Podcast Outliers - More Damage Than Good? The Podcast Report

Are the podcast outliers doing more damage than good? It's the podcast report episode 126 show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 126 now, before we go any further, this has nothing to do with Malcolm Gladwell. I love Malcolm's book. I love Malcolm's show. He's doing a great job. If you head out to the podcastreport.com126 I will link you over to Malcolm's podcast because he's killing it. Done a great job. Looking forward to season two. This episode of the Podcast Report is brought to you by how to podcast training@howtopodcasttraining.com if you're looking for a masterclass in podcast training, you can do no better than howtopodcasttraining.com the question for today's podcast comes from an article and I'll put this in the show notes. I linked this in my blog and I did this, a couple of versions of the article, but this was the one that got the most interesting response. Long story short, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, not a big fan. Not a big fan for different reasons. But he's gone. Fired from Fox. And he did the same thing that other radio guys have done. When fired, he went and he jumped and he produced a podcast. But because of his history, because of the allegations, because of a number of things. There were some pretty interesting responses at the Facebook page about people's feelings towards Bill O'Reilly. And it reminded me back in the early days of podcasting when I was playing with the whole premium podcasting thing, paid podcasting. And what was interesting was Rush Limbaugh was doing it. And it's funny, I checked the website before I recorded this. Rush Limbaugh, still doing it. Basically, one of the things you can do if you become a premium member of Rush's club is you get access to a podcast that is password protected only for his customers. Yes, a premium podcast. And when I was telling people when I would make presentations about the premium podcasting platform, I would get the same response, like, oh, Rush is podcasting. Oh, Bill O'Reilly's podcasting. Oh, so and so's podcasting. Here's the thing. There are people on the far left. There are people on the far right. There is someone out there who's offending you. There's someone out there that you might feel a bit weird about being associated with. And it's not just political. The podcast space is filled with some very, very blue content. R NC17, that type of thing. As I mentioned, there's content on both sides of the political landscape. There's some real non mainstream claims, sexual claims, health claims, business practice claims, this type of thing. For the stuff that's extreme, yeah, there's the explicit tag, but let's admit it, that doesn't matter. You in itunes will find a podcast that offends you. Outside of podcasting, there's a podcast that offends you. It doesn't matter what side you're on. And I'm not accusing anyone here being easily offended. I'm just saying in podcasting, you're going to be sharing the technology with someone that you don't necessarily like sharing the technology with. What do we do about that? What do we feel about that? Well, the first thing that's really important is technology is amoral. Technology is not moral. It's what you do with the technology that is moral. For every copy of the Gutenberg Bible, we have early printed pornography. For every extreme left political statement online, we have an extreme right political statement online. For everyone who preaches abstinence and sexual purity, we have some of the craziest stuff out there available today on the Internet. All the extremes are there. It's not the tech that's moral, it's what people do with the tech that's moral. There's this idea, well, and I've heard this said and got some responses. Yuck, Podcasting just got ugly because Bill O'Reilly is there. Or podcasting just got ugly because so and so is there. Here's the deal. People don't care about the tech. Gaga's audience is in it for the music. Your audience is in it for the content. The technology is just what makes it possible. Podcasting is also full. I mean, let's face it, there are cheaters right now. If you head over to management marketing, there looks to be a podcast right now that seems to be cheating the system just by any automated type of cheating thing. There are others who would say that you're buying votes through marketing, external forces. Some of you have spoken to the Russell Brunson episode a few episodes back that he wasn't doing that. Right. People who feel that there's cheating going on and do I want to be associated with that? Do I want to be in that same category at the same time? We've even got folk out there who. And I've never done an episode about this because I think it's a silly argument, but is the word podcasting the right word? They're Leo Laporte who I trust tremendously, Leo Laporte, netcasts. That's his big thing. Others, blogcasting or vlogcasting or people take terms. That isn't podcasting, called a podcast, that type of thing. Here's the thing. Your tribe doesn't care about your tech any more than Gaga's fans care about her microphone. This isn't about Gaga here. This is just about. The world is not looking at you for the tech where you present your ideas. The world is looking for the ideas that you present with your tech. Should have written down that note. That one just came to me. Hopefully I'll get that one right in the. In the promotion of this thing later. We tend to examine podcasting through a broadcast lens. You know, when Adam Curry started this whole