In podcasting, the voices began with Dave Winer, whose Morning Coffee Notes were among the first to be delivered via RSS. On his first program, from August 12, 2004, Winer related his ideas about blogging and journalism, beginning with a story of hellish travels:
"Good afternoon, everybody. This is your friend, Dave, calling in… checking in from New York, where it's hot and humid. You can tell that, you can hear the sound of the air conditioner in the background, probably. Had a very eventful trip across the country yesterday…."
Winer's podcasts allowed him to evangelize the technology itself. As one of the creators of RSS, he was interested in finding other uses for the XML (Extensible Markup Language) syndication format that let bloggers offer subscription services of their text feeds. Podcasting became its own best marketing in Winer's hands, as well as those of former MTV VJ Adam Curry, who introduced his Daily Source Code program on August 13, 2004.
Unfortunately, the early episodes of Daily Source Code are no longer available on the Web, but the show combined Curry's patter with his favorite independent music and "mash-ups" of popular music that he made himself. Curry's promotion of other podcasters was critical to the evolution of the medium, because he became one of the most reliable sources, in the early days, of new podcasts.
Fairly soon, several podcast indices offered links to new podcasts, which gave rise to what can only be called "surprising" new programs. Out of those lists, early "stars" rose. Dave Slusher, who'd done some radio in school and performed computer programming services in South Carolina for a living, was among the first to grab a loyal audience.
Slusher riffs in his program, Evil Genius Chronicles, about his day, the news, culture, technology, and coding over a music track. The effect he was aiming for was similar to National Public Radio's This American Life, but what he created was uniquely Dave Slusher. What did it do for Slusher? His Evil Genius Chronicles podcast became a source of revenue from sponsors and the sale of a small collection of Evil Genius t-shirts, as well as advertising revenue from his blog, which saw more traffic. The show also made people aware of his coding skills, bringing him consulting work and, basically, making his effort to earn a living more flexible than he dreamed it could be.
The podcast is, for most people, another piece in a complex puzzle that makes an economic life possible. But it won't always be so.
Dawn Miceli and Drew Domkus, a married couple living on a shuttered dairy farm in Wisconsin, launched a funny, truthful show about marriage — their marriage and everyone else's — that combined banter and sex, sometimes recorded for The Dawn and Drew Show (see Figure 1.2). Dawn and Drew became some of the first to "go pro" as podcasters, earning their living on podcasting after a year "on the air." Their show is sponsored, and they won a slot on Sirius Satellite Radio. The couple has become something like celebrities, but not quite so full of bull as most of what passes for celebrity, because it is not manufactured but captured in sound.
Podcasting's history is evaporating as quickly as storage limits for hosting accounts fill up. We can't tell you what Adam Curry said, because there's no copy of the file accessible through any links exposed by Google and other search engines. Podcasters are often forced to purge their archives to keep their costs low, yet all these older programs make up the "long tail," the vast catalog of content that can serve the incredibly diverse interests of listeners for many years, but only if the programs remain available. What made the long tail interesting in the first place was the notion that at a site like iTunes or Amazon, which make available titles that couldn't be stocked in a retail store on CD or on shelves, was the fact that almost every title would sell in a year.
The problem podcasting has is a shortage of storage, which organizations like The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) and Our Media (http://www.ourmedia.org/) are seeking to ameliorate by providing free storage to content that can be freely reused.
However, podcasters have to know to go to these sites and upload their programs, and if they want to protect the content, they are left on their own. In the former case, society loses out, and in the latter, audiences and producers lose. As podcasting matures, a full range of business and sharing models will be needed to preserve the creative efforts of so many people.
That's not to say that Dawn and Drew are a success because they make money. Rather, they would probably be doing this show anyway, because the stories, the bickering, the funny criticisms and witticisms seem to flow out of these two. They exemplify the kind of honest passion that can be captured by a microphone and find an audience.
Anyone can build a business on this technology, but it still takes talent and a kind of excitement that makes producing a show thrilling every time the mic goes live. Another couple, Rob and Dana Greenlee, created WebTalk Radio long before podcasting came along, migrating to the new distribution technology when it swept away streaming as the preferred way to get audio over the Internet. Dana Greenlee says the problem is that after years, you start to think about producing as "time to make doughnuts, oh well." Indeed, Wired Magazine wrote about "podfading," the tendency for programs to disappear as producers lose interest. Keeping the excitement in a podcast is critical, whether you're going to deliver it to the world or to a small group.
But the Greenlees have enjoyed many rewards for their efforts, including executive jobs won by Rob and Dana's becoming the first podcaster for CBS Television, where she produced shows about the Fall 2005 television shows offered by CBS. Their podcasts were far less expensive than the radio program they'd previously produced, since they no longer had to pay for airtime on local stations, and their audience was dramatically expanded both geographically and in size by the move to downloadable audio.
Performers have shown the way to success, as well. Robby Gervais, star of the BBC's The Office, launched his podcast with friends Steve Merchant and (the astonishingly funny) Karl Pilkington (see Figure 1.3). The first "season," when it was hosted by the Guardian Unlimited, a Londonbased online newspaper site, achieved a huge audience, as many as 250,000 per episode, more than most cable channels can expect.
The show is funny and is clearly a performance, for no one can be quite as dense as Karl Pilkington pretends to be. Gervais, an accomplished actor and comedian, took his experience in radio to podcasting, building a show on quick transitions between conversational segments, very like radio. For these guys, who have worked together in media for years, the performance is natural. They've practiced their enthusiasm as their work and their natural humor shines through.
Gervais broke new ground when he partnered with Audible Inc. to offer the first subscription podcast, The Ricky Gervais Show, charging $6.95 for six shows, which is now in its third "season." The podcast also reinforces his relationship with fans and is just part of the total Gervais package.
Journalists, too, have made the transition to podcasting. Since the podcasting world began in and amidst technology, it was natural that some of the most successful podcasts would be about technology. This Week in Technology, or TWiT, hosted by Leo LaPorte, a radio and television host for many years, is a well-sponsored program that provides technology news and reviews, often in front of a live audience at retail locations and conferences, a kind of Tonight Show that makes obsolescence fun (finding new stuff to buy is entertainment). LaPorte manages to turn almost everything he does into a podcast, offering a variety of specialized programs, such as Inside the Net, that serve parts of his audience.
A news background trains the mind to make use of so many parts of every recording and experience, because news is made on a strict budget — now more than ever.
The last area where podcasting has just started to take hold is in business, where a budget is appreciated too. As a medium, podcasts enjoy a special quality of taking little time to produce. Podcasts are a natural for marketing and engaging customers in discussion about a company's products and services. With less than two years behind it, podcasting hasn't provided the business world enough examples of success to make it a major movement, but like the Web, television, and radio before, it will happen.
Corporate podcasts might be marketing vehicles, and companies certainly will find a way to sponsor audio delivered via RSS and download. Advertisers have begun making noise about the millions, even billions, they want to put behind new programs. Think, though, about how simple it is today to start your relationship with customers. From a local nursery that prints the URL for its podcast about gardening on its sales receipts to chains that distribute fliers at retail outlets advertising a contest that, like American Idol, brings the voice of the customer to the world through a podcast, the possibilities for programming are endless.
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