Podcasting is the New Voicemail
Hi there! I can only get to the phone right now, but wanted to leave you a message after this beep. Podcasting is the new voicemail. Soon it will be one of the simplest ways to communicate with groups. This is Ross Mayfield, and that's all I've got to say.
This week Odeo lassoed it's beta users with podcasting usable enough for many of the masses. The gang is putting the band back together and iTunes is about to bake in podcasting. It's a good time point to where podcasting may be going. At least so I can claim I invented it later.
First, let's admit that podcasting generally sucks. It sucks time to produce and consume. The attention economy demands we trend towards four casting models:
• Validated Hits that exhibit preferential attachment
• Social discovery where validation is recommendation
• Deep linking and discovery to overcome time-based media
• Group voicemail
At Supernova, Linda Stone went beyond explaining her concept of continuous partial attention to suggest that in such an overloaded world, value will shift to shared experiences with dedicated attention. This would be mostly true if it weren't for our newly discovered power to participate in the Power Tail and rise to the Fat Head. One powerful social incentive is stardom, which the Odeo disco taps into nicely.
The podcasting genre is certainly too early to define. But when blogging, stereotyping is akin to metaphor, so what the heck. Podcasting does enable amateurs to produce and distribute at low cost (except time, ack!). Generally this means that lots of content will suck. Remixing takes time and a bit of talent, and the masses are not that talented. But most everyone can talk, desires to and can use a phone.
Podcasting is the new voicemail. Today you cast to your friends by leaving them silly, stupid or great messages -- one at a time. Just like blogging, not everyone will podcast for the public. It's too fucking weird! But, when given the comfort zone of one or two degrees of separation -- they just might. LJ for VM. The phone and it's VoIP incantations will be the interface of choice. Uploaders will evolve into clients as caches with the dynamism of web clients. iTunes and iPod will have to join the two-way web. You will cast audio messages to your groups, they will listen when convenient, and social signals will help you find your deeper voice. A version of audio comments will provide deeper feedback, you will want to limit access to it for sake of time, and suddenly phone tag may become fun. The best messages will be remembered, tossed around and perhaps, with permission, bubble up to cultural consciousness.
Since most of us with cast by phone, another direction the genre may go is the way of ringtones, a $500M market. Intelligent ringtones are coming fast (rude ones too) and look at the social models unfolding in the Philippines. The wire-tapped voice of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo discussing vote-rigging has become an overnight ringtone sensation. Someone told me that in the Philippines you can download horntones, which are popular with taxi drivers, so you can imagine the cacophony. Who wants Carl Castel or other celebrity voice mail recordings when you can have your friends? When the phone rings, why not hear the last 1 minute rant from the person who is calling before answering? Think of the sound design for all kinds of spaces when it could reflect the tastes, context and networks of their occupants.
Maybe this is just an excuse to cast pebbles in the pond, or claim my Odeo channel, but for the scale of the podosphere to grow to it's full potential it will have to facilitate sharing the way most people do. With people.
UPDATE: Looks like an iTunes Phone, sold by Cingular, may be a reality. Get my point?
