More Talk, Less Rock

Wow do I ever hate the idea of bloggers podcasting. Mostly because of the technology adoption curve. Think about it, the first people who blogged were people who knew enough about web technology to do it, and who felt enough need to have an audience that they put in the effort to build their own blogging software. And what did these avant-garde people talk about? Computers and the Internet, but that was only because they hadn't come up with a word to describe themselves specifically yet. Then someone came up with 'web log', shortened it to something buzzword-worthy and boom, a whole group of dullards instantly became sentient as ego balloons began to inflate.

Soon we would hear about how 'blogging would change everything'. Now, given that the medium is the message, what is the message of self-aware bloggers? Short attention spans and navel-gazing would be my assessment.

Now, just imagine one whole other of your five senses being pounded by someone else's inner dialog and you've got podcasting, the next digital revolution, they say. "they" refers, of course, to the people who blog and podcast about podcasting.

It will only be when the technology to record and host audio content is easy and banal enough that anyone who is more interested in something other than being the latest guy in on some tech trend can do it without a second thought that there will be a chance that someone will have created an interesting podcast. Note that I didn't say "that podcasting will become interesting", because Sturgeon's Law will always apply. (90% of everything is crap). Right now 10% non-crap level is a pipedream. It's more of an asymptotic curve.

Staying Humble moment: I wrote this after having the thought that maybe I should try doing this podcasting stuff. I immediately felt dirty and as a penance for even considering inflicting my self-aware prattling on the world I forced myself to ridicule the very idea I was previously flirting with so publicly and fiercely that it would prevent me from ever doing it again.