I’m posting this from Las Vegas as I am down here for as week of non-techie fun. Very limited WiFi, but managing. I am down here for the largest of three boys high school summer basketball tournaments “The Reebok Big Time” with 304 other teams. My son is a member of a select team out of Seattle called the Ballard Blaze. I am not just watching, but an the assistant coach of the team. Yes, I do have a basketball background. I played for 13 years, from boys club youth ball up through semi-pro basketball and have played on traveling teams through Europe. I have also played against Olympic teams and national teams.

What is amazing is that even basketball has gone high-tech with laptops everywhere and high-end websites. It is amazing how much information can be found online about players and teams these days. I am the Internet connected member of this team. I track our schedule as we play two games of Friday and one on Saturday. Then the real loser out tournament begins.

With a total across three tournaments 850 teams and 8,500 high school backetball players here in 117 degree temperatures. The heat wave is breaking records and is very difficult to deal with, but we are all managing to do it. The best high school basketball players in the country. Really big dudes, some even make my 6′9″ look small. The best player here is 7′0″ and 245 pounds. One very big guy and he would not care much that I had more websites than him. I will post here how we are doing as the days roll by. So come back and check this blog.

Enough of my sin city report. See the hot news from TechPodcasts.com below.

TechPodCasts.com, the top technical audio podcast resource worldwide, announced today a first of its kind sponsorship deal with GoToMeeting.com, a Citrix Online product.

Spokesperson Todd Cochrane says, what is significant is that this is the very first multi-podcast sponsorship deal. This agreement is a large win for our members and the techpodcasts.com network. A significant amount of work lead to getting to this day, with the network barely being 6 months old it is evident that when like minded podcasters come together and build a branded network, along with developing a legal marketable framework, with the necessary statistics reporting, then by presenting a well laid out marketing plan, we were able to sign this sponsorship deal. This solidifies our ideals at “podcasters do the work, and indeed podcasters get paid”.

TechPodcasts.com is uniquely positioned to deliver the GoToMeeting.com message. More impressive in June the network reached 135,000 unique listeners, and saw record traffic of over 750,000 unique downloads among the 20 reporting affiliates.

This sponsorship is the perfect marketing fit, we have the technical audience, and we will be able to directly reach decision makers in the technical community. We look forward to a successful campaign and a long term relationship with GoToMeeting.com.

TechPodcasts.com is a network of independent audio content producers who have agreed to create child safe, educational content as well as work collectively to build the best collection of Technical Podcast available on the Internet.

I was quoted this week in a MarketWatch article on podcasting by Frank Barnako:

“Rob Greenlee, producer of WebTalkRadio.com, said he believes Winer shouldn’t be compared to brand-name output from Bravo TV, MSNBC and Air America. “Most of the early podcasters are only going to be popular with the PodcastAlley.com crowd,” said Greenlee. “It will be the media celebrities like Leo Laporte and Al Franken and Ted Koppel who will dominate the podcasting space.”

I may, at times, come across as negative about podcasting, but it is just the opposite. I want it to be a huge success for as many people as possible. It is just that often times we get fed half truths and hidden agendas that come from a small groups’ wish list and not a true picture of reality. Here is my honest truth as I see it from my experience as a terrestrial and Internet broadcaster.

Being that WebTalk Radio was the first broadcast radio program to start podcasting (See this in the Wikipedia.com entry under Podcasting), I have seen this movement with podcasting morph over to becoming another enabling distribution method for existing broadcast content. This has been building since I started podcasting back on Sept 15, 2004. Very soon after I started podcasting, Seattle’s KOMO AM 1000 Radio also started doing it.

For an existing broadcaster, it is just another spoke on the distribution wheel and a cheap and easy one at that. Mp3 downloads have been available from my WebTalk Radio Show site since 2001 and making this change to RSS with enclosure feeds was something that was in my new website design plan for almost a year before podcasting actually started. It was easy and simple to add to the new site. We should not be surprised this has happen as fast as it has. Podcasting has been evolving this direction since the beginning as more and more existing broadcasters jumped on board the fast rolling publicity train of podcasting. The iTunes player 4.9 has simply taken this existing media content exposure to a higher level of mainstream visibility.

