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Podcasts: legit medium or sucky, overhyped waste of resources?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Frank_Ridgeway, Jan 11, 2007.

  1. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    I don't get it. It seems to me like basically the equivalent of handing someone a cassette recording of a radio broadcast from six hours ago. Yet newspaper companies seem ga-ga over them. "Oooooooh ... podcasts! We have to try this!" What am I missing here?
     
  2. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    I can honestly say I have not seen a good use for them to this point.
     
  3. lantaur

    lantaur Well-Known Member

    In answer to the subject line, I'd say all of the above.

    A good podcast is more than one person talking; it can be interviews intermixed, you can have fun with it with sound effects, etc.

    There are good podcasts and there are bad ones (just like everything). But I also think podcast has become a buzzword for newspaper execs, much like blog was. Oooh, podcast. I don't know what it is, but let's do it!
     
  4. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Am sure that consultants told them it works, therefore management loves it...
     
  5. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Frank,
    You know as well as I, that right now, our industry is throwing the dung at the stucco and seeing...
    At the moment, its PODCASTS and PERSONALIZED NEWS. Whatever the hell that means.
     
  6. Eagleboy

    Eagleboy Guest

    Can't stand 'em. If someone is going to listen to the radio, why listen to pre-recorded news from that morning? Just turn on the local station and listen to what's going on, or have the TV playing in the background. Better yet, if you're on the computer playing it like some people I know, you have to go to the Web site to download it. Why not just read the headlines instead of listening for something you want?

    I know of very few people who actually listen to them while they work out, walk somewhere, etc., and that seems to defeat the purpose to me.
     
  7. It's a way to stay relevant by being multimedia. Not a bad idea at all.
     
  8. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    I'm curious, though. Does anyone have an idea of what would be considered a large audience? On a major metro, are tens of thousands of people per day downloading a podcast? Or are we talking a couple hundred per podcast?
     
  9. Clever username

    Clever username Active Member

    I'm just glad I'm not alone on this. My paper, thinking that it just invented the internet, is pushing podcasts on us. They're also all about putting these crappy digital video cameras, about the size of an index card, in our hands and turning us into mindless tv tools.

    I simply don't see the news value in putting my unused quotes on the internet for no one to listen to. I didn't use them for a reason. Or perhaps I'm saving them for a sidebar, second-day follow or notebook.
     
  10. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    Great question, I'd love to see some real numbers to answer it. My old shop has gone ga-ga for podcasts and I don't get it either.
     
  11. lantaur

    lantaur Well-Known Member

    If they've registered it with iTunes, you can see the number of subsribers.
     
  12. GB-Hack

    GB-Hack Active Member

    I think when done well, they work well. My shop has run them for a while now, and the one's that work well are the roundtable discussions between two or more writers. If I were to do one, I would keep them to just one or two pressing topics, and ten minutes at the most for the whole thing. I think analysis works a lot better rather than news, and you could maybe even have short takes from a columnist/beat writer.
     
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