Podcasting trend goes down

The trend in podcasting is downward, when compared to video and blogs, says the "Will Podcasting Survive?" article at the Alex Iskold Technology Blog. Podcasting was an evolution of radio that never made it into our daily lives.

Sure, some "Pod people" downloaded podcasts so they could listen to music (or sermons) while they worked or played, and the idea of being able to subscribe to the audio files just like a blog was neat, but use of Podcasts never reached critical mass.

So you could download a thousand songs into a music player and listen to them anytime. But how often did anyone listen to all those songs? Did they become more like a partially ignored collection? Where was the interaction that a blog provides (assuming you want to comment on a posting)?

And yes, anyone with a computer microphone could create a podcast, but how many did so? Perhaps the average person didn't look at creating podcasts as all that easy. By comparison, commenting on a blog posting is very easy, though many people still just read and do not add comments. some reasons podcasting is on the decline:

• Multimedia videos are cooler than podcasts.
• You can scan a blog for what interests you, but not a podcast.
• You can interact with a blog posting.
• It's easier to jump to what you are looking for in a blog or video. Not so with a podcast.
• Reading a blog is more likely than listening all the way through a podcast.
• The content of a podcast is nearly always music or news. Blogs or video can be anything.
• Competition from commercial media. National Public Radio has podcasts. So does National Geographic, Comedy Central, ESPN, and many others. If you want to listen to streaming audio, you'd be more likely to stay with well-known content providers. On the other hand, many people enjoy reading the journaling and commentary by bloggers and video creators.

Podcasting has been "going out of fashion", Alex says. Today's "in" fad is "out" tomorrow. What impact does that have on church web sites?

• If you have limited resources, don't be too eager to adopt the latest "hot" new web gizmo. Instead, give it a hard look. Ask whether it looks like a fad or a long-term hit. Avoid the fads when you have limited resources.
• Carefully check what resources a new web feature would need -- people, equipment, time, expertise, and money. If you can't afford all the resources, don't adopt the new feature.
• If you really want to give a new feature a try, even with limited resources, look for ways to lessen the resource impact. Perhaps there is a way to "start small" that you can try out before deciding whether to jump in feet first.