Technology

Well this is a first – someone actually wrote a poem about me.  However, rather than being a love poem from my girlfriend, the first poem written about me is a satircal Dr. Suess spoof glossing me as the "Gromey" (after the Grinch), talking about how I stole SpectacleFest.  This is direct response to Friday’s entry about Buzz Out Loud and SpectacleFest.

First let me be clear about something – I’m not upset that people have decided to have fun at my expense.  If someone has that kind of time on their hands to write a 5 page, 1,363 word poem about this than more power to them.  However, I feel that it’s necessary to point out that the basis of their poem is based on a false premise, and that I essentially was personally attacked.  Again, I’m not upset, but I am annoyed.

I’m annoyed because while my comments were constructively taken on the show (they are setting up a completely separate Wiki & relegating SpectacleFest comments to after the show officially ends), people feel the need juvenilely misinterpret my comments as "those who would crush SpectacleFest".

I don’t hate SpectacleFest, and the essence of my blog posting was not to say that the joke itself was bad – but simply that the constant renditions of the joke were annoying listeners like myself.  While I did call out "the listeners" in general, I did not cast blame on anyone specifically and personally tried to go out of my way not to offend the hosts of Buzz Out Loud.  I was very conscious about not making any personal attacks, and I’ll let those who read the post decide whether I did.  The satirical comment I made about "it’s not funny anymore guy" was not targeted at anyone specifically and was made more to drive home a point.

Where I take issue is that I put these comments out on a blog so that people can read and respond appropriately.  There’s a comment mechanism that works well, and people have challenged my views in my blog before resulting in a fruitful discussion.  I enjoy being challenged, and enjoy engaging in thoughtful debate.  What I don’t enjoy is people resorting to personal attacks simply because they disagree with me, then do it in such a manner that’s basically behind my back.  I’m not saying Frank L shouldn’t have submitted the poem to the show, but at least give me the courtesy of writing a comment or emailing me.  I also must concede that I should have emailed my blog entry to the Buzz Out Loud hosts, rather than relying on their Technorati feeds.

It also frustrates me that Veronica decided to post this on her own blog, essentially taking a side in this issue and giving the impression that she took my critical feedback about show listeners personally.  This is definitely discouraging to anyone else who may share my views about the joke, or anyone who would like to submit feedback in general (If you don’t agree with what everyone is saying, we’ll vilify you).  Seeing this on her blog causes me to take this joke personally – there were probably better ways to communicate this poem (i.e the Wiki they are working on). 

Again, I’m not upset and I know I’m probably reading too much into a joke about someone commenting on another joke, but I wanted to explain why I don’t think this is very funny.

It’s 2am, I’m awake – so with it comes a random rant (my apologies in advance).

I’m a faithful listener to the Buzz Out Loud podcast: a daily, informative and entertaining technology show.  Back on Monday, July 31st, they were talking about the scaling-back of the E3 Gaming Convention (basically it’s cancelled in it’s current form and will be watered down to a modest media/developers conference).  In talking about the bells and whistles that consisted of E3, the BOL hosts spoke about the need for an over-hyped glitter convention and jokingly coined it as "Spectacle Fest".  This was a very funny, satirical insight on how the gaming (and tech) industry needs some kind of dog and pony show.  Everyone had a good laugh and the hosts joked about accepting pledges for Spectacle Fest.  In the following days audio comments and emails rolled in with fictional pledges.  Some funny items were pledged and we all had a good laugh.

Fast forward to two weeks later and BOL is still receiving emails/audio comments with Spectacle Fest pledges.  Listening to all of these, all I can think is "enough with this already!".  This was funny the first or second time, but what seems like 100 times later, this joke isn’t going to be funny any time soon.  What’s worse is that the "pledges" have leaked out of the podcast and are seeping into their discussion forums.  What began as a small satirical commentary has mutated into a large inside-joke that stopped being funny after the first 10 times.  Still, it seems that everyone needs to hop on this bandwagon.

The spectacle of Spectacle Fest isn’t the fault of the BOL hosts, they can’t help if they say something funny – this spectacle is on the show’s fans and the asynchronous media format of podcasting.  We all know that one guy who has no concept of aging humor – the guy who thinks the 20th rendition of a joke is just as funny as the first time it was told.  Unfortunately it seems like many of the comment contributors of Buzz Out Loud fall under this demographic.

