Ionrock Dot Org

Traditionally, I'm pretty slow to adopt technologies in a meaningful way. Honestly, RSS totally skipped my radar, in that I just wasn't very impressed. Atom (for whatever bizarre reason) managed to make a blip. Podcasting is another technology I'm only currently becoming interested in. It is not something that is especially ground breaking on a technical level, but I finally have started to see some of the social implications that actually applies to me.

One idea that I would love to see more of is a mixtape podcast. The problem is always going to be copyright issues, but conceptually, I'd love to see people podcasting playlists of bands they are interested in. Searching has never been my strong point, so finding new music has been relegated to friends sending me mp3s or my wife pointing out a band. As feeds have replaced a daily routine of news/planet sites, I would hope that podcasts could offer similar benefit.

What really frustrates me about this idea is that the looming question of copyright. While in some ways the concern is valid, I think it is rather unfounded when it comes to podcasts, simply because a podcast is build on the idea of a feed with audio. In that way, the big benefit of a podcast is that the original resource is still the primary source. Feedburner is a good example of a service that provides something of a content delivery network and, more importantly, accurate statistics on how many subscribers. When it comes to music, this is a perfect web based model to emulate the radio listener system or Sound Scan records in record stores. If labels or artists provide "podcastable" links others can use for a mix tape, it presents an opportunity to spread the music, and more importantly, show actual interest in some artist. MySpace has most likely been doing this since its inception, which can be concluded by the emergence of albums that are released by MySpace. My guess is MySpace keeps reports on the number of plays for certain artists that allow them to make truly educated guesses based on market interest in order to put out records, that for all intensive purposes, should be relatively profitable.

The obvious problem with this model is MySpace holds all the cards. That makes it a problem for the artists because there is no way to link interests geographically or compare specific markets. For example, if one band has sold 1000 CDs without touring and living in a small town, there is a good chance that band is a diamond in the rough and could do well nationally. Likewise, some band living in Chicago could be selling huge amounts of CDs (as seen in their Sound Scan score) and touring like crazy, when in fact they are simply gaming the Sound Scan system. The MySpace lock in is also a problem for MySpace in that its own statistics are only as reliable as its community provides. MySpace is not the same as LinkedIn in terms of the social trends for honesty.

The positive side of this whole issue is that it is only a matter of time. From a technical standpoint, the pieces are in place. There needs to be a social change that presents the benefits of podcasting playlists and sharing music in a way that allows keeping tabs on who is listening (from a statistical perspective). At this point I'm just waiting for the flavor of the month to hit the right mix of form and function the public at large will grab on to.