Earl Mardel has posted a concise contrary view on podcasting. I think cold-water viewpoints like this are always valuable when trying to figure out a new twist on an old medium, which seems to come along daily with the Internet these days.
C. David Gammel, CAE
Helping associations pursue goals that matter.
C. David Gammel, CAE 
I very much disagree with Earl Mardel’s post. He comes from years in radio, and so his indictment of podcasting comes with a huge bias and a belief that podcasting should be like/is trying to be like radio. He doesn’t get it at all. I have posted a comment to his blog, which can be found at the following URL:
http://www.kn.com.au/networks/2005/07/podcasting__met.html
I think his critique is along the lines of Mark Cuban’s comments that it will be hard to make money on it as an activity in and of itself. I find it hard to disagree with that at this point.
However, I do think it is a great medium for indirect marketing of other revenue producing activities, whether it is reputation building or promoting an event.
I’m not sure so that it can’t be revenue-generating by itself…the equivalent of “books on tape” for the xers and millenials. I think it has great potential for association e-learning – true “anytime, anywhere” learning…unfortunately without interactivity, but perhaps that will come with the merging of the ipod and mobile phone technologies?
Mickie