Why Seth Godin is Wrong About Podcasting

I've just finished reading Seth Godin's book Small Is The New Big. It's a collection of random blog posts made into a book (Now that's an easy way to write a book!)

I love Seth Godin's stuff, and I've got most (all?) of his books.

But I think he's wrong about podcasting.

A podcast is like an audio newsletter delivered straight to your computer or iPod.

Under the heading "Why I don't have a podcast", he gives three reasons:

You can't "browse" it before subscribing (so you won't know what you like until you get it).
Listening is a real time commitment (he says he can "surf three hundred blogs in the same time it takes to listen to just one podcast").
You can put up a blog post in two minutes, but it takes an hour to make a podcast.

These seems like valid reasons, but it seemed to me that Godin was stuck with the mindset of the "traditional" podcast.

So I set about looking for a way to overcome these obstacles ... and I found it.

I give you ... the Five Minute Podcast

I've just launched a new podcast Expert's Gold.

Here's how it works ... Each week, I read out one of my newsletter articles, and record it on my iPod. I "top and tail" it with pre-recorded snippets, and then I upload it to the podcast. I also take the article and post it to my blog.

This solves all three of Seth Godin's concerns:

You can browse it, because the full text of the article is in the blog. So you can browse it, read it and print it (and Google can read it, too, which is an added benefit).
It doesn't take a huge time commitment for you, the listener, because each recording is at most five minutes long.
It's not a huge commitment for me, either. Because I've already written the newsletter, I don't have to come up with new material, I can do the recording in one take, and I don't have to write out a transcript for the blog. And uploading the podcast only takes a couple of minutes.

And it's still a professional product. Try it and you'll see what I mean.

Note that this process uses three of the five essential Internet tools for experts, which I mentioned a few weeks ago:

It uses material from your e-zine.
It publishes material to a blog.
It creates a podcast.

Can you do the same thing?

How can you leverage your written material into a high-value podcast? It might be easier than you think!

By the way, I really do like Seth Godin's work a lot - even if I'm disagreeing with him here. And I can highly recommend his book, which gave me the inspiration for the new podcast.

Find out more about podcasting here.

Key words: Internet Marketing, Web 2.0, audio, podcasting

Permission to Reprint: Yes, you may reprint this article in any of your publications - paid or free, electronic or physical, commercial or non-commercial - provided you do not edit it in any way (except for formatting changes to suit your publication style), and include this resource box with the article:

Gihan Perera is the author of "Get Active: Web Sites for Speakers, Trainers, Coaches and Consultants" and "Fast, Flat and Free: What You Need to Know to Stay Ahead in a Connected World". Visit http://GihanPerera.com and get your complimentary copies now.

I would also appreciate receiving a copy of the issue in which it appears, if that is convenient.