John wrote the article as an attempt to remove some misconceptions that corporations have about podcasting. Some of the points that I've laboured over again and again also show up in John's article:
- For some reason, advertisers seem to think that radio and television listener/viewer stats are more reliable than podcast stats. Bollocks, as they say. Main Stream Media (MSM) stats whether radio, television, or print, are almost completely fabricated. Or at least extrapolated from a small survey sample group. Web server stats can actually show how many people downloaded a given episode. Rather than getting tied up in whether each download was listened to, advertisers should take MSM to task to find out how misled they've been for the past 50 years. Podcast stats are far more useful.
- The quality of material available on podcasts is really skyrocketing. There's a perception out there that podcasts suck. In fact, I gave a talk in early May of this year and said the same thing: if I had to reach into the "podcast bucket" and pull out 10 random podcasts, there's a very good chance all of them will suck. However, even a few months later, I'm starting to think that may not be true any more. As more and more professionals start podcasting and more and more amateurs gain experience, the quality of podcasts is starting to improve. In the end content will rule, though. People generally have a high tolerance for audio quality level if they're getting content they can't get anywhere else.
