Podcasting a 3-7 year innovation, by another name
ANALYSIS, San Francisco — From WordCamp 2007. Podcasting will be a new media, and will grow in revenues. By then it may not be called podcasting.
It may be called something new and snappy, and will be in some ways more like TV/radio.
Marketing, including naming (eg. iPod is sexier than media player and is now the generic name) is important to product development and adoption (see Apple…)
Thanks to Dan Kuykendall, of www.mightyseek.com for an excellent and well balanced presentation of the what, why and how of pod-casting; and despite being first up (a hard ask, well-handled.)
Distinction: The internet is a delivery medium first, now it’s design of the delivery mechanism, where the innovation really is.
Once podcasts are as easy to ‘get’ as TV; then they are mainstream (early/late majority — using the original 1962 Stanford Prof Rogers marketing curve).
Podcasting is in early adoption (opinion leaders have embraced it in other words) at varying stages in various markets.
International penetration:
My informal conversations in my May visit to Vienna and Paris, as part of the Global Innovation Conversation research shows that many people in global cities such as these have no knowledge of podcasting outside certain vertical communities they frequent (often online).
Why in-person research?
It’s important to remember pod-casting (and to a lesser extent blogging) is still a nascent market to enter early majority in some markets.
However, if your primary source of information on other cultures is the internet (a great starting point) a valuable point in assessing markets is to subsequently visit those markets and meet / talk with people in local business there.
Without that you don’t have a true perspective of the size of the potential mass (non-vertical) market and are flying blind.
It is important to remember the internet is not a complete, but rather a overlapping medium, … unless perhaps you are researching popular culture like Paris Hilton, then it’s overly complete!
2thinknowTM innovation research was done in-person, meeting real business people, asking real questions; also accessing local printed research sources which are often superior to those now on accessible the internet. Google is great, but it’s not a taxonomy.
The 2thinknowTM View on Podcasting
The 2thinknowTM innovation models would rate that Podcasting will be maturing into the mass-market in 3-7 years in developed countries.
There are lots of unfilled vertical content segments in the market, and the delivery mechanism for audio & video will develop incrementally, even exponentially.
The likely changes will be packaging (ie. How podcasts are accessed being simplified) and new access methods.
Apple’s simplifying of tech, is why Apple has done so well.
What is an iPod & iTunes but a simplifying of tech delivery into a simple, elegant user interface?
Podcasting in the broader market is in early adoption (adolescence) in the
TV is mainstream, now potentially declining as a mass market in it’s traditional scheduled form. Recent stats also show market share of non-specialized magazines declining in general.
Podcast in varying formats, tested in markets, will be a huge force, if we remember what we are talking about is user-generated audio and video programs. Medium is a matter of marketing and convenient delivery.
Link to the agenda: http://2007.wordcamp.org/schedule/podcasting/
Dan has an excellent tool in PodPress, and did a great job of the presentation.
Take care,
Christopher
Christopher Hire:
Author of the Global Innovation Review, and Chief Editor of this journal. Focussed on innovation, innovation cities and positive social change globally.
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