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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Author:   Doc Searls  
Posted: 3/20/2005; 12:41:53 AM
Topic: Saturday, March 19, 2005
Msg #: 5517 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next: 5515/5518
Reads: 8013

Stay tuned 
 Today Dave calls me to task (also here) about what I said here yesterday, about what Ross Rader said about David Janes and his podcasting product, BlogMatrix.
 What Ross said, specifically, was
 David Janes just kicked Evan Williams and Adam Curry in the nuts. Hard.
 And then,
 This application kicks serious ass. Look out podcasters, this is going to be an interesting ride.
 Dave makes a number of points — about "insider" conferences (in this case, O'Reilly's eTech, which just finished), about the excluding effects of conferences (causing insiders and outsiders), and this:
 Doc, who understands how bloggers hate to be talked down to by professonal journalists who know bupkis about blogging, now does exactly the same thing to podcasters.
 Okay, let's go back over what I said, then why, and then back to Dave's points.
 After making the point (I thought) that BlogMatrtix, Odeo (Ev's product) and Podshow (Adam's product) were "three different offerings, three different categories, three different conversations", I added,
 Chill, folks. Markets are public places where makers and vendors offer users and customers lots of choice. Not coliseums where gladiators kick and stab each other to death while the rest of us cheer over bruises and blood.
 The first remark was about the podcasting market: How it should be big enough for everybody we know now, and many more. And about how different the early participants already are.
 The second remark was a caution about falling into the mainstream journalistic convention we call "vendor sports". I feel strongly about this. In fact, I created IT Garage specifically as a place where we wouldn't do vendor sports. Dave purposely crafted BloggerCon (a model for blog-generation conferences) to do the same thing, and then some. (For what it's worth, I still think there are merits to old-style conferences, too. This eTech was one of the best I've ever been to.)
 I don't think Ross was copying mainstream journalists, by the way. I think he was saying what Dave agrees with heartily: that Ev and Adam have been blessed with lots of mainstream PR, while David Janes hasn't had any publicity at all — for a product that (I'll take Ross' word for it) rocks. In other words, I responded to Ross' rant with one of my own bugaboos. That doesn't mean I was wrong about what I said. It does mean I was off the topic Ross brought up.
 I didn't think I was talking down to anybody. Even when I pointed out that BlogMatrix only runs on Windows. My intention was to encourage people to welcome everybody with something to offer into the marketplace, to regard them on their own merits, and to respect the market as a big place where everybody can participate — rather than a small place where a few combatants fight to "win" by hurting or destroying each other.
 All that said, is Dave still right? Was I lecturing in the worst sense — by talking down?
 He adds,
 Doc, how about looking at your words from our perspective. Talking to us through you ain't going to cut it. Your friends who want to earn the respect of the podcasters should explain in the medium, in their own voices, in their own words -- produce a podcast and tell us what the fuck they're doing, instead of leaving us guessing. Then you might see the hostility ease, because that's where it comes from.
 The our he's talking about is podcasters: people who preach what they practice. Not who, like me, just preach.
 Because, so far, I'm not a podcaster.
 It's an important distinction. As long as I'm not podcasting I'm like one of those journalists who writes about blogging without ever writing a blog.
 Aside to Steve Gillmor: participating in a podcast, even one as good as The Gillmor Gang, is not the same as being a podcaster. I won't be a real podcaster until I produce my own goods. That's just a fact.
 So here's the deal (also a message to my own rear, which is not yet in gear): I won't write another thing about podcasters until I'm doing a podcast myself.
 [Later...] Dave responds. So does Ross. And Lloyd Davis.


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