I do agree with Ross. I still listen to some people who are in their basement but I have picked up more “pro” shows like CBC's vast offerings. Podcasting is and I think always will be a great place for “geeks” and amateurs to hang out in the fishbowl and talk about their interests. But I expect more now then I did 2 years ago, both from the shows I listen to and from my own show.

What I think is the “next explosive development cycle” for podcasting is to put the portable back into it. Its great that a person can subscribe on their computer and then it syncs to you music player but I want the computer out of the equation. We are close with the iphone/touch having itunes and wifi but no podcast support. We are close with the Zune having wifi sync capabilities but it needs a computer to live. Give me a computer free way to subscribe, download and update podcasts and I will give you my mother as a listener.

I do agree with Ross. I still listen to some people who are in their basement but I have picked up more “pro” shows like CBC’s vast offerings. Podcasting is and I think always will be a great place for “geeks” and amateurs to hang out in the fishbowl and talk about their interests. But I expect more now then I did 2 years ago, both from the shows I listen to and from my own show.

What I think is the “next explosive development cycle” for podcasting is to put the portable back into it. Its great that a person can subscribe on their computer and then it syncs to you music player but I want the computer out of the equation. We are close with the iphone/touch having itunes and wifi but no podcast support. We are close with the Zune having wifi sync capabilities but it needs a computer to live. Give me a computer free way to subscribe, download and update podcasts and I will give you my mother as a listener.

Everyone is putting them out, from NPR/BBC/CBC/etc. to Kevin Smith/Tom Green/Dave Foley/Radiohead/Thomas Dolby to ESPN/TSN to NBC/The Onion/National Geographic/HBO/CNN to New Yorker/Time and even XM radio. It’s no longer the voice of the people, it’s tool for the entertainment world.

The diversity is exciting for a listener but at the same time overwhelming. There is so much media available on demand now and if one isn’t held to ideals of “indie cred” they can afford to be more picky about which podcasts they listen to and yield much higher quality programming.

It’s now less appealing to start for the person in the basement and less appealing to hear the unestablished person in the basement when you’ve got pros out there giving you well produced content out of the gate. It can be daunting to “compete” with the “professionals”.

I’d rather play on the Wii or read a book or magazine these days when I have free time.

That said, I’ve also been surprised at all the folks who are prepared to pack it all up, move on, or just go silent for a bit. That’s not a judgement, just an observation, and one that makes me curious as to why — and one that I think is leading to the “podcasting is dead” conclusion for some. I much prefer the idea that we’re on the verge of some kind of course correction.

And although I really loved Neil Gorman’s presentation at PAB last year, there’s a part of me that truly believes that sometimes it’s good to buy a new toaster, and that we should look at podcasts as having a life span. When that life span is over, it’s time to move in a new direction. I’m already feeling that with Purl Diving — I’ve learned a lot doing it, but frankly, there’s only so much I can say about knitting without re-inventing the wheel, and I’m not terribly comfortable with the idea that who I am boils down to “knitter”, when in reality, it’s a small part of how I see myself.

One of the things I’ve been working on is finding ways to integrate different types of media — blog, audio, podcast, and some of the new tools that I know precious little about at this point, like Twitter and Udderz. I want to pull myself out of the radio-inspired podcast format, and really play with all these tools, and see what comes of it in the end. I doubt I’m setting anything new in motion here, as I’m the least likely candidate to be “cutting-edge”, but I do think it’s a format that takes the pressure off of producing a single podcast once a week with all the work that entails.

One of the marbles that’s been rolling around in my brain lately is the idea of community and creativity — that if we try to create in a vacuum, we end up burnt out, but if we reach out to others, work with others, *play* with others, even in small ways, we end up moving in directions we might never have thought of before.

Todd Tyrtle is playing with this idea, with his “talking stick” podcast idea, where a bunch of us just riff off each other on a topic. I’d like to see more of this happening, and I think it just might re-energize things.