Much Ado About Podcasts

I’m sure that you’re all like, “what, podcasts again? haven’t we exhausted this subject?”

No! Never! That’s like saying “oh yeah, well, we wrote two articles about youtube so we’re probably done forever, right? that’s all anyone could want to know.” Podcasts are a new medium that nobody seems to talk about anymore. I mean, everyone is vaguely aware of podcasts, but as a long-time podcast listener, I’m always excited to write and learn more about podcasts, their content, and just how they’re doing as an 11-year old medium.

Following my last post about podcasts, I received a comment from the founder of Podiobooks.com and longtime podcast producer, Evo Terra. He was interested in my article, and said that if I had any other questions, he’d be happy to answer them with me. So began my two-week long email interview to the other side of the world. Mr. Terra is currently traveling around the world, blogging, podcasting and more. You can follow his travels at The Opportunistic Travelers. You can also follow his personal twitter here.

Evo Terra is the founder of Podiobooks.com, which hosts hundreds of serialized audiobooks in podcast form. He has also been podcasting for over a decade, and blogging for even longer. When I asked about his involvement in podcasts, he said it all sort of happened organically: he’d been hosting an internet radio show, and the transition to podcasts seemed natural. From then, podcasting and podcast hosting has been a part of his life.

We spent most of our conversation talking about the past and future of podcasts. Contrary to my previous assertion, it seems that podcast listenership has not gone down in the least. Press coverage of podcasts has declined, for sure, but podcasts have no more fallen out of the cultural zeitgeist than blogging has. Some podcasts still have overnight success, like Serial and Welcome To Night Vale, which will draw brand new podcast listeners to the medium.

However, for every new podcast with a surging fanbase, there are tens more which are struggling to get their name and feeds out to the public. As Evo says, “The real issue, IMHO, is discoverability and consumption. […] Finding something you like, that covers the topics you enjoy, that fit into your time slot, that are available when you want them? That’s a lot harder. Advertising isn’t the solution. There isn’t “a” solution. There will probably be many.”

Clammr, for the uninitiated, is a podcast discoverability app. The idea is, Clammr will give you 18 seconds of a recent podcast, from a number of categories. If you’re interested after that 18 second hook, you have the option to stream the entire podcast to your device. If not, you can just go on to the next 18 second bite, and see if that piques your interests.

It’s a fun app with a good idea for getting the word out for podcasts. I think the interface is beautiful, but I’m personally not sold on the streaming aspect of Clammr. But it’s not the answer. There’s no guarantee you’ll find something that you like, or that you’ll continue to listen to the podcast after you listen to a bite, or even one entire episode of a podcast.

Podcasters and fans alike are still working on the discoverability aspect of podcasts, you can always google “favorite podcasts” or “comedy podcasts” or something to that effect and sift through the endless lists of podcasts, to find something you like. The TED bloggers recently put out a great list of favorite podcasts. I also have on great authority that The Big Podcast with Shaq is an amazing listen.

If you have friends who like podcasts, they will definitely be willing to give you some good recommendations. Or, if you have a favorite blog, see if they have a podcast!

 

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The entire interview is as follows (edited for continuity and clarity):

Tori: It seems like you’ve done a little bit of everything. How did you end up podcasting and producing podiobooks, and now traveling around the world blogging, podcasting, and more? 

Evo Terra: I got into podcasting because I was producing an internet radio show. When podcasting happened in the summer of 2004, it was pretty easy for us to jump on that new trend. My guests on the radio show were all authors, which led directly to the concept behind Podiobooks.com, now 10 years old. I’d been a blogger since 1999, so when my wife and I decide to live abroad for at least a year, blogging and podcasting about our everyday adventures seemed a logical fit.

Tori: How did podiobooks get their start? I know you were at ground zero, coining the term, but how did podiobooks become a movement of authors self-publishing? Isn’t it hard to convince authors to just give up their content for free?

Evo Terra: When we started Podiobooks.com back in 2005, ebooks hadn’t really happened yet. Amazon was selling print books, and the kindle hadn’t been invented. Indie publishing was akin to vanity publishing, and even when it wasn’t, books from indie publishers were terribly expensive. We positioned Podiobooks.com as one way authors could fight through obscurity and reach an audience. Luckily, I didn’t have to (and still don’t have to) do any convincing. The power of free to build a career and to lead directly to book sales (and other things) is well documented, and there are always authors who get it. Those that don’t… dont!

