Scott Fletcher over at PodCheck Review speaks about the Podcast Awards. I have to agree that there are so many podcasts now that it's difficult for any single person to cast any votes.
How many of the nominated shows do I recognize this year? Oh, maybe five or six. Even though I like two or three the shows that I recognized, I doubt I’ll even vote this year. Not because the rest of the nominated shows are bad shows, but because of the same reason YOU would find it difficult to vote for one of seven foreign films you've never seen, nor heard of, nor know any of the actors, nor really know what the show is about. You can’t force yourself to care about choosing one show from a seemingly arbitrary collection of shows in a category.
Pretty much every directory on the planet has some kind of rating system which is usually based on listener votes. There are different ways in which the votes are calculated, reset, and managed, but the system is largely the same. Which is to say, meaningless.
Is there any value to the Podcast Awards? What's different from the voting that occurs on the Podcast Awards and the voting that occurs on Podcast Alley or Podcast Pickle? What value does does becoming a finalist in the Podcast Awards provide?
I guess we'll see shortly.
