This morning I got an email from Byron Acohido with USA Today who wrote one of the two Podcasting articles that came out today. He wrote me to thank me for helping him with his story and yes, I did get quoted in the article.

USAToday story quote;
Podcasters anticipate that the overall podcasting audience will continue to swell as the tools to create and subscribe to podcasts become more user friendly. For the moment, a patchwork of tools makes trial-and-error de rigueur.

“Someone needs to take the geek factor out of it before you can have a revolution,” says Rob Greenlee, host of WebTalkRadio.com.

This is not the whole story.

I actually spent hours on the phone and in-person talking to Byron about podcasting. We met at the recent Podcasting Dinner in Seattle. He attended and heard some very candid discussion on the state of Podcasting from a group of leading podcasters. I explained to Byron that Podcasting at its root is not totally new and that the connection to the iPod is both a big short-term plus and a long-term curse. It is interesting that this angle did not come out in the article. I also explained to him that I did not think that the big digital media platform companies like Microsoft, Real Networks and Apple will support podcasting as a distribution platform until it gets much bigger and when it does deploy will it be done the same way we think of current Podcasting? I think it will not as they all will build some proprietary extension of podcasting. I would say two of these three platforms are benefiting by the Podcasting movement and they are primarily Apple and somewhat Microsoft. Apple is by far the biggest winner in the Podcasting movement.

While I do think that both Apple and Microsoft would benefit in the long-run by building in support for RSS and Podcasting into iTunes and Windows Media Player 10. I also feel that these companies are not headed in that direction (opportunity for iPodder plug-in for Windows Media Player 10 and iTunes). They have been and continue to move in the DRM driven direction as they want to only work with major broadcasters that currently have huge established audiences that can drive subscription or membership business models. The major media content expects royalty payments for distribution rights. Right now Podcasting has no way to do this and thus is stuck in the grassroots and homegrown content creation market which has yet to gain the respect of these platform companies.

I have also sensed a movement away from spoken word content at all these major platform companies as they focus on music and digital video. Talk content or Podcasting type content is getting left behind. I do need to say that some at those companies are starting to realize that they have accidentally forgotten about spoken word content in the exuberance to chase the music and video market and will be rolling it back into the music and video services at the next upgrade generation.

This Podcasting movement is on the radar of the major media and digital media platform companies, but is yet to be thought of as significant. This thought may seem like a negative comment about Podcasting, but it is a reality check in the midst of all the hype that we are seeing in the mainstream media. Podcasting is an interesting and revolutionary story that exists somewhere on the rapidly approaching horizon. Though it does appear to be a revolution - is that revolution actually here and now? I think we are seeing a revolution in the mind about Podcasting potential that is yet to be realized.

I will continue this as we get closer to the horizon as the Podcasting or Mobilecast sun is just now starting to shine.