasts and since that sort of cutting edge media know-how helped him land the position. There, with that out of the way, feel free to comment on the merits of the post. kthx

 

I think it depends on the producer of the "cast" that makes it good. As you pointed out, most people can't speak well, and it seems ever since I took a speech class in college, I only focus on the transition pharse. The umm, ahh, and, or some other noise that is used to let the brain settle down to the next phrase. So as long as the person making the cast is aware of that, and can leave those out, they can do well.

Also, music podcasts are nice if done well with the maker being a good dj, rather than a geek with hopes.

 

I get a lot of freebie podcasts off of iTunes. I get the ESPN Radio News one that usually has a few decent interviews daily. I also get a bunch of NPR ones, the best being the NPR Story of the Day. Since it's pretty clear by now that I'm a news nerd I also get the NPR news summaries and New York Times daily headlines summary. ... and The Onion Radio News podcast. Very essential.

Podcasts are nothing groundbreaking (Oooh, a new name for compressed audio files. You clever demons.), but I can space out and listen to them at the office and don't get yelled at for doing so, unlike when I hop on the company's network and look at websites. That's really the only advantage for me.

 

Ironically, as Malaya just reminded me, she suggested I mention possibly doing podcasts as part of my long list of cool ideas for flagship features, when I was applying for the job. I didn't mention it though, since i couldn't see any possible reason or use for it.

I instead played up my writing skillz and suggested (among other things) doing basically what they're saying they'll do with podcasts, but with text. Interviews, features on developers, in house debates, etc.

It's fun to wave as techology passes you by.

 

While I also steer clear of the traditional radio-broadcast-style podcasts, I do download some of the other varieties. For example, there are some sketch comedy troupes that put out weekly podcasts of their sketches, and those are pretty funny.

 

I'm a pretty big music fan, and usually of more obscure music. Still, I didn't get podcasts when they first came out. I was thinking, well in concept they're nothing new - they're just mp3's.

But even mp3's, though not really "something new" (just a different compression algorithm), completely changed the way we can listen to music. I think the idea of a "podcast" is sort of the same. It's just a coincidence of many good ideas that coalesce to be... greater than the sum of their parts.

Like I said, I didn't get podcasts at first. It wasn't until I started listening to them. There's a lot of originality and a really cool sort of grassroots vibe to podcasts. Though some of them suck, there's more than a few pretty cool ones... and usually it's just some geeks (more eloquent than the average geek, of course) with a microphone.

Anyway, I guess the point is: podcasting isn't something you should compare to blogging. You don't read editorials the same way you listen to a radio show. They're different animals, even if they do go together really well.

(Why flagship would do a podcast is beyond me. Sounds like bandwagon jumping. Maybe they're all just getting old ;)