Podcasting

This morning, NPR Morning Edition broadcast an interview with podcaster Rob Walch who manages podcast411, a website explaining, among many topics, who is podcasting, how to podcast, the basics of podcasts for consumers including "Flashing 12s."

This morning's discussion focused on whether money is to be made in podcasting.  The short answer is, no, not at this time for podcasters, but yes for those who provide the technology and publishing mechanisms for those podcasts.

How does this relate to digital history?  The top four podcasts, rated by hits, are educational.  As an example, the NPR story cited the highly-popular feed by Podcast Peer Award 2007 Finalist, Grammar Girl who recently discussed semicolons. Not usually a heart-stopper. Walsh pointed out that the broadcast made a dry subject interesting without sacrificing substance.  So we are back to design, or "packaging."  While we've recently discussed visual presentation, audio--soundtrack, lively scripts, etcetera--is a presentation element as well. 

Many museums already disseminate material through podcasts: Monticello is an excellent example of a variety of materials and approaches.  It seems to me, on first thoughts anyway, that podcasts offer another portal for disseminating "good" history and another gatekeeping methodology for quality control.  (Walch's website, by-the-way, categorizes 31 podcasts under history, some of which academic historians would undoubtedly question.)

Help, please:  I am having trouble with CSS in multiple browsers. I have clearly missed some basic information about how to negotiate this.  Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[Bill]

I'm glad you're speaking up for podcasting. I've caught some great stories on NPR, which related to courses I'm teaching. So to give it a try, I assigned a few of the podcasts and included links in my class blogsite. I have no idea how they can make money, but am glad they're out there. I'm almost ready top buy an MP-3 player so I can cart around studio 360 and This American Life.

[Chris King]

Lee Ann -- Podcasting was a buzz word in the Adult Learning arena at the beginning of last year, but now it is already an accepted medium for delivering content in a "training" context. The trick (you knew there was one, didn't you?) is that it makes for effective learning only with certain content. Whereas a 40 minute lecture is probably not the best use of a podcast, a 10 minute sidebar about a topic briefly discussed in that lecture is an excellent way to supplement the learning. Interviews are also an excellent choice for podcasting. I think the Monticello podcast site is an excellent choice to emulate with their wide variety of topics and short(er) program lengths.