Podcasting: Don't Screw It Up

The press release from NBC News announcing its podcasting plans includes the following  from Neal Shapiro, president, NBC News: "With technology racing at lightning speed, it's incumbent upon us to keep up with it -- and podcasting is a great example of how we are doing just that."

That's also the danger: move too slow and you run the risk of missing the moment; move too fast and you run the risk of messing up the moment.

Iit's great to see so many media outlets rushing to take part -- no matter how appealing/unappealing the offerings may be to me personally. But let's not screw it up, either.

Some of the allure of pod-listening is time shifting and a certain amount of repackaged content makes sense. Another facet is the creativity, the showmanship, the meshing of a personality with information, news or entertainment in a way that reaches individuals, not mass audiences. Provide some "TiVo" opportunities -- audio feeds from newscasts and the like -- but take this new medium, genre, whatever you want to call it, and move beyond what you're already doing to what can be done.

Don't worry about bragging rights -- just getting it right.