With Podcasting, this becomes exacerbated.  If Buzz Out Loud was a traditional radio show, the comment would have been made, followed by 20 minutes of "pledge calls" before it was not funny anymore.  Since podcasting is asynchronous (meaning that the creation/recording and listening are done at different times) and live interaction with listeners is not possible, we’re prolonged the agony of having the 20 minutes of calls spread out over 2 weeks. 

Listeners: let’s move on from this joke!  I can guarantee that Tom, Molly and Veronica will say something witty and insightful for your future gravy-training.  I’m a big proponent of podcasting and asynchronous media, but this seems like huge liability for this format.  We need to monitor "it’s not funny anymore" guy more closely with this media.  Bartender, cut him off!

I really appreciate the late-night instant messaging conversations with my friend Matt, especially when they turn into enlightening discussions. Tonight we had an excellent discussion on the current state of affair in Podcasts, the second conversation of it’s kind in less than a month. It was a pretty random conversation, but I felt it would be helpful to reflect on a few of the points that were brought up.

Matt and I started getting into Podcasts around the same time, the beginning of 2006. Throughout this time we’ve both been enthusiastic listeners, both subscribing to about 30 podcasts each and doing a decent job of keeping up-to-date. We both prefer the anonymity of simply listening (I’ve submitted audio comments twice before, and both of us have sent rare emails in feedback). Both being tech enthusiasts, we’re extremely excited about this new broadcast medium. However, 7 months later we find ourselves growing frustrated with the increasing gap between the Podcasters and their current/potential listeners.

Our conversations have been quite complex and detailed, which forces me to break down our thoughts into different sections. In the interests of time and screen-space, I will break down our analysis of this issue into a few different postings over the next few days. Also please note that these postings reflect my opinions and may not necessarily be shared by Matt. Hopefully when Matt survives his summer sessions he’ll be able to offer his thoughts on these matters.

Latest Example: the current Podcast Awards: the nomination process and the final ballot. A few weeks ago, the web site solicited nominations from their users in the form of individual submissions. Like many, Matt and I participated in the nomination process and were eager to see the final ballot. After seeing the finalists unveiled, we were both definitely disappointed with the nominees – not because our favorites weren’t nominated – but by some of the glaring omissions and inconsistencies on the ballot. A good representation of this is the Technology / Science Category, where some big-name tech podcasts, namely This Week in Tech (statistically-speaking, one of the most popular Podcasts on the Internet). Furthermore, the nominations don’t do a good job of sync’ing up with the rankings of some of the larger Podcast directories: Podcast Alley (#X) and iTunes (#Y):

• Absolute Science (#10), (#39 in Science)
• Diggnation (#9), (#3)
• Mike Tech Show (#4), (Not listed)
• Security Now (#19), (#16)
• The Naked Scientist (#12), (#17)

I recognize that 50% of the nomination process was handled by a quantitative nominations, and I am not advocating that PodCastAwards simply take the top 5 listed in a category and place it on a ballot – but I think evidence confirms that there is no way to accurately gauge a Podcast’s popularity.

I struggle with the inconsistency of the Podcasts nominated. When I wear my tin-foil hat, part of me believes there was a deliberate disregard for the larger "corporate" podcasts, shows sponsored by bigger media outlets. After removing my hat, I am concerned that PodcastAwards didn’t create avenues to recognize shows that are not actively participating in the nomination process. I listened to many of the "finalist" casts before and during the nomination process, and many of them were appealing to their subscribers to nominate their show. It’s great to see the active participation rewarded, but does that invalidate the Podcast (and especially their audience) that didn’t hear about the awards? I have a lot of appreciation for the efforts of PodCastAwards, and I don’t suggest that this exercise is invalid. However, if the awards want to live up to their slogan of "The People’s Choice", further tweaks to the nomination process are needed. Right now I think the more appropriate term for these awards are the "Independent Podcaster Awards".

This leads me to my struggle between Listeners and Podcasters, and the advocacy the Podcasters (including those running the awards) need to meet listeners where they are and not where they’d like them to be. iTunes is a big reason why Podcasting has grown immensely – maybe there’s opportunity to incorporate the iTunes ranking into the nomination process. There needs to be some way to engage the casual listener to participate, even if in a detached capacity. I’ve found that Podcasters are really good at "preaching to the choir", but are still challenged by evangelizing outside the comforts of their subscription-base.