Season One - What's the Deal with Video Podcasts?
October 01, 2021
Podcast Home
Podcasts
are everywhere these days! There’s countless podcasts representing
countless subjects and providing something to serve countless interests.
And with this ubiquity of podcasting, there is also an unspoken
assumption that we all know what podcasts are and how we consume
them—that is, we all know that podcasts are things we listen to, right?
But
it doesn’t necessarily have to be like this! Audio podcasts just happen
to be the most popular form of the medium, but there are other possible
formats as well. In fact, in the mid- to late-2000s there was the
possibility that the “future of podcasting” would arrive in the form of
video podcasts. Apple promoted video podcast capabilities on their newly
video capable iPods, the new iPhone, and as the natural extension of
their recently revamped iTunes Music Store – now just the iTunes Store.
But
video podcasts never really took off. Though we have an astounding
amount of video content available in today’s internet, podcasting
remains wholly separate. Why is that? What were video podcasts? What
could they have become? And why did they ultimately fail? Over the next
few episodes—most audio, but some video, and maybe even some in other
experimental formats—I’ll dig into those questions, and more. I’ll look
through promotional materials from the time to see how video podcasts
were described. And then I’ll try and recreate the experience of
mid-2000s video podcasts with what I’m calling a “technological
reenactment.”
December 13, 2021
In
this final episode of Season One, I try to wrap up my discussion of the
video podcasts and talk a bit about the future of podcasts more
broadly. Despite my best efforts to keep us exploring the area besidethe
rabbit hole and not go too deep into it, it seems like we inadvertently
ended up there anyway. So in this last episode I try to walk us back up
to the surface by talking back over my experience of producing a video
podcast and finally by considering Spotify’s recently announced video
feature.
Read More...December 11, 2021
This
episode continues my exploration of why it is that the video podcast
has generally failed to take off in popularity. Even as technology has
improved, podcasts remain a distinctly audio phenomenon. Perhaps this is
because of some fundamental characteristic of podcast that makes them
better suited for audio. I call this characteristic the “podcast-iness”
of podcasts.
Read More...November 27, 2021
This
episode continues my exploration of why it is that the video podcast
has generally failed to take off in popularity. Even as technology has
improved, podcasts remain a distinctly audio phenomenon. Perhaps this is
because of some fundamental characteristic of podcast that makes them
better suited for audio. I call this characteristic the “podcast-iness”
of podcasts.
Read More...November 1, 2021
Podcasts
are everywhere these days! There’s countless podcasts representing
countless subjects and providing something to serve countless interests.
And with this ubiquity of podcasting, there is also an unspoken
assumption that we all know what podcasts are and how we consume
them—that is, we all know that podcasts are things we listen to, right?
Well, not necessarily...
Read More...October 29, 2021
Podcasts
are everywhere these days! There’s countless podcasts representing
countless subjects and providing something to serve countless interests.
And with this ubiquity of podcasting, there is also an unspoken
assumption that we all know what podcasts are and how we consume
them—that is, we all know that podcasts are things we listen to, right?
Well, not necessarily...
Read More...
