Odeo and Power Laws

filed under Podcasting Business · 4 comments in the original

Today, the NY Times released an article on Odeo in the Technology section. Although it’s hard to say EXACTLY what Odeo is (the product is not yet released), the thing that seems to be driving the press more is the involvement of Evan Williams, founder of Blogger. Here’s what the Times did tell us about Odeo:

The primarily amateur Internet audio medium known as podcasting will take a small, hopeful step on Friday toward becoming the commercial Web's next big thing.
That step is planned by Odeo, a five-person start-up that is based in a walk-up apartment in this city’s Mission District and was co-founded by a Google alumnus. The company plans to introduce a Web-based system that is aimed at making a business of podcasting - the process of creating, finding, organizing and listening to digital audio files that range from living-room ramblings to BBC newscasts.

Source: NY Times, “For a Start-Up, Visions of Profit in Podcasting”

If Odeo is what I think it might be, that would be very cool as I support any platform that gets the general populous involved. Unfortunately, I’m not interested in Odeo solely for the potential of the product. I’m interested in it as a case where Power Laws, in this case the big spike, rears its ugly head. Just for clarity, this is in no way an attack on Evan or anyone involved - just a quick observation about these damned laws.

So why Odeo? Why the press interest. Why are bloggers going to take it and run. The wrong answer, for now, is because the product is exciting or great. The right answer, and I’ll stress FOR NOW once again, is because of the all-star team that’s behind it. Can anyone tell me who the other 3 people on the 5-person startup is. Anyone who’s ever started a company knows that when you’re at 5 employees, everyone’s critical.

How about another example. There has been considerable press to Adam Curry’s soon-o-be launched Podcasting company. Problem is, there is nothing ever been stated about what that company does, who’s involved - nothing. Last publicly stated proof of its existence was a post from Adam or Dave, can’t remember who, stating that they WEREN’T going to do business together. So why is Adam Curry’s yet-to-be-named Podcasting business still written about and promoted? Simple, it’s Adam Curry the Podfather himself.

So here’s the proof from the other side. If you subscribe to any of the podcasting lists, you’ll see a sweeping array of announcement of new sites, services, what have you. Sign up for a Google Alert! and you’ll get a few more each day that are related. And this is the only place you’ll hear about them, FOR NOW.

The truth is its easy to expect great things from those who have done great things previously. In this case, it’s reputation instead of links. Of course, there’s far too many examples where success does not breed success.

[note] - This post is not meant to serve as any form of assessment of the efforts by anyone involved. It’s meant solely to look at the role of reputation and power laws in the Podcasting context.