So Alexander Wolfe (by the way what the heck is an “East coast technical editor”? Are we that backward from the West coast that we need our own?) thinks podcasting is dead. I find this article comical for several reasons. The timing: CES just wrapped up, Macworld is firing up and all he can talk about right now is podcasting? Second I could put some weight to this reporting if it were coming from an entertainment or business publisher like Rolling Stone or Business Week but Information Week? Well the question was asked (and answered which makes it an opinion piece) so here is my take. First let’s define what podcasting is (or is widely known as). Wikipedia will tell you “A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds” stop there! Now is that “dead”? As a business model? Possibly? As an art form most definitely not. Ahh but it’s the business model Mr. Wolfe is talking about here. It must be because he referenced PodTech. Singled out would be more like it since he didn’t mention PodShow the usual whipping boy for these kinds of articles. But let’s put all that aside for a moment since the business model does not concern me since I am not in that business. Although I do question if all podcasting has to be a profit center. I am a podcaster and I don’t do it for profit. Many just like producing media for hobby, family and friends. Still others like to give back to the community for no other reason. And for those individuals podcasting shall never truly die. Take another look at what podcasting really is: independently produced new media. By that I mean your content is no longer landlocked by big conglomerates like Clear Channel or ABC. As Adam Curry would say “Transmitters? We don’t need no steenkin transmitters!” Aggregation and syndication have both taken new forms be it RSS feeds, direct downloads from an online directory or social sites like Youtube or Bebo. Not only is independent media alive and well it’s also fueling the discovery and driving up sales for traditional media as well. You couldn’t live in better times if you are a content producer! So is podcasting really dead then? Long live independent media. Viva la Revolucion!

Musical high fidelity is dead according to Robert Levine. I think he is on to something that until this year I had not fully realized. I remember in my high school years in the Baltimore, MD suburb of Columbia I would frequent this great record trader store up
Reisterstown Rd in Owings Mills. it is there I secured my first Half Speed LP The Dark Side of the Moon. I thought I would wear the groves out of that album but I never did. I had a ham friend (actually several) who worked at Bendix in Columbia (my back yard because I lived near Thunderhill Rd.). He had access to expensive test equipment like spectrum analyzers (this was in 1975 before the days of Fourier transform equations were widely prevalent. This was a Hewlett Packard sweep resolution analyzer (half a million dollars in those days). One day we got the idea to measure the dynamic range of my DSotM album. I don’t remember which song it was now (probably Money) but he was astonished at the range in the song. My turn table at the time was a pretty high end Marantz that I had on loan from another friend. We sampled other albums I had but none compared to that Half-Speed. I was hooked and soon blew all my money on records. When you compare today mp3’s made from a compact disc with their album counterparts you can definitely tell the difference even with cheaper equipment. I think our younger inexperienced audiences have become used to this compressed expended digital music world but old timer audiophiles like myself are still kickin it old skewl.