Broadcast Central at Studio1A

As thoughts turn from Winter and the Holidays to the promise of Spring and Summer, I can’t help but reflect back, not quite 4 years ago, when iTunes included that curious new category called Podcasting to their [already] immensely popular music platform.

Here, in Orlando, New Media had its start even before the year 2000 with our cable companies experiment in delivering on-demand, interactive, data and non-OTA (over-the-air) exclusive programming.

Where do we go from here? The sky is the limit. In a World where packets of TCP and UDP data rule not just the Internet, but our music, movies and even phones, …there isn’t much we can’t accomplish with an IP address and a fiber backbone.

As I read and search out information on both traditional and new media, the lines become less defined every day. Some of us get our morning News from paper, while increasing numbers simply click a link from a web browser. Our entertainment, both audio and video, increasingly relies on MPEG streams and MAC addresses rather than amplitude or frequency modulation.

Even our Public Safety and commercial sectors rely increasingly on real-time voice communication codecs, mesh and cell data rather than the product detectors of old.

During our commute; some listen to traditional AM/FM radio, while younger demographics prefer their own on-demand libraries/playlists or the signal from a geosynchronous digital satellite stream high over our heads. Professionals get their email and more from the 3G connected smart-phone, while their kids endlessly text away to friends at a pace that would put my thumbs in a painful spasm.

Just before writing this, I was reading about HD Broadcast Radio. I still don’t own one, oddly enough. The supply of reasonably priced HD receivers is painfully slim, but getting better.

Television is just getting ready to go Digital as I tap this out, but most of us won’t notice the difference if we are connected to Cable or Satellite. It’s interesting to note the difference in programming material too. While many of us already have 1080i/1080p capability, the video source material varies widely from 480i on up.

Which brings me back on topic. What is Podcasting? To me, it’s broadcasting …plain and simple using an advanced delivery medium. How about the word itself? I thought that by now, the word “Podcasting” would be out of vogue and a more neutral term would be needed, such as New Media. However, outside my group of early-adopter friends, many people really don’t understand the word Podcasting.

Why do I mention all this? The pulse of Podcasting and New Media is not only strong, but it is bulging at the seams. We are simply witnessing a natural progression from hobby to commercial, vertical and corporate venues. The drop in hobby Podcasting simply strengthens the maturity and commercial viability of the medium. I can’t help but remember high-tech rumors of the mid-90′s, when the death of the Internet was predicted prematurely.

As we warm up the processing rack and send audio down the RSS feed, I feel even more confident, in 2009, that Podcasting, New Media, Netcasting and Broadcasting will not divide – but converge with OTA delivery mediums to provide more rich media than ever before.

Best,
MarkJensen

Filed under: Commentary