Saturday, October 23, 2004

"Lights Go On, Some Stay Dim" -- Dave Slusher

Dave Slusher takes on the podcast naysayers in this post on his blog. Hit a couple of nails squarely on the head, in particular in the last paragraph.

See, a while back, when I had an hour commute, I got frustrated by a couple of things. I wanted to listen to a talk radio show, but it's on during the day. NPR's ATC and Morning Edition had (IMO) a low signal-to-noise ratio, and much of the noise was very annoying, biased noise as well. And Marketplace is a show that I'd listen to most days, except that it comes on when I was getting out of my car at home. After a while, I just turned it off and gave up on radio. I was not well served.

Fast forward to today. Over the past couple of weeks, I've stopped dashing out the door at 5pm to avoid as much traffic as possible. I've taken longer routes home. I've sat in my car after arriving at both home and work. Why? To have more time to listen to podcasts. Drive time is podcast time, and it's become enjoyable. I've just given 2-weeks notice, and will be going back to an hour-plus commute (more on this shortly, I assure you), and I can't wait. I've got 40+ hours of content queued up and waiting, and it's stuff I want to listen to. I'm well served.

I've even taken to emailing a number of shows (on NPR/MPR/APR/etc.) and suggesting that they get to podcasting. It's stuff I want to hear, but on my terms. I can't wait until they join the fray, and I'm increasingly confident that they will. And my ears won't be hearing them until they do.

Anyway, I continue to be really, really excited about this brave, new world, and can't wait to see what comes of it. Go, podcasters!

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