So this post from Pitpundit came across my radar today and got me a little riled up. Yeah yeah yeah, the obvious debate between Podcasting vs. Satellite Radio has been brought up before (ad-nauseum in some opinions), but Pitpundit’s take is that Podcasting is “superior” to Satellite Radio.
The key reason? “…people prefer to compile their own programming and then consume it when it is convenient.”
Uhhh, right, but how is it that Satellite Radio isn’t capable of doing that? That’s all in the interface. Once all of Satellite’s time-shifting capabilities are ironed out (and they will be soon), you’ve got effortless customization. Podcasting’s benefit isn’t being able to compile programming - but rather to listen to highly targeted content that you wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere.
The way I see it, Podcasting and Satellite aren’t competing. They have a common enemy - Big Radio. We need Satellite Podcasting to exist for the two to really have an impact. To cover micro-markets and mass-markets. I love many Podcasts, while others are like shrapnel to my ears. What I really want is the ease of use that Satellite provides, with true customability. I don’t want hours of preselected Podcasts like Adam Curry’s show (though I understand what he’s trying to do, and it’s a step in the right direction), because it’s not targeted to ME. The Audible/XM deal is getting close, though I’m curious about the interface and the personable micro-market content isn’t there.
No, what we need to stop comparing Podcasting and Satellite, and instead combine the two. Create an interface that allows a Satellite Radio subscriber to select their own individual Podcasts through a single dedicated channel that is stored in the receiver’s memory. When the Podcast is updated, boom, it gets downloaded wherever you are. Nice. And when I want to listen to infinite amounts of music I can just turn the dial. Beautiful. Mass and micro from a simple interface anywhere I go - that’s what I want.
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