Yesterday I wrote a short admonition about podcasts that tell you about the experiences and feelings of experts who I don't know. #
Andy Weissman suggests that it might be the unlimited length of podcasts that encourages people to go on and on. I'm sure that's part of it. I also think producers aren't listening to their own podcasts, so aren't aware of how poorly these indefinite ramblings about nothing go over. #
The other day I was on a walk in the country, bundled up with three layers covering everything including my head and the new AirPods. I was walking basically inside a podcast pillow. I choose the podcast I'll listen to before I get all bundled up. This walk, I wanted to learn all about the pandemic from a reporter who had been covering nothing else for a year. I had been reading his articles. But the interviewer wanted to know about about the author's personal feelings about the pandemic. I went with it for five minutes, they were still talking about the author's feelings, so I tried another podcast. Same thing! And another. The topics were all interesting to me. But they took forever to get going. #
Finally I hit on a BBC podcast about the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 60s and 70s, which I was fascinated by as a kid. I got what I wanted, I learned something, but I'm sure there was good stuff in the podcasts I skipped. #
There are rules about this medium. It's not a joke -- it's for real and it looks like it's going to be here for a while. So we should be thinking about how to do the best possible podcast for people who are really interested in the depth the podcast medium offers that isn't available elsewhere.#
PS: Sanford Dickert, a friend from the Kerry campaign and the first BloggerCon, does a daily thing on Facebook live video, riding a bike around London. I just kind of interviewed him, while he was riding, me on the keyboard, him on video and voice. I realized his is a podcast that's totally about how he's feeling, and of course it's interesting because he's interesting. So that's an obvious exception. #
Last update: Saturday January 2, 2021; 10:52 AM EST.
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