Podcasting Is Not About The Technology

Yesterday I made an little post to the [podcasters] list regarding the new fcasting widget Eric customized for the Beercasting site. I was quite excited about Eric's widget because it created a new venue for delivering Podcast content to the audience at large.

Ironically, the first response I got on the list was less than enthusiastic. Beyond the up front implications that I wasn't aware of what streaming was, there was an important message in the post. It was the hard line that some people draw when looking at the adoption of technology. For some, it's about the technology at play, for others it's about the people that play the technology and what they can do with it.

This isn't exactly a half empty, half full problem. For the most part, I am a technologist at heart which both stimulates and dulls my senses to new technologies. I love to find out about new technology and how people are using it. On the other hand, I'm hardly ever impressed with most technology since once you understand how it's made, you see through things. I've often found that the parts that are "exciting" is how clever the engineers were at using glue (a la sticking two or more existing things together in a unique way.

Of course, as anyone that reads this blog knows, I am far more interested in people and how they relate to each other and the ways that those technologies get adopted. From the business side, I am curious about what drives adoption and what techniques retard that growth.

The dispute with this other person really boiled down to him taking a hard line that if it's not delivered over RSS Enclosures then it's not a Podcast. I completely thing otherwise:

Thanks for sharing, though. I know I hold a fundamentally different opinion on the matter because I don't care about the technology at all (which is too complicated and convoluted for all but the bravest).. I'm more concerned with the social aspects of Podcasting and getting the most people possible to participate on some level.

This was actually the point of my post last week on Developers, Users and Consumers. As technology-minded folks it's too easy for us to get our heads so far up the proverbial ass that we can't tell what people want anymore.

I believe the fellow that was drawing this hard line is entirely wrong. I also think it's pretty close to blasphemous to call content pushed out by the BBC and other radio stations Podcasts because, for me, Podcasting is about REGULAR PEOPLE creating content, not about traditional media leaching off of a new distribution network.

Am I that wrong? Am I alone in thinking this way?