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Yes, I think podcasts are useful in fact, I think podcasting can be an extremely useful mechanism for relaying a message, point, story or event.

I found a post on podcasting being dead or alive through one of Eve’s blogs. I must say I immediately sprang to blog about it because I recently made use of podcasting as a citizen journalism media.

Admittedly I focus much of my thought around social media and web 2.0 on how it affects the mass media on the whole and how the “little person” or Citizen Journalist can benefit from the trends emerging at the moment.

Early Adoption failed me

Podcasting really caught my attention and I tried my hand at it on SA Rocks and the RocksCast. Must like Dave and Mike with their Amplitude, SA RocksCast died.

I think that I tried to jump on the bandwagon and appear to be an “early adopter” with my attempt at podcasting. I didn’t really grasp the media platform itself nor fully understand how to market or create these podcasts effectively. So it died a quick death.

Vincent Maher and I also tried our hand at a podcasting targeting the local sphere. Flamebait was short lived because we were a bit zealous in our approach to the content and it was shot down by editorial staff. Oh well. Needless to say the actual media itself still intrigues me.

So are podcasts dead? No, I don’t think so. Taly Weiss brings up a good point regarding the technology behind podcasting. If it is there then podcasting itself is not dead. In other words, if we have iPods and media players that are capable of storing and playing back podcasts then the media is not dead. But that isn’t really always true. I still have a VHS player, that doesn’t mean that VHS isn’t dead, it is. And if you think it isn’t, trust me it’s on the way to the grave.

Podcasting and Citizen Journalism

While on a mission at the Million Man March this year I discovered that one doesn’t need to consistently make use of a specific type of media for it to be effective.

While making use of various platforms to update people about the event I was asked to do a podcast interview over the phone for The Times. What a great idea. One of their journalists called me and did a short (one or two minute) interview with me about the event.

This proved to be a very effective means to get my message across. Yes it was for a big media organisation so that helped ofcourse. But the essence of that instance made sense to me. Why do we have to produce a podcast every week, month, day etc etc. When all that is really needed is an event or story to make a great podcast.

Grassroots media or citizen journalists can really produce viable content for their websites over the phone with simple technology. Use a digital dictaphone, if fact, use the recorder on your cell phone, make sure you are succinct in your 3 minutes and publish it as is.

Rally your media around events, don’t make an event out of your media.

Lately my chat client has become somewhat of a business, social, friend, acquaintance network.

I’ve been contacted by friends, business associates, potential colleagues, colleagues, family, bloggers, writers, journalists and marketing people via my Instant Message.

This is made all the simpler when I’m using my Macbook Pro as I use Adium which pulls in most of my IM accounts in to one simple to use application.

I am not stating that Facebook is dead, MySpace is a goner or that Blueworld is history. What I am stating is that I am in control of my IM and I like it.

I like that I am not obligated to talk to people, and there are a lot of people, on my IM client. I can set my status to “Buggeroffleavemealoneorillthrowsomethingatyou” and people laugh. I also love the integration between my twitter client, Twhirl and my IM client.

What integration? None technologically. But person to person IM and twitter work fantastically together. I post something on twitter, vague, true, false, rumour or opinion and within minutes I have 5 people on instant message asking me about it. I then choose whether or not to engage, how long the conversations last and that’s that.

I know that traditional social networks allow for this scope of choice; whether one is available or not. But for some reason it just seems different when it’s more personal, more instant and over messaging only.

I don’t want to see how many friends this person has, how many pictures they’ve been tagged in what zombie ate them or what groups they have joined. I want to know they are either available, away or unavailable. Select the person to talk to, discuss, get in and get out.

IM allows me to do this on my terms and think I like that.

Bored. That is what us bloggers must be. Why? Because we seem to be so preoccupied recently (a phenomenon that has coincided with some interesting arrivals of late) with who is who and doing what and how often in our wondrously massive local blogging community.

Those who are mentioned “seem to not care” but care enough to blog about themselves being blogged about. I have been mentioned a fair amount and I am now partaking in my own condemnation (oh the irony). I am blogging about blogs by bloggers on blogging and bloggers and who’s the bestest of the best and whose daddy is bigger than whose mommy and who has the nicest fanciest shmanciest housiest home or rather, blog, and who is more influential than who and how often they influence those that influence others.

Can I just chime in here and say that I actually think it’s a load of rubbish. In spite of my participation in Mandy’s “Top Ten bloggers” post over at MoneyWeb I honestly think it’s irrelevant. Mandy asked on twitter yesterday: “Who has more influece?” and listed three bloggers for others to compare. Link. Bait. It’s link baiting. Not journalism. It’s irrelevant in my opinion (and only in my opinion). What does matter is that its time we refocus our energy on relevant content for the every day reader. Not the bloggers who blog about blogging.

Has content become so drab and non existent that we have turned to each other, looked one another in the blog and decided that we are the only content relevant enough to blog about? Are you kidding me?

I reiterate that I grasp the fact that I am doing the same thing right now that I am condemning, do not point it out in the comments, I get it, I know that I am doing it but occasionally it is unavoidable.

What I am getting at is that people like to stir the pot, we like to back rub, we like to have our backs rubbed, we all do and we all know it, we just can’t help ourselves. It’s the old adage that people like to see themselves on TV, look at America’s Funniest Home Videos. That show has never gone away and it’s because there are regular people focusing on people like themselves. That doesn’t make it good content though. It just makes it long-lasting.

Maybe it’s time I shift my focus to writing for readers, not bloggers. Writing for people and writing about things that people like to read. In my opinion readers don’t like to read about bloggers blogging about blogs and other bloggers egos and ranks and pages and pageranks and technorati and lists and links… see I’m bored already.

Facebook’s “notes” feature has possibly created an entirely new faction of bloggers who have no idea that they are self publishers and by default, bloggers.

I can only imagine that by the sheer number of South Africans that are using Facebook (over 700 000) and are actually writing innocent “notes”, well outnumber us “real bloggers”.

Furthermore, if on average let’s guestimate that these “note bloggers” have +-250 friends and that each note is being read, or at least viewed by half of these people. Imagine if every article you wrote on your blog was read by between 100 and 300 people. You’d have a thriving “real blog”.

“Note blogger” vs “Real blogger” - what’s your poison?