In this week’s podcasting news: a look at Transom’s new “This Is Radio” video series, a comparison between digital magazines and podcasts, and a Kickstarter update.
- The online and IRL public radio workshop Transom.org just premiered the This Is Radio video interview series. The first installment profiles Roman Mars, producer of the podcast and radio show 99% Invisible. Mars shares some of his unique approach to creating the program, which–like many new generation shows–diverts from the mission-and-information-first approach of traditional public radio.He also observes that with podcasting, “people want it to be more personal. It doesn’t feel like broadcasting, it feels like a one-to-one connection.”
And, although this is Radio Survivor, I appreciate that video producer Andrew Norton shares some of his process and technique for creating this piece in accompanying notes at its Transom page.
The second episode in the series is already released, featuring Brooke Gladstone, who is co-host and managing editor for WNYC’s On the Media. And while that show started on broadcast, it’s also available as a podcast.
- In a piece with a less-than-optimistic tone, Forbes contributor Ewan Spence asks “Can the future of digital magazines be found in the history of podcasting?” He notes that Apple’s integration of podcast subscriptions into iTunes was a boon to the nascent medium. But it was also a curse because “Apple was in (benevolent) control of the podcasting scene.”The same has happened with digital magazines, Spence observes, leaving a somewhat neglectful Apple in control of its own format for the iTunes Store and iOS Newsstand. He concludes that “Just as podcasting will never be as cohesive as it once was, the moment when there could have been a universal solution,” for digital magazines, “appears to have been missed.”
Ouch. I hope not, for either medium.
- Finally, a belated update on Ear Buds: The Podcasting Documentary that I wrote about last month. Its Kickstarter was successfully funded on February 24, raising $9,893 beyond its $135,000 goal. Producers Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini say they’re shooting for a late 2015 release.
