Law Technology

I've Been Listening to So Many Podcasts that I Didn't Realize that Podcasting Might Have Been Declared Dead

By Dennis Kennedy

One of the amusing things about reading blogs, especially tech blogs, for many years is how quickly trends arise, blossom and get declared dead, sometimes, it seems, within a period of weeks or even days. There are times when a trend is declared dead even before many people have even heard of it.

Just pick a trend and do a Google search on "is [trend] dead?"] and you'll be surprised by the number of hits.

However, it's also true that the "is [trend] dead?" post or, more emphatically, "[trend] is dead" post, will definitely generate traffic to your post. (See linkbaiting - by the way, is linkbaiting dead?)

A lot of things have been declared dead by someone or another lately - email, Windows Vista, the billable hour, the horse and buggy, you name it.

I've always liked podcasts. Tom Mighell and I even talked about our favorite podcasts on our own podcast.

My biggest reservation about podcasts was that there would be so much great content that you would have such a backlog of podcasts that you could never hope to listen to them all. You can be a fast reader, but it's much harder to be a fast listener.

I can confirm that my reservation was well-founded. There are lots of great podcasts. What NPR has done in the world of podcasting is simply amazing.

I've wanted to blog more about podcasts, but I find it difficult to blog about podcasts. In part, that's because there is often a time lag from when the podcast was released and when you listen to it. That can make it harder to find the URL when you want to link to it in a blog post. Also, if you listen to podcasts on an iPod or other mp3 player, you probably aren't at a computer and won't blog about it contemporaneously.

I had reached the conclusion the other day that I was going to highlight podcasts and podcasting as a key legal tech trend for 2008.

Then, I realized that there is a big debate going on whether, surprise, podcasting might be dead. I like Dave Winer's take on the topic, especially when he says, "My phone doesn't have a business model. Neither does my porch."

By the way, my Google search on "is podcasting dead?" tonight shows a total of 3.570 results.

So, I reconsidered my opinion about podcasts, for a few seconds, and went back to listening to podcasting and recommending it as a trend to watch in 2008. If you haven't been introduced to the world of podcasts, I recommend that you take a listen. A good starting point is visiting the Apple iTunes store and checking out the wide variety of podcasts now available, on almost any topic that you can imagine.

Count me on the side of those who think that podcasts are alive.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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Technorati tags: legal technology podcasts

Full post as published by DennisKennedy.blog on January 16, 2008 (boomark / email).