A while back, I had a great conversation with uncleweed about podcasting. Uncle weed is a podcaster with lots of personality who lives in Vancouver. (You should listen to his shows). At the end of the day, as he said, it's all about the content you have.
In today's web, to the recent two-tier internet talk, is about the struggle of content. When everything is about media, creating media content becomes a crucial element in the whole mesh-up of digital age. The media should suit the context of the content. Different styles of media deliveries and technology style determines the final communication of content. Looking at video as one example, all the different ways of recording videos, and putting videos online have changed in its own ways. The fact that everyone can put their video on youtube or any other places allow more voices to be heard, at the same time, more noises being generated.
If we are really talking about videos, we have to talk about podcast. Looking at podcaster directories as an example, podcastalley works as a pool of talent to build a bigger network. It pushes indie producers to bigger places. Some people questions the value of such purpose. In my opinion, it's much like rumblefish, signing indie artists to promote them into different directions.
We can look at the internet/podcast becoming the next generation of TV. The only difference is that the audiences now have the power to decide what they are going to watch and the kind of content they want to receive. People are paying for media content online. you shouldn't have to pay for it. If you pay for it, you shouldn't have to listen/watch the ads. Why should content be free? because for the people who are putting on the content, they are getting the biggest audience group. However, if we pause for one second and think about the relationship of TV and podcasting. You pay for your cable subscription and you see have to watch those commercials. Yes, nowadays you get to record your TV, but that's a totally different service we are talking about here. Is the content you are getting from your TV free? Not really. Without the big networks, how do TV programs make money in the end? In conclusion, while everyone is having a hard time adjusting to the whole podcaster directory copyright issues at the moment, we should probably think about the same system of media delivery, our good old TV.
I often like to apply one system onto another system to learn more about the possibilities of different scenarios. You can find traits of the social changes of society, the development of the society, in the development of the media on the internet.
Are we hungry for media content? I wonder how soon in the future we'll start getting reality tv / talent search concept of the podcasting. (or maybe there is already, sorry for my lack of knowledge if there is.)