thing, we don't need towers, we don't need transmitters. We think of it as a show. We think of it as, you know, we're competing with someone. There's all sorts of arguments there. But really, when it comes to podcasting, we need to stop thinking of it like radio. It's really more like books. Sure. Books that talk. But it's the book lens. See, books. There are some books that are massive, huge publications that millions and millions of people buy. There are some books that are published and stored in someone's basement. There are ones with runs of millions. There are ones with runs of 10. There are books out there with runs of 1, print on demand, that type of thing. There are books that give out all sorts of political ideologies, cultural ideologies, feelings, just like there are dozens and dozens, if not hundreds and hundreds of books of podcasts that will offend you. There are books that will offend you. But nobody's ever said, oh, I don't want to be in the book game with all those ugly books that are out there. I've never heard anybody go, you know, I'd publish a book. But that whole Mein Kampf thing from Hitler is kind of putting books in the bad shade. That's not it. We got to get past this idea that it's a broadcast mechanism. We got to get past the idea that we are identified by the technology. We got to get past the idea that somehow the computer, resistor, hard drive, microphone, rss, feed, bits, ones and O's, whatever it is, some of this idea that the technology is what this is about. It's never been about the technology. Bad book has never made people stop writing. A bad podcast should not stop a podcaster from podcasting. What do you do? What do you do with this? Judging content by its tech is kind of like judging a person by their socks. What do you do in podcasting? This is huge. Produce content that your audience wants. Produce content that your audience needs. That's step one. Step two, deliver it by podcast until something better comes along. Now, I've been in this for over a decade, and there have been so many things that were going to beat podcasting. There have been so many things that were going to be podcasting, and none of them have. But here's the deal. Even if it does, even if I have to change the name of my company to get rid of podcasting, it doesn't matter. Because it's the content, it's the ideas, it's the people, it's the audiences. It's not by the text. So produce the content that your audience wants, that your audience needs, then deliver it by podcast and keep doing that until something better comes along. Don't worry about the association any more than worried about a book association or any more worried about a human association or that type of thing. We're big kids. We have the ability to think past those in our space, those in our sphere, those who share some sort of commonality yet somehow disgust us. We can do better than that. Keep producing the content the audience wants and needs delivered by podcast until something better comes along, and you'll be at a good space. I would love your thoughts on this. Does podcasting somehow enter into a reign that books never were able to enter into or language was never able to enter into? Or is it really more like radio and some folk need to be taken off the air and some people need to be removed? Or is it a freedom of speech thing that just being associated with the freedom of speech thing is just not something you want to be associated with? I recommend you know this. Don't let the technology get in the way. Let the technology help you say what it is that you need to say to the people that need to hear it. I'm@the podcastreport.com Twitter. I'm@the podcastreport.com Facebook and you can pick the podcastreport.com SocialNetwork of your choice. And there's a way to interact there. You can also head out to thepodcastreport.com 126 for this episode. I'll link to Malcolm. I'll even link to that article about Bill O'Reilly getting a podcast and we'll link to how to podcast training and a couple other things. You can make a comment there if you'd like. Interaction is good. Love to hear from the audience. The podcast reportoutlook.com I haven't given that email address out in a while. Please head over there. If you haven't subscribed yet to the show, do so. That's the power of podcasting. We've chatted about it in previous episodes. Getting the stuff sent to you automatically is what makes it so much cooler than having a blog that you have to come back and visit on a regular basis, or a station that you have to tune into at a certain time. Subscribing to the show. Getting it pushed you automatically. Yeah, you can do that. ThePodcastReport.com iTunes if you happen to use that Apple thing. ThePodcastReport.com Stitcher ThePodcastReport.com Google ThePodcastReport TuneIn Pick the platform of your choice. We are there as well. Thank you so much for listening about this. I don't think the podcast outliers are doing any more damage than good. If anything, they're showing us how much can be done with podcasting. I wouldn't worry about the guilt by association. We should have a great time. Next week. We've got a conversation with Rob Greenlee about the whole world of live, and we're talking about people taking a turn making it their own. Spreaker's done some interesting stuff. We'll chat about that, what that means to the industry as a whole. I will get information out to how you can attend that one live. It would be ridiculous for us not to record it live. We'll go from there, but between now and next week, keep podcasting. Talk to you then. Bye.