I must start by saying that I don’t care for podcasting, I think it’s a bunch of self-indulgent garbage.  There are probably some exceptions to this rule, but to think that anyone can be a radio personality or a DJ and have a quality offering is to ask the question of why very few people watch amateur sports.  There is a thing called talent.  I don’t profess to be an author, nor even a journalist - I write a blog, and that’s it.  Now, back to the topic at hand - I don’t care for podcasts. 

There’s been a lot of hoopla in the ‘blogosphere‘ (if you aren’t familiar with the term, I’m amazed you’ve found this! btw: here’s an overly defensive comment on the term) recently due to PodShow.com.  First, they recently relaunched with two main additions:

1. A new look and feel targeting a younger audience.  Most people seem to hate it, except for this guy (who makes a point about integrating with MySpace, which begs the bigger question: why isn’t this just a feature of MySpace???).
2. When they relaunched, they added the ability to pick up other sites’ RSS feeds, but apparently added in a feature by which they effectively claimed them as their own.  For a whole 3 days this was big news in lots of places, it inspired a cartoon, but then in just-as-blogworthy fashion, they fixed it with big news and coverage.

The site offers a ‘network’ of podcasts. I went to the site today (for the first time) and from the home page along I am ready to predict the slow meandering demise of PodShow.com.  In a sentence: if you are a normal/average person (this means you don’t already listen to podcasts, don’t read too many blogs, and could care less about wikis), there is absolutely nothing appealing to do from the home page! 

My options (and the reactions I have to them):

• ‘Supersuckers get it’ - huh?  not interested in the slightest
• The Dawn and Drew show - looks like a pair of people whose opinions I don’t really want to hear
• Alaska Podshow - snow, snow, and more snow
• American Cliche - okay, after a thorough read of the description I might actually try this one out, I must admit.

The rest of the links were about social networking, and I don’t know Marilyn, Janster, Neil Cochrane, or Meghan Marie, and more importantly, I don’t care (although I’m sure they’re very nice people).  I don’t know, maybe I’m too old for this stuff, or too set in my ways.  I just can’t see who has the time to make all this content, index it, link to it, explore it, etc…  It just seems like something that doesn’t need to exist.  That is, of course, with the exception of the opportunity to listen to “Middle Aged men playing Dungeons and Dragons.”