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I attended a seminar in Toronto on March 19 that devoted a segment to podcasting. The seminar was called Social Media Marketing + Web 2.0 and was sponsored by IAB Canada.

Podcasting is undoubtledly popular but I question if it really is part of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 includes social networking, online collaboration, collective intelligence and consumer generated content. What these elements have in common is some aspect of two-way communication and user customization.

According to O’Reilly DigitalMedia, with podcasting “You publish selected audio files via the internet and allow your users to subscribe via an RSS feed to automatically receive new files. Podcasting lets you create your own syndicated online talkshow or radio program, with content of your choosing.”

On the surface it looks like the audio equivalent of the old-fashioned Web 1.0 Web page.

Podcasting has become popular because of

• the widespread adoption of iPods and similar portable listening devices
• the availability of cheap recording devices that provide near broadcast-quality sound
• easy-to-use audio editing software.

Beyond the technology, podcasting has many drawbacks that make its popularity a bit unexpected.

• It takes many times longer to listen to a podcast that to read the same number of words on a Web page.
• The files are large by Web standards and people have to spend time to download the files before they listen to them
• The public-speaking skills required for a good podcast are much greater than the skills to create a good Web page.
• A listener can’t cut and paste an interesting segment of a podcast to send to someone else
• There are no images to illustrate the topic the way there are on a Web page.
• Once a podcast is created, it can’t be updated as events change like a Web page.

More to the point, where is the interactivity and customization that is the hallmark of Web 2.0? Podcasts are distributed by RSS feeds, which gives the consumer a little choice in content and scheduling, but beyond that convenience, it is no more interactive than a radio broadcast.

Still, radio has survived and podcasting may ultimately find the same niche that radio has. It is something you can listen to while doing something else. In fact, you can imagine that podcasting could become the final blow to radio.

But there’s also reason to think that once the novelty wears off, podcasting will have mostly a cult following. And whatever its ultimate niche, surely it will be supplanted by the video equivalent, known as a vodcasting. However, even vodcasting is no more Web 2.0 compliant than podcasts. The fact that both are attracting a lot of attention suggests that there’s life in Web 1.0 yet.

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