Podcasting is a waste of time

Submitted by rernst on Thu, 01/10/2008 - 1:04pm

Podcasting is an even worse waste of time than vblogging is the podcast. Imagine a vblog, but without the ability to fast-forward and rewind with visual clues, where two thirds of the content is devoted to useless yammering (one third at the start, and one third at the end). Through in some (lots of!) grainy audio, and you have a podcast.

I'm given to understand that podcasts are popular with the crowd that spends half their lives in traffic, but I'm at a loss to understand why. Quite frankly, I'd rather listen to a grainy radio station full of bad music. Or, I could bring my own music. Or audio books. Or real books, if you're moving that slowly. If the content was written, I could read it in 5 minutes and not have to waste half an hour (or more) of my time. As an added plus, I might not fall asleep while reading it.

For podcasts that summarize their useful content in text form on the postcast episode page: I have to ask.... why produce the podcast in the first place?

Comments

Submitted by wyn (not verified) on Thu, 01/10/2008 - 8:13pm.

With blogging, vlogging, and podcasting, amateurs can self-publish and self-broadcast. Just like with blogs, a great deal of vlogs and podcasts are lacking in content. For some reason, it grates more on my nerves when vlogs and podcasts are not polished or professional - as such, I only listen to podcasts from the likes of Science, CBC, or BBC. I find it easiest to flip through blogs, actually, for the meaty pieces. It is, as you say, more difficult with the other two media.

Submitted by ws (not verified) on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 5:17am.

existing publishers generally have higher-quality stuff, I agree. However, some TV shows remind me of podcasts: 'Daily Planet' on discovery is the big culprit.

What I don't understand is why they don't cut out the crap in post-production. Maybe that's an indication of how much content there really is. Honestly, I'd rather read transcripts.

Submitted by ShadowLife » Archive » Talking Head Video (not verified) on Fri, 01/18/2008 - 2:34pm.

[...] go along with my previous posts on non-text web media: Why podcasting is a waste of time and Video blogging also being a waste of time I thought I’d cover this topic, which is almost [...]

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