Interim post -- extra "Podcasts of the Week"

I’m currently working on the next idea for a post, but in the meantime, some good “Podcast of the Week” recommendations have been piling up, so I would like to share a few of those.

The Nerdist, June 13, 2015 with Jim Norton

Comedian Jim Norton and host Chris Hardwick have a thought-provoking conversation about the nature of sexual compulsion or addiction. One key insight – hopefully without giving away too much – is that as men age, whatever the compulsion might be, they are more likely to find themselves realizing they can be happier without it.

WTF, July 21, 2016, with Chuck Klosterman

On the heels of Klosterman’s new book “But What If We’re Wrong?”, he sits down with Marc Maron, and together they give you a taste of what’s in the book. A couple highlights: arriving at some points about how technology and culture change human perceptions and experience; also, Klosterman wonders how historical perceptions of the past radically over time – like, could a US president who is considered to be good or great now eventually be re-evaluated as poor. And what if that were Lincoln?

99% Invisible, March 29, 2016, “The White Elephant of Tel Aviv”

Very interesting story from the podcast about design, architecture and the like, about the central bus station in Israel’s capital city, a development project that is widely seen as a failure. Imagine an even more vast version of New York’s Port Authority bus station, but with more than half the retail store locations vacant. In a succinct 35 minutes or so, reporters from Israeli radio tell the story of the station’s architecture, the way it was proposed and carried out, with a first skeleton built in the 1980s then abandoned until the economy picked up again in the mid-1990s. Then, after its completion, the station quickly became dirty and poorly maintained within just a couple years, and a lack of foot traffic for retail stores tucked into far flung and maze-like corridors caused more and more stores to close as time went on. It’s an interesting story, well told, with pieces of audio including the sales pitch made to the retailers, promotional advertisements, interviews with key players in the story, and more.

Podcasting singularity? Nevermore.

In previous posts, I’ve written about Amazon/Audible’s new entry into podcasting-style programming, Audible Channels [July 17]; about streaming music service Pandora picking up podcasts to distribute to its users [May 5]; and about the emergence of podcast aggregators, and their future [April 7].

Thinking about these different developments in spoken word audio and podcast distribution makes one wonder if these various distribution outlets will ever come together. Or to re-direct that thought, if content will ever become totally agnostic and non-exclusive to any one platform. That is now the case in television, with networks and channels making themselves available through cable; satellite; online; and devices such as Roku, Apple TV and Chromecast. HBO Now and Showtime streaming through Hulu or Amazon services can now be accessed using computers, smartphones or the previously mentioned streaming boxes.

Back to the podcasting landscape -- Audible Channels has a few exclusive shows, as previously noted, but also many shows that appear in numerous other outlets. Pandora has picked up two of NPR’s biggest hits and is said to be after more, but doesn’t have its own original podcast content yet. Howl, the service closest to Audible Channels in price point and inclusion of exclusive content, doesn’t have the breadth of subject matter that Audible Channels can offer. Its value may be that it does cost less than Audible Channels, for subscribers who are only interested in the comedy-centric content it offers.

Podcasting distribution may never have a “singularity” – meaning there won’t ever be one way to get all major podcasting content, just as some cable packages or systems would be missing an obscure channel or two, in the past. But podcasts may have to make sure they are on all available outlets, pursuing deals or licensing with Pandora, Audible Channels, Howl and more. The burden does fall on the podcasters themselves to find income, whether from sponsors or licensing. It’s less likely right now for distributors to commission more than a handful of podcasts – although the potential for more of that is there, if distributors think it will help them compete.

Podcast of the week

Episodes 11 & 12 of “Criminal” [“I’m About To Save Your Life” and “Break the Internet”] from fall 2014 – the first one is like one of those astounding stories you sometimes hear about someone who was so sadly gullible that they pay a fortune teller hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. In this case, a man was extorted by a criminal for over two decades, repeatedly, with a combination of tales of woe and threats – and his extorter was eventually put on trial even after the victim died, because the court admitted testimony the victim recorded. The second one is about a teenager who hacked AOL in its early days, just to get free time to use the service, when it was still charging hourly or monthly fees.

 

Audible's Channels: Are They Being Heard?

Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook service, debuted a beta version of “Channels,” a foray into podcast-style programming, in April. The service is not yet widely available, but the effort raises a few questions about its place in the audio programming competition.

Channels  is a de facto competitor for both free podcasts and subscription podcast apps and networks like Howl and Gimlet, as well as, in some respects, to satellite radio.

The first question is whether Channels’ few original shows are enough of an attraction by themselves, especially when so many popular podcasts are free.

Second, Channels has what one could call “syndicated” content from other media outlets, including several WNYC public radio-generated podcasts, highlights of the Risk storytelling podcast, and the Charlie Rose show (in audio form). These, of course, aren’t exclusive, and the only value of including them on Channels is the assumption that a Channels user lives only within the Channels firewall and doesn’t access any other audio content in any way, even free content.  Also, if Channels does grow exponentially in popularity, producers of this outside content could start demanding licensing income, or higher licensing fees – just as that happened with Netflix.

Third, numerous channels on the service are generic with titles like “60 Minutes of Fear,” “The Appetizer for Food Lovers,” “Entrepreneur Accelerator” and “Learn Something Amazing.” Without more detail on what these are, how much content they have and how frequently they add new content, it’s unclear how much of a draw these are, or what their quality is.

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but once they become evident, which is likely to take some time – possibly even years, not months – those answers will determine just how successful Audible Channels could be. The “market cap,” if the initiative works, could be far higher than just the audiobooks service.

Podcast of the week

I left this feature hanging, but promise to be more diligent to add it to each post going forward. The first episode of Chris Gethard's "Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People" was an intriguing listen. It was exciting and moving to hear Gethard urge his caller to get out of a rut and go out and seize life.

The broader threat of patent trolls

This entry will stray a bit outside the bounds of being strictly about podcasting, but will start in that realm.

For some time, well-known podcasters were backing and helping promote the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to fight off patent trolls, companies formed solely to attempt to capitalize on patents by stretching the definition of what patents actually cover. Patent trolls were suing popular podcasters or sending them cease and desist notices, claiming they owed licensing fees for the use of a patent that supposedly covered the practice of podcasting, in what any reasonable observer would say amounted to extortion.

The patent trolls were dealt a disabling blow in April 2015 when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office invalidated Personal Audio’s patent on podcasts because podcasting is “prior art,” meaning information or technology that was already publicly available and not a trade secret.

EFF is still fighting a much more pervasive and broader battle against patent trolls, however. Podcasting was only the tip of the iceberg, apparently.

Universities’ research, funded directly from federal and state grants that come out of citizens’ tax dollars, typically produces patented technology or biomedical discoveries. The trick is that some of these seeming innovations are akin to “prior art.” Universities actively market their patents through technology transfer departments. Third parties can buy these patents and profit from them – legitimately, by producing the technology, medication or other products derived from the patented material – or illegitimately, by taking the patent troll route.

Now, even in the legitimate route, one could argue that the public deserves some royalty or licensing income for contributing to the funding that made these discoveries possible. The counterargument is that society benefits from the innovation and discoveries – and that is the payback, which does make sense, now that I’m writing it.

As the EFF cites, though, patent trolls have taken questionable patents, like one from Stanford University on a natural amino acid, and used them as ammunition to sue workout supplement manufacturers. As John Oliver once related in an episode of “Last Week Tonight,” supplement makers aren’t the most ethical bunch either, but being able to extort any industry on flimsy claims of ownership is also wrong.

The point I want to make is that this phenomenon is exactly the sort of thing that should spark constituent and citizen demands to legislators and governments, since it’s public money supporting extortion. For more details on the story, I encourage you to check out EFF’s background article.