Podcasting

Brief predictions ( or 20 minutes into the F F f f  F ut ur re e)

Can you really tack on a podcast to business as usual?   Let's walk over to Starbucks   who have received a roasting over their foray into podcasting.  If you have the resources to buy  airtime, sponsor a radio channel then why recreate this for the mobile audience?   Talking about coffee seemed like the least imaginative way to go.  (  The coffee's not that good imho and there's a kick ass slam poem by   a Phoenix local ( Tabor) that  successfully compares it to airline coffee that I wish I could locate)  Then again anything I can get on an airline these days that isn't East German style security  is welcome so in context the coffee is fine which bring's me back to Starbucks.  The coffee is  good enough,  for crying out loud it's a liquid McDonalds that feels more grown up than a cup with the word "JOE"  in large type on it.   Suggest they just turn up with  recording gear and mics in  Starbucks across the states weekly and  let the customers/ staff at it.  Edit it together .. oh look   cheap, natural and connected to the experience they sell you.  Never work  of course ,people may, you know, be people and that's messy.   

Mobile podcasting: more randomness.

 I've been looking to replace my phone ( and failing) with a more up to date device, trying to find a compelling service that doesn't extract  a monthly fee akin to just buying a full out broadband card and using Vonage ( ok  it's a real pain to stick a laptop on your hip  but mostly the solutions don't add up financially. ( ie it's not worth it to me to spend $300 more on a phone to do less than an Ipod  just to avoid carrying the extra 1.41 Oz) 

Most devices do not have enough memory for it to be your media player.

Pain on the plane, it looks like a cellphone after all. 

Ideally some transcoding is going to need to take place, MP3 is too large and codecs in most phones suck ass for anything other than speech

Acquisition is painfully slow / data charges painfully high  and nearly all the "media phones" are tied by carrier in the content and the services they offer. When they do offer the ability to obtain podcasts it's still usually though a partner site and don't be too shocked that this is a separate charge) 

While inbuilt wifi rocks  but in practice there's too many competing  companies that would like you to have their account for it to be useful. 

Control would likely kill it. User content meets yet another federally controlled space that "children" use there's  not a lot of competition possible.   Scott Adams' phrase "confusopoly"  which he defined as

"a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price".

Seems to be the business model de jour.

Bluetooth Podcasts.

An idea that probably exists  and if not , should. ( so I Google it ,damn, seemed to obvious to not exist)  While plans that shunt piles of data around  are still in the minority, and expensive relatively why don't we look into using bluetooth more as the carrier for localized ( store, mall, event) delivery?  

 I wear two hats. The part that hates being "sold" and the part that loves to buy.  That I can't  wheel up to the mall,    bring out my PDA and have all the malls floor plan, events and offers open to me it just seems that we're bent on emulating brute force numbers marketing ( socio economic  rather than addressing those that actually want it and want to talk to you.

Random thought:

Why does the Apple story have an offer for a $70  AV program ? Maybe they don't watch their ads?