Although excited at the prospect of being lucky enough to attend the first conference devoted to podcasting, I did reserve some skepticism at the potential content and attendance of this past weekend’s Portable Media Expo (PME) in Ontario, CA. Boy, was I wrong… skepticism be damned, these guys were really sharp and the panels were well above average in both content and open Q&A.

Thousands of podcasters, publishers, listeners and content aggregators descended on an otherwise sleepy town, seemingly built around the convention center. Even though there were no lulls in the activities for the 48 hour show, one could have easily popped in on the Portable Sanitation Association International (PSAI) event happening right next door (who knew there were that many port-a-potties available anyway!!??).

Two events devoted to "Portable" solutions… one regarding hot air and the other regarding portable toilets… I’ll provide some observations about the former:

1. There were two questions permeating the conference throughout - the first was "how can I make money through podcasting?" and the other was "what kind of metrics can I set up to monitor current subscribership and increase for the future?" Both questions were addressed without a consensus solution. Leo Laporte seemed to hit the nail on the head in his opening remarks when he told us to forget about monetization for now… hone the content, get more podcasts out there, get heard. The money will start coming once the medium has more validity in mainstream America… and it doesn’t end there as he so neatly put it in one sentence, "Howard Stern broadcasts to America… I broadcast to the world." My takeaway was that monetization solutions will be much more apparent once Podcasting has evolved over the next 12 months and more and more people are embracing it.

2. This was not Podcasting 101. These people knew their stuff - from the presenters to the attendees - every question went well beyond scratching the surface. This added to the excitement around the conference and made the modest $249 session attendance fee well worth it.

3. There was a sense of naivity and freedom at this conference that I’m afraid will probably never be equalled again. So-called "competitors" were buying drinks for each other; podcast interviews were taking place between transvestites and tech pundits, and people were quite simply giving hardware away for anyone expressing interest in certain solutions. The Griffin folks, for example, were generous enough to ‘donate’ an AirClick and iTalk to me for me to try out and report back on at the next SF Podcasting meetup.

The LA Times ran a nice overview piece regarding the conference.

My two cents? I think podcasting is just the beginning of radio’s evolution. TiVo is well on its way to changing how television is appreciated and viewed. Likewise, podcasts will do the same for listeners. TiVo essentially allowed the viewer to watch what they want, when they wanted to… Podcasts go even further than that. They’re not predicated on content provided by the mass-media broadcasters. Instead, there are thousands and thousands of Podcasts out there, all targeted at a very specific audience. I can truly listen to exactly what I want, when I want to. (And, unlike TV and PC content, I can take it with me wherever I go - commute, in the pub, on the train, jogging… okay, maybe not that last one;).

For a quick, beginners guide to Podcasting, a snapshot of some of the podcasts I listen to, and for further links regarding podcasting in general, please check out a recent blog post I made at The ESBlog.

Cheers!

Richard Brewer-Hay