Podcasts Passe - Or were they ever “In”?
What are podcasts, anyway? Have you been to a party lately where someone didn’t mention the term podcast? I haven’t, but maybe I’m going to the wrong parties!
To ‘cast or not to ‘cast. It seems to be a much hotter topic than it deserves to be these days. Here’s how it boils down. Are you producing media for the web: Yes/No. If you check the Yes box, why not create an RSS feed for it? If you check the No box, why aren’t you?
Finally to the purpose of this post: Here I provide a rather lengthy take on Morgan’s take on someone else’e take on podcasting in admissions.
What are your thoughts?
UPDATE: Kevin Guidry at Mistakengoal.com poses questions as to the utility of podcasts in the world of student affairs . Any takers?
I think this is another one of those content and container issues. People are so focused on a podcast being something that you exclusively download and listen to on an ipod that we’re missing the boat here.
I subscribe to several podcasts but might only download a few episodes and certainly don’t listen to them all right away. I also go to websites and will listen to video clips that I think might be relevant.
It’s all about syndication and aggregation. Unhinge the content (audio or video) from the container (your website, ipod, whatever) and then you free yourself to focus on generating great, relevant content to, well, whoever.
Comment by Charlie Melichar — December 7, 2006 @ 1:04 pm
According to the latest Noel-Levitz national study, only 9% of the higher school juniors interviewed said they downloaded a university/college podcast, but… 54% said they would if they could.
I think I made my case: the majority of these future college students seem to be going to the same parties you attend, Dan
Comment by Karine — December 7, 2006 @ 5:50 pm
I think something like the popularity of a “container” (nice term!) becomes an issue when the container itself is driving the creation of new media. We (and many others) said: “Podcasts are teh hot. Shouldn’t we create random audio content just so that we can have a podcast?” My knee-jerk reaction to anything with that sort of premise is “NO!” However, I did my homework and presented the data about why it would be a waste of resources for us to put in place an infrastructure for creating audio content just so that we could have podcasts. I have read about several schools that have done just this, and many more have asked on the uwebd list about how to create a complete audio/podcasting studio from scratch just so that they can create podcasts.
I totally agree with you about taking all of your current content and making it available via RSS. We implemented RSS for our news just recently. If you have audio on hand, there’s no excuse not to make it into a podcast. I just don’t think there’s enough of an audience amidst college prospects to create new programs/staff positions/equipment around Admission-generated podcasts (audio campus tours, audio blogs, etc).
But five years from now? I still think teenagers will be into music mostly, but who knows.
Comment by Morgan — December 7, 2006 @ 6:30 pm
Spot on Morgan! I’m with you on the creation of content to fit the container. I see this happening all over asd people get hooked on the “new things” — blogs, podcasts, video, etc.
The hype around new media is great from an awareness standpoint, but there’s too much focus on creating blogs, podcasts, etc. because it’s the hot thing rather than connecting them to strategy. If they don’t make sense from a strategic standpoint and, for Pete’s sake, if you don’t have solid, compelling content… skip it.
As I continue my obsessiveness over the whole content/container thing, I keep thinking that good content never dies, regardless of container or form. Take, for instance, something everyone can relate to — music. Take Led Zeppelin for example. Their music has survived a variety of containers — master to LP, 8-track, tape, CD, MP3, Sirius, and somehow you can still come across a broadcast radio station that is “Getting the Led out.” And you know what? They’ll continue to make it through the next 15 iterations. It’s just good content.
So, unless an interview, article or whatever can rock it like Robert Plant, maybe a podcast isn’t the way to go.
Comment by Charlie Melichar — December 8, 2006 @ 11:57 am
One year ago we launched a simple service for law school faculty to create podcasts of lectures and course summaries at www.classcaster.org. Now we have over 60 active bloggers and podcasters, more than 2500 hours of audio material, a lot of satisfied students. I think you need to look past the hype about podcasting and ask a basic question: is there value for the student in having this supplemental material? If the answer is yes, you can create an effective infrastructure for recording classes and summaries with less than $100 digital recorders and open source software. All the information on how we built Classcaster, including the software we used, is at http://www.classcaster.net/.
Comment by Elmer Masters — December 8, 2006 @ 8:55 pm
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Pingback by <CONTENT /> v.4 » Blog Archive » Why Podcast? — December 8, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
[…] Dan Karleen of Peterson’s higher ed blog ponders whether podcasts are passe — or worse, just a plain waste of time and resources. That is, for recruitment and admissions purposes. […]
Pingback by higher ed marketing » Blog Archive » What’s the value of a podcast? — December 12, 2006 @ 9:53 am
I do like the container/content reference however I think of it more as a vehicle/passenger. The passenger being the content and the vehicle being, well the vehicle. People are busy and probably spend less time reading and more time listening and watching. It is somewhat sad, but true. I am sure most prospective college students would prefer to listen or watch admissions info (or other content) over reading a brochure or info on a website. They most likely already own an MP3 player so why not get the podcast. I spend a lot of time driving as I am sure many other people do, and listening to podcasts makes the trip bearable. I know this is not a discussion on my commute; however I just wanted to point out one of my uses and realize that I am actually creating my own content network.
At the end of the day podcasting is a new way to get content and in my opinion it really works well with the pace and trends of the world today.
Comment by Shaun — December 26, 2006 @ 12:19 pm