Observations on podcasting

Against a background of squeaking that sounds like unoiled bicycle wheels, Adam Curry says: "Sunday night . . . it's 104 degrees outside at . . . is it quarter to 11 or quarter to ten? We're in Phoenix! So we had a - oh, look who it is!" He doesn't tell us who it is, and we don't find out in the 12-minute audio recording that forms his blog entry for 23 May. Nor do we find out what the squeaking is, though we learn he's at an airport, so possibly it's a baggage trolley or carousel.

Welcome to the world of podcasts, the latest invention by the pajamahadeen to spin off and head for a computer near you. Why "podcast"? Because it's not broadcast; you have to hunt out the files, then download and listen to them on your iPod. And pajamahadeen? That's the crusading mass of bloggers who reckon they are gaining the upper hand over Big Media in the US because they can fact-check the news outlets into the ground. They christened themselves thus after the CBS News executive Jonathan Klein said: "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at CBS] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

Podcasting is cheap. All you need is a website, some free software to convert your words into a digital file, and a point of view - sometimes not even the latter. A visit to www.podcastalley.com shows that there are plenty of people doing it.

But is anybody listening? Until recently, the answer was obvious, given that it requires broadband, and lots of spare time and patience. But then Apple announced that the next version of its iTunes software (due out in the next couple of months), which is used by about ten million people to put songs on to their iPods, will enable users to subscribe to podcasts.

The announcement caused both delight and consternation among bloggers. Apple doesn't do minority stuff; its approval anoints any technology. The optimists reckon this means that the world of radio broadcasting is about to crumble before their rumpled assault, in the same way that TV newscasters, in the face of blog-led fact-checking, have become more careful about what they broadcast. But Dave Winer, podcasting's midwife (if not godfather and parent), observed that Apple would have the whip hand in deciding who becomes famous. "Apple's position is so powerful because it will have content that people are interested in - the podcasts people have been hearing so much about," he commented.

Many podcasters see dollar signs and endless possibilities: podcasts of conferences you couldn't get to; free podcasts to usurp the dull output of so many local stations; paid-for podcasts of motivational sales techniques, and so on. Apple may be able to make money from some podcasts, as it has with digital music, by acting as the middleman and selling them through iTunes. But the reality is that, just as with blogs, most podcasts won't make money, ever. And most won't be much good. Curry's elementary mistakes in scene-setting and introductions, which would get a rookie radio correspondent sent back to training school, are standard in podcasts. Winer will get up mid-sentence to walk across the room and pour himself a coffee. That's 30 seconds of your life that you'll never get back.

As with blogs, the professionals attract the biggest audience. Melvyn Bragg's Radio 4 series In Our Time (which discusses such trivia as thermodynamics and Faust in an hour-long format) was made available as a podcast and got 70,000 downloads. Virgin Radio runs an advert-supported podcast. Even the pajamahadeen's sworn enemy, CBS, has begun podcasting. And one of the fastest-growing sets of podcasts is by a group that's already in it for the money. Religious sermons, known colloquially as "Godcasts", are a surprise hit, and they are not shy about asking for donations. The meek may inherit the earth, but the rest of us have to pay our website bills, dammit.

Charles Arthur is technology columnist for the Independent (www.charlesarthur.com/blog)

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