The first comment to this post is particularly interesting. DocWho76 makes several excellent points, all of which I agree with. Om Malik’s Broadband Blog � Thanks to Steve Jobs, Podcasts Are The New Black Steve Jobs says his iTunes 4.9…

I’d listen to your podcast. We’ve had thousands of downloads of the show you did with us late last year.

But it most clearly *IS* the most overrated, overhyped faux-nomenon on the internet since I-dont-know-when. It’s not going to explode. It’s not going to make many people rich. It’s not going to dramatically change the world. It’s just another way people will be replacing their traditional radio-listening… along with live streams, satellite radio, and other things.

So let’s enjoy podcasting for what it is instead of building it up into something that it’s not.

Time is the only true scarce resource, and I can read 10-100x as much info as I can listen to, so basically podcasting is a waste of our time.

I think these podcasting people have lost their minds.

This is the same kind of mental vaporlock that affects corporate america to dreamup stupid M&A. The fallacy starts with, Blogs sure are easy to do (because, well I’m a technology moron and I’ve got a blog…), and then these people EXTRAPOLATE, that since blogging is easy and pretty cool, what else is easy for me to do? Hmm, I can talk, been doing it my whole life, etc…

Its all downhill from there.

My rule of thumb is that if you are big into podcasting, then you should be avoided because you are somebody who can’t manage what really counts. Time.

PS. Om, please file podcasting under “just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.”

People can build amazing blogs in StarBucks on Pentium 2 laptops. Recording and editing a radio broadcast requires more equipment, more time and more skill.

Even with the right tools and knowledge you’re still limited by poor acoustics and voices.

While the web is a fairly even playing-field, which enables individuals to produce amazing websites and blogs, competing with comercial audio production facilities is almost impossible.

Unless people start deciding they like low budget better than high budget, podcasts will remain a niche, or the preserve of people and groups who have the budget to record them well.

1. You have to already be hooked into the blogosphere to even know who is doing podcasts

2. Podcasts are not indexable within the podcast itself (i.e. jump points to certain segments) as of yet.

3. How would I search for a podcast that interested me? With radio I know what format a station plays I can have some idea of what I am going to hear when I tune it.

4. Most people doing podcasts I havent heard of, people like to get news and content from people they know or at least think they can trust. The most popular podcasts I know of typically come from people who had previous standard media exposure (think the guys from The Screen Savers on Tech TV)

5. Content on podcasts has a tendency to parrot what I already get by reading a blog or newsfeed from Google, AP, Yahoo, etc. And it takes longer to listen to the podcast then to read the pertinent news.

Just my .07