How Apple Will Change Everything About Podcasting

That’s the title of a series of posts being churned out by Rex Hammock as he applies his varied experience in magazine publishing, blogging and business to the nascent world of podcasting. I have a sort of visceral response to the notion that it takes a major company to legitimize new ideas and trends — Apple and podcasting, Yahoo and RSS, Google and blogging — but Hammock does a good job of showing why this particular move carries a lot of potential power. (Or, as he calls it, “mass mojo dust.”) He also adds a tremendous amount to the discussion about podcasting’s commercial potential. Some quick hits in extended comments but find the time to read it yourself; segments 4 and five are due in the next couple of days. (You’ll be able to track the whole series at the link we’ve provided.)


– “I believe the chances of an amateur, do-it-yourself podcaster striking it rich through podcasting — even if you’re lucky enough to get your podcast on iTunes — is about as remote as your chances of playing in the NBA.”
– “just imagine” when Apple turns its iconic ad producer on podcasting, when anyone can market a podcast or indie music via iTunes, when iTunes provides a directory of podcasts using the same kind of firepower it uses for music, when your average iTunes user gets one-stop access to podcasts.
– people will pay for a wide variety of content delivered as a podcast; they just won’t pay a fortune.
– Howard Stern could make an even bigger fortune through micropayments and podcasting if fans could pay for his product without having to subscribe to Sirius to get it. “But in the end, what is the better longterm deal for the Howard Stern franchise: $100 million from 4 million listeners paying 10 cents per day (the iTunes/podcasting model) or the X-factor number of listeners willing to paying 58 cents per day to generate the revenue necessary to make the Sirius business model work?”

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