Tori: Why do you think that podcasts saw a decline in the late 2000’s, but are making a comeback now? I speculated a little in my article, but obviously you’re the professional here…

Evo Terra:  There was no decline in listenership, first of all. There was a leveling off period where the press stopped covering podcasting, which took it off new people’s radar. Now, thanks largely to breakout successes like Serial, it’s in the news again, and a new surge of people are discovering the medium. 

Tori: It’s interesting that you say there was definitely no decline in listeners, because everything i’ve read was saying that podcasts became “uncool” and that listeners go down. But I’m sure you know much better than I do. Do you have any ideas for making podcasts more available and discoverable for people? I know it’s hard to advertise for podcasts because they’re free, but is there something that could be done to make them more accessible? 

Evo Terra: I assure you that podcast listenership did not go down. I have a network of some 700+ shows. No drop. Modest gain. The same can be found from other podcast networks. 

There isn’t a problem with making more podcasts available. It’s easier than ever to create a podcast. It literally takes minutes to do so, simply with the phone in your hand or the computer you are in front of. The barrier to creation continues to get easier. (Note: that doesn’t mean it’s easy to make quality content.)

The real issue, IMHO, is discoverability and consumption. Sure, you can go to the iTunes store or just type in “podcast” on any search engine and you’ll get dozens of results. But finding something you like, that covers the topics you enjoy, that fit into your time slot, that are available when you want them? That’s a lot harder. Clammr is an interesting tool that is taking a new approach to the problem. I’m optimistic, but it’s not an easy problem to be solved. Advertising isn’t the solution. There isn’t “a” solution. There will probably be many.

Tori: So I was looking into Clammr, and it seems like the twitter of podcasts, if that makes sense? As a user, i’m still trying to figure out whether or not I like it. The discoverability aspect of it is very intriguing, but I have a problem with the streaming aspect of it. I think Clammr is an interesting idea, but from a user perspective, you have to be willing to go back to streaming, rather than keeping the content on your device. But i’ll give it a try, I’m not sure if it’s the app for me.

Evo Terra: That’s one way to look at Clammr. It’s more like Twitter _about_ podcasts, but close enough. Streaming is huge, so don’t let your own challenges in the tube lead you astray. And those connection issues are going away.

Tori: That sort of brings us back to discoverability. Word of mouth can only go so far, especially like you said when it’s harder to share audio than websites. I read on Rob’s blog posts that twitter followers =/= listeners and downloads… Do you maybe have suggestions for people who want to discover podcasts, but find themselves in front of an almost Herculean task of trying to discover what they do and don’t like? iTunes has the “top podcasts” section in their podcast app, but that barely scratches the surface of podcasts available.

I know that I got into podiobooks (and less specifically, podcasts) through word of mouth: one of my friends was a fan of Scott Sigler’s, and got me listening to his books, and then later I got into Welcome To Night Vale simply through my friends online. But people who don’t know anything about podcasts (for example, my mother), seem to rely on the scattershot approach of just hoping that they’ll like what they find in the iTunes store. 

What i’m really trying to ask is, are podcasts still too “new” of a media to determine how to get them out there? Do we have to wait for podcast discoverability to get easier, keep innovating and such? The more I play with Clammr, I like the interface but the streaming is what’s turning me off from that app overall. I’m sure I’m not the only one, and on top of that, I’d never even heard of Clammr until you mentioned it. 

Evo Terra: I wish I had a better discovery solution for people. It’s hard. The way you found Scott and other shows is really all we have right now, other than wading through directories. It sucks. Clammr is a step in the right direction, but there are likely many other steps happening right now. 

Tori: Because you’ve been a blogger literally since i was in grade school (sorry!), how has blogging in general changed? I know some podcasts have accompanying blogs and even some could be considered blogs of sorts, but how has blogging come into its own not only as a form of expression but also self-publishing and news-sharing? Is it just as hard to get regular blog viewers as it is to get podcast listeners?

Evo Terra: The biggest change to blogging has been in acceptance. Acceptance by the media, the general public… It’s following a similar legitimization path that social media is going through. Blogging — like podcasting or social media — isn’t really a category of content. It’s a distribution method used by people, companies, organizations… anyone or anything with a voice will probably find the mechanics of blogging helpful. 

It’s a lot easier to get viewers of written content than it is to get podcast listeners or watchers. It’s easy to click and share an article with your network, which makes it easy (sort of) for Google and others to index and poll those links to see what should be surfaced higher for searchers. Video, via YouTube mostly, has also been made easy to share as you’re consuming. Audio podcasting? That’s hard to share with your network when you’re driving 70 miles an hour on the freeway. The coming “in-vehicle” options next year will address that, but still… taking your eyes off the road is never a good idea. It’ll take some creative solutions to get around that. Some are already out there. More will be coming.