The uneducated speculation about the future of podcasting is now becoming a dull ache, like a tooth before a visit to the dentist. The latest to speculate is Barnako at MarketWatch.
Barnako claims that “indie” podcasts are being hurt by mainstream podcasts. His brilliant deduction is based on the iTunes Top 100.
“Shortly after the iTunes software update was released, I calculated that 47 of its most popular podcasts were produced by what some call “independents.” That number now is 31, and it’s dropping.”
This was incredibly predicable, but this doesn’t mean that “indie” feeds are becoming less popular. In fact if you ask (that’s right Barnako, you can ask people in the name of real journalism) podcasters you’ll find that everyone is seeing an increase in subscribers.
The real proof will be weeded out in a year or more, not in a single month. Then we’ll see who’s popular. Everyone is dunking a toe in the water, and checking out podcasts. Once the testing is over, and the real listening occurs, we’ll see who floats to the top.
Business Week continues the propagation of a really badly thought out story.
Time to get a tooth pulled.
3 Comments
Hello Richard,
Thanks for tracking back to my post on podcasting. It helps me try to clarify the point of my post. It looks like I didn’t make it clear why I linked to Barnako’s post. I was curious about whether this might be the case and wanted to hear from other bloggers and podcasters. I wasn’t attempting to make a statement but to get some insight from people who are more knowledgeable about podcasting and its trends than I am. In the future, I will make that plainer.
No worries Heather.
I hope I wasn’t too abrupt. It’s just getting a little frustrating with Dave Taylor, Mark Cuban and now Barnako all taking a slug at the medium within a week.
The interesting thing with the chart is that if you listen to people like Curry, he’s getting around 100,000 downloads a show now. He wasn’t getting that before. We’re all seeing a major increase. I can’t say what my shows getting, I have to wait until the end of this month to see the effects, but I’m told it’s been significant.
I think that in a few months we’ll see the “traditional” radio shows drop slightly in favor of some of the creative “indie” casts. When people realise that they can listen to the radio to hear radio, they stop subscribing to those feeds. My gut feel anyway, we’ll wait and see.
Cheers,
Richard
Hi Richard
You make good points, with which I agree pretty much 100%
To add to your thought, I reckon that with so many traditional radio stations promoting podcasting, this will bring people across – the known and familiar often helps people to explore. Once they get somewhere new, then they’ll start looking around in more detail.
So perhaps when we look back at the initial period after the iTunes 4.9 release, we’ll see an initial period where the swing shifted to trad radio, before the masses discovered the Indies.
As you suggested, the fact that the old media has come across seems to hide the fact that the Indie feeds are growing fast themselves.
Just some rambling thoughts
Des
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Des Paroz
Sydney, Australia
http://www.DesParoz.com – the desparoz On The Go blog
http://www.thePodcastNetwork/productivity – The Personal Productivity Show on the Podcast Network