It is interesting that some of the big time radio guys like Rush and Hannity, who are charging for podcast subscriptions, are not in the iTunes player. What is going on with that? Is that a political decision or a technology one? I have heard unconfirmed rumors that Apple is locked into an agreement with Audible.com that does not allow them to sell spoken word content until after 2007. This may be why we are not seeing paid subscription based podcasts through iTunes yet.

While I agree the so called “Indie” podcasts are being left behind in iTunes, it is a strategic decision on the part of Apple to primarily promote the major media brands. I think it is reasonable to expect that the majority of the most popular content would ultimately come from the accepted legacy media brands that huge numbers of people trust. I also believe that these major media brands will also create unique content for podcasting, just like ABC News did an Internet-only streaming program with Sam Donaldson a few years back. I also think we will see these same major and smaller media brands do the same thing with downloadable video show programs. PBS’s Nerd TV, launching this September, will be the first downloadable web-exclusive series from a major broadcaster.

The blanket statement that I am hearing that all of these major media brand content is junk and anti-human is just plain wrong. You cannot tell me that ABC’s Nightline audio podcast is junk content as I consider Nightline to be some of the best journalism available today along with the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

I know that I am crushing some people’s dreams of fame and money by saying this, but most, and I say the majority of, podcasters will not become popular content to a large audience. I also believe that the majority of the smaller podcasters will have an audience that will have a huge range in size and some talented independent podcasters will build larger audiences. Thousands will cater to a small group of loyal listeners that like the content because they either know the host or have a strong affinity to the topic of the content.

I also believe that PodcastAlley.com will become ground zero for the vast majority of podcasters and that popularity in PodcastAlley will lead to building an audience for smaller podcasts.

I get a sense that Microsoft and Real may learn from some of iTunes early mistakes. I can see Microsoft taking a more open approach to podcasting and not be so weighted towards major media content providers. Some “Indie” shows or programs will gain a wide audience, but it will be the prior media celebrities like Leo Laporte, Al Frankin, Ted Kopple, Adam Curry, Chris Pirillo and other successful media personalities who will dominate the wider podcasting space just like they did in broadcast distribution. While the overall grassroots podcasting community would like to have the featured areas more in iTunes, we just all need to keep in mind that Apple is in the business of making money in the iTunes player and featuring popular nationally-known content is a way for Apple to possibly sell placement in the iTunes player. I do not know for a fact that Apple is getting paid for all the featured placement of companies like ABC News and ESPN. It would make sense that it would be a win-win for Apple.

I do believe that we will see more and more original content being produced just for podcast distribution by existing media companies and media personalities. I believe this is a natural evolution as well. Just look at Chris Pirillo’s show. It is a live Internet only show that is repackaged as a podcast.

I have also heard some who say that a podcast done correctly is a huge marketing opportunity for a company or individual.

Podcasting could be used by the major media companies to distribute new types of content; movie director commentaries and newspaper reporters could record interviews that will be included with feature text stories in RSS feeds. These are some of the new uses for podcasting that go beyond broadcast-like shows. But grassroots podcasting content providers will maintain and build following, but most of them just don’t have the name brand personalities and the existing broadcast distribution to go big-time with audience growth. Don’t misunderstand me to say that “indie” podcasts like WebTalk Radio will continue to grow, but will never be bigger than the audience built by a major media personality or network podcast that has other media and big money that can promote the podcast.

I also wanted to add that we will see the other major media players from Real and Windows Media Player follow Apple’s lead. I think we will see Microsoft take more of a tools provider approach that will better enable everyone to be a podcaster as opposed to Apple’s approach.

The next big story coming about podcasting is who is going to financially support podcasting for media podcasts — the listener or the advertiser? Look at BitPass and Audible.com for some innovative solutions to helping media creators to track actual listeners and make preview sampling with pay-per-view transactions.

I think we are seeing the birth of some new kinds of content in a downloadable audio form. Audio only from TV Shows, Presidential addresses, Mommycasts, Daily Downloads, movie director commentary, US Treasury Debt Reports and church sermons. I think we will continue to see all kinds of new audio make it into podcasts feeds. We will also see the birth and fast growth of videocasts from major media and indie content providers.

Even personal audio will be delivered only to family and or friends via password controls.

Rob Greenlee

Example of a listener email about my recent David Coursey interview at ITConversations:

Uh, does Rob Greenlee realize the irony of creating podcast interviews of MAIN STREAM media people, like David Coursey, who spend most of the interview trashing, streaming, podcasting and weblogging? Duh…

I asked myself why am I listening to this podcast…and then deleted it.

While I understand the response from some listeners to my last few interviews at ITConversations about radio, weblogs and podcasting. Please keep in mind that I like to speak with experts that have contrary opinions because some of what they say has some shred of truth and is valuable in that it helps me understand that some very experienced and thoughtful people do not agree with all of us.

These people could represent a very significant percentage of the population. I learn from them as they do not accept the common spin on new technology being so groundbreaking, because to most people this stuff is just not that important. Coursey is a classic example. His job for the past 10+ years has been to look at tech trends and evaluate them. I do trust and respect his perspective, as it is based on massive historical experience.

I accept the possibility that I may be wrong in the “Getting It” category about the future growth of grassroot podcasting. I remember what happened to the streaming media industry 10 years ago. The streaming content creation bubble burst. I was doing my radio show almost 7 years ago and these things are fresh in my mind. I just don’t assume that things are that much different today then 10 years ago and realize that history does repeat itself. We must always learn from the past and apply it to the future.

Some very interesting people have recently said some contrary and interesting things about podcasting and those words need to get spread around a little.

Here is the list of recent podcasting skeptics:

Mark Cuban: Podcasting

Ken Dardis: Podcasting Publicity Shows Internet Radio’s Weakness

Rob Griffiths: Separating the signal from the noise

David Coursey: Podcasting a Fad and a Loser

Walt Mossberg: Podcasting Is Still Not Quite Ready For the Masses

I think that it may be a mistake to only want to hear things that we agree with as it does not challenge us to see other sides of important topics and issues. I do not see any irony in doing these as podcasts as the distribution method should never drive the content topics covered. I don’t generally feel that mainstream people that listen to podcasts are concerned with only hearing the positive spin on how good podcasting, blogging and streaming are to the world.

I will be moving away from this topic area soon and into some other interesting technology areas.

To hear all the ITConversations interviews then visit the WebTalk page at the ITConversations site.

WebTalk Radio with hosts Rob and Dana Greenlee with guest host Mitch Ratcliffe, blogger and co-founder of Persuadio at MyDensity.com.

Guest: Tiffany Shlain, Founder of Webby Awards
Guest Co-Host: Mitch Ratcliffe, MyDensity - RatcliffeBog

Topics Discussed:
- Moblogs & Bloggers Impact London Bombings Coverage
- Is Stealing Wi-Fi a Crime
- Is Bit Torrent Finally Becoming a Legal Distribution Platform
- Spyware Fear Impacting Millions Online
- RSS impact on Copyright Issues.
- New WebTalk Interviews

We discuss the 9th Annual Webby Awards with Founder Tiffany Shlain and talk about new interviews at ITConversations.com and a new one coming with David Coursey, former CNET Radio Show host and long-time Tech Journalist ZDNet.

We also talk about an email about RSS copyright issues, from attorney Denise Howell, as she clears up some confusion from our Gnomedex group show.

Listen 70 min: mp3 (24MB) and Windows Stream