Proof that iTunes’ Podcast Recommendations Are Meaningless

So, if you know me or follow either of my podcasts, you know that I do a fantasy football podcast called Extra Points. My good friend Scott and I have done it for two full years (entering our third season), before any of the major FF sites were doing podcasts. We’ve got a decent sized audience and we’ve actually won a Podcast Peer Award for best sports podcast back in ‘06. I know we’ve got a good show. So, naturally, I was hopeful, when I saw that iTunes decided to feature fantasy football podcasts, that we’d be featured. No dice. Oh, well, that’s the way things go, no biggie.

Or, it was no biggie until I saw who they did decide to feature:

Now, I’m not going to knock anyone else’s podcast. That’s not my style. And, to be honest, I don’t listen to any other FF podcasts because I’ve OD’ed on information by the time I release my show. But one particular show really surprised me, mostly because it only has two episodes, neither of which has anything to do with fantasy football:

Now, again, nothing against the people who did this podcast; there’s no shame in podfading, and it’s not their fault that they’re still listed. But wouldn’t you think that someone at Apple would, I don’t know, go through their recommendations before they posted them and make sure they’re actually relevant? Basically, what you say to me with this choice are two things. One, you don’t give a damn about who you feature and just picked thirteen podcasts that had the words “fantasy football” in their titles without even looking at the podcasts in question. And two, my podcast (and every other fantasy football podcast that wasn’t featured) is apparently less worthy than a show that has no episodes. Plus, you invalidate all the other recommendations in the process, since you’ve just killed your credibility by deciding to feature a dead podcast. Those other podcasts could be great (and I’m not saying they’re not), but how can I trust any of those recommendations now?

Great job, Apple. Way to be a responsible and influential partner in promoting podcasting. I’ll stick to Google from now on.

Want Me To Watch Internet TV? Get It Where I Want To Watch.

So I’m reading yet another one of Chris Penn’s thought-provoking posts, this time about the Long Tail, in response to a question about why more people aren’t watching Internet TV. And that got me to thinking why I’m not watching more video online. I’ve got more audio podcast subscriptions than you can shake a stick at, but I’m only subscribed to two video podcasts: Ask a Ninja and the Best of YouTube feed. I have Joost installed and I’ve used it for maybe 15 minutes. I clearly know that there’s tons of great video content out there and I know how to get at it, so why aren’t I?

Simple. Internet TV isn’t yet where I want to watch it.

I know the studies say that a majority of people consume podcasts on their computers, but I really think that goes for audio podcasts, where you can have something playing in the background while you’re working or surfing the web. Personally, I consume the majority of my podcasts while I’m driving. In fact, if I couldn’t listen to my iPod through my car stereo, I’d probably not be consuming as many (if any) podcasts today. Since my car stereo doesn’t have a line in jack, I use an FM transmitter, which cost me around $30, to listen in my car. Voila: Easy podcast consumption.

Similarly, I (and, I suspect, many other folks) like to watch video on my television. We have two TVs in our house. One is in the living room in front of a very comfy couch. The other is in the bedroom, where Maureen and I can curl up and enjoy some TV before bed. My computer is in a small room off to the side, with a chair that’s comfortable enough if you’re working at the computer but not for sitting back and watching video. I can’t really watch anything longer than your average YouTube video without getting antsy and uncomfortable. And the iPod is also good for short bursts, but the screen is small and there are rarely moments where it’s convenient for me to watch video, especially for a long period of time. And even when there are, I’m more likely to play a round or two of Zuma than watch a video.

True story: Several months ago, what I would consider the “killer app” for Internet TV for me appeared: Google Video started offering NHL games for download. I’m a big Devils fan, but unless I want to pay my cable company what I consider a wholly unreasonable amount of money, I get to see maybe three or four games a season. So being able to watch Devils games online should have gotten me to jump in. But I’m stuck watching either a grainy, pixelated version on a web browser at my computer, or a decent quality file sized for my iPod screen. Plus, Google Video (at least at the time) had no RSS capabilities, so for each game I wanted to watch, I needed to manually go to their web site, download the iPod-formatted file, import it into iTunes and sync my iPod. And then I could spend an hour and a half going blind staring at my iPod. Needless to say, that lasted maybe a day.

So, for me, the solution is to get the video onto my television. But that’s not a simple proposition yet, and I’m fairly technically savvy and willing to work through roadblocks for this kind of stuff, whereas most people aren’t. But there’s no good solution that doesn’t cost a ton of money. You can set up a media center PC, but that’s painful and expensive. You can buy an Apple TV, but that’s still $300 and you still have to get everything into iTunes first, which means no streaming content like Joost or Ustream.tv. And even then, there are format conversions and all that other yucky stuff that I just don’t have the time for.

What there needs to be is some sort of a seamless way to either use one of the devices I already have attached to my televisions to watch Internet TV, or else create some sort of an inexpensive hardware solution that lets me do that easily. To that end, Nintendo has already sold 8 million Wiis worldwide, and they’re still selling as soon as they hit store shelves. All of those Wiis have Wifi built in and a free browser available for download. Why isn’t there an internet TV site that’s optimized for the Wii? Really, why is this not the biggest no-brainer in the history of Earth? Granted, the browser isn’t the friendliest to Flash apps, but, for goodness sake, you can run web servers off your PC to emulate a media center or stream your entire iTunes library. You mean to tell me that someone can’t get an internet TV site (or better yet, a video podcast directory) that works with the Wii? I’d gladly boot up the Wii and watch some vidcasts over a Red Sox post-game show on any given night. (Especially lately, but that’s another topic altogether.)

In the end, I really don’t care about the implementation, but the bottom line is that, until I can get internet TV on my non-internet television set without buying expensive hardware, running complicated software or spending all my time downloading and converting files, I’m not going to be a big internet video consumer. And if it’s too difficult for me, it’s certainly too difficult to pass the Grandma Test.

The Fine Line Between Promotion and Spam

CC Chapman had a great post on Managing the Gray today about personalization in self-promotion, and it got me thinking about something that got me kind of annoyed last night.

Some setup: Maureen and I have been on Myspace since we started The Wicked Good Podcast. We thought we’d use it to promote the show, and that hasn’t really happened as much as we thought it would (though we have found some great local bands to play on the show as a result), mainly because I don’t have the patience to reformat our show notes into MySpace’s craptastic interface. We added a number of people at first, but since then, we’re more or less let people come to us, and as long as said request isn’t from someone trying to get us to sign up for free iPods or adult services, we’ll happily accept any request.

What I’ve noticed lately, though, is the proliferation of event invitations on MySpace. These differ from bulletins in that they generate an e-mail to all the invitees. This is fine when