I’m Sorry You Have To Read This Post

PodcastOne knows it. So does WNYC. Media strategist Mark Ramsey wrote about it months ago. And, recently, Eric Johnson, channeling Re/code co-founder Walt Mossberg , added both their voices to the mix. If this issue doesn’t resonate with you, yet, maybe this post will help nudge you into action. At least it should get you thinking. I apologize in advance, however, because, at the age of ten, podcasting shouldn’t be spawing posts like this and you shouldn’t have to read them.

You have to have some geek in you to listen to podcasts these days. Not so? Read Eric Johnson’s blog post at recode.net. At least skim it. Then continue here.

Not Yet—After You Finish Johnson’s Post

A cat’s whisker detector. The galena crystal is in the cylinder. Photo: JA Davidson via Wikimedia Commons.

That’s how podcasting defines ease of use ten years after its inception. Great for the techs in the audience but frustrating for potential listeners who don’t spend all day online.

The geeks of the early 20th century were entertained by radio. even though listening to a station meant carefully moving a thin wire (called a cat’s whisker) across the surface of a galena crystal.* It was a game for the young, calling for a steady hand and infinite patience.

By 1924, about four years after broadcasting went commercial, here’s all it took to listen to a radio program.

Compare these eight step-by-step instructions for a Crosley 51 with Johnson’s podcasting guide (which, to Johnson’s credit, I found delightfully terse).

The Simple Pleasure of Listening…

Here we are, living in what is arguably an advanced technological age, and we can’t make listening to a podcast as simple as listening to a 1924 table radio. I suspect the reason is we’ve missed the point of podcasts. Most people want to listen to them.

Even in the 1920s there were hobbyists listening to the radio by fussing with cat’s whiskers. But the broadcasting industry recognized listening had to appeal to more than the techs if radio was to become a viable commercial enterprise. It had to appeal to ordinary listeners.

Today’s podcatchers are the cat’s whiskers of podcasting. Fun for techs, devastating for commercialization.

…Calls for Simplicity

After ten years, it’s time to get back to basics: voice or pushbutton access to the podcasting universe; smart audio processing that knows how to fix audio problems and when to leave well-produced audio alone; and simple displays of episode metadata. Let’s defer the nice-to-have features until the must-haves are working smoothly and all podcasts are within easy reach of all listeners.

And let’s do it now. Before podcasting gets old enough to grow its own whiskers.