I’m sure that I’m not the first to comment on this, but here it goes…
We’ve all been carefully observing the ongoing transition between traditional media and the Internet for some time now. With traditional media, the results are very consistent and the production values are very high. For example, you know that your favorite TV show is going to be on every week at the same time and you know that it’s going to be just as great as last week’s episode. Online however, the story is different. Many blogs (this one is an example), podcasts, and video blogs update their content on an unpredictable schedule, and don’t have the same levels of quality as radio and television. This isn’t always the case (Revision3 is one) but as a sweeping generalization, it can be said that traditional media is much more consistent all around than online media. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with an inconsistent schedule and inconsistent message transmission quality (video quality, writing quality, etc.), and in fact it works great for many people because it gives them a much more human element (Gary Vaynerchuk comes to mind).
What I’m saying is that consistency in content quality, and consistency in the scheduled releases of content, are typically not recognized as the powerful tools that they are.
This is unfortunate, because it means that terms like blog, blogger, podcast, and others have come to be associated with flimsy, easily discredited information or content (not with techies and new media types like us, but the general public). I think more traditional words like show, publication, or journalist more accurately describe the goals of serious content publishers. I totally understand how ridiculous this might sound to a lot of people, and I know this post is seething with hypocrisy. However, I would argue that perception counts a lot, especially when it comes to non-technical individuals that are conditioned to consuming neatly packaged content through traditional channels.
The problems go way beyond the nomenclature, but I strongly believe that great shows (that just happen to be online) have the potential to directly compete with the best television and radio. If we don’t start believing that though, it won’t ever happen.
Go ahead, release the flames. I’m ready. 
6 comments ↓
Too long; didn’t read, but from the gist of it I’d say +1.
Hmmm… Perhaps “Ruby5 Podcast” should become “Ruby5 Newscast”?
@Gregg Haha! I thought about Ruby5 when writing this post, and it’s kind of an interesting case because it has both high production values and is released on a consistent schedule. It’s also targeted at technically oriented people that are very familiar with podcasting as a medium.
So really, I don’t know. I mostly wrote this post to hear what other people thought about it.
I feel like the terminology can be a barrier to entry for some mainstream audiences, just because they’ve come to associate the terms with content that isn’t as great as Ruby5 or Revision3.
I will be thrilled if I never hear the word “blog” or “podcast” again in my life.*
Give credit where it’s due — “blogging” turned the entire internet onto the idea of low-budget CMSs, and it’s a better web for it. But it’s kind of silly to keep calling these things “blogs” when very few of them resemble the original online diaries that blogs, in fact, were.
Yes, we, the inheritors of Web 2.0** all owe an entire community of exhibitionistic techies and their voyeuristic followers the wide adoption of websites with dynamically generated content (and also, if you really think about it, sites that are CSS-based, and standards-compliant).
But let’s kick out the ladder now that we no longer need it. It’s confusing to newer users, who just want a dynamic website, to use the word blog, which they rightfully associate with mommies writing in-depth accounts of diaper rash.
*…OR “Twitter”, you bastards! Stop using your website to promote some corporate fad!
** Let us also officially retire the term Web 2.0. It’s very web 2.0.
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[...] to find a differentiator, we looked at a lot of different screencasts, vid shows, pod blogs, or whatever they call them these days. After checking out lots and lots of tutorial-style videos, we noticed some common characteristics. [...]
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