podcasting

During the last few weeks I heard a lot about the near end of podcasts. For example reported Jason van Orden in his Show Podcast Underground in the episode Why are people saying podcasting is dead about the closure of the Yahoo Podcast Directory and a decreasing importance of podcasts at the last New Media Expo in Ontario, California. Doris Hammerschmidt, host of the German Podcast Journal had different interviews in her show about this topic for example the end of the German Podcast Club and as a consequence of this the withdraw of the German Podcast Award in 2007.

But on the other side I find more and more really good podcasts! I spend about two hours a day in public transportation and the time is going to be too short with all this good stuff to hear. I don’t think that podacasts are a mass phenomenon like blogs because of the differences in the production. It’s technically easy but you have to have a good concept and better content for producing it. A quick and dirty produced podcast will never find its audience.

Another question is how podcast will develop in the future. Cornelius Fichtner, Chris Holohan and Shawn Futterer – all three are providers of high quality shows in the area of project management – are discussing it in one of the last shows from pm411.org (Project Management Web Ressources). All of them are agreeing that videocasting isn’t the next step in evolution, it’s simply an own medium. I’m pretty sure that podcasts will exist in the next years like they are now. For passionated people they are simple to produce with a reasonable budget. And for the users are so many opportunities hearing them. Spending a lot of time in public transportation or doing sports like running long distances – like I do – are only two to mention. By the way, podcasts are a great way to promote yourself or your business.

At the end I will give you list of my favorite shows. Except one they are all in English because I use podcasts for improving my language skills. I think, all of them extraordinary well produced and provide lots of good content.

1. I start with the exception, the Podcast Journal with Doris Hammerschmidt as the host . It’s a show about the podcasting scene in Germany. This one is the one in German language.
2. The podcast I’ve got hooked on from the beginning in 2005 is Cornelius Fichtner’s ThePMPodcast. Whoever is interested in project management as a profession can try Controlling Chaos from Dina Scott and pm411.org from Ron Holohan as well.
3. I think I can say that this show is my absolutely favorite for a long time: The Words Nerds from Washington DC with everthing about words and language ” … and why we say the things we do”. For all of you who are interested in learning English this is a MUST, but a very entertaining one.
4. The two shows from Jason von Orden: The Podcast Underground and the Internet Business Mastery he produces together with Sterling Frandsen. If you are somewhere in the online marketing business you get a lot of usefull information from these two productions.
5. This is the only one related to virtual Worlds: the Virtual Words BusinessCast. It contains normaly interviews with people who are running a business in or somehow related to virtual worlds like Second Life.
6. I found this podcasts recently via the website of the New Media Expo which takes place at different places in the US. The podcasts I found there was Tips From The Top Floor the Up To The Top Floor. Both shows from a Geman – Christoph Marquardt from Tübingen – produced in English mainly about digital photography. He got awards for his well produced show two years in a row at the New Media Expo.

Whoever says that podcasting is dead should hear some of this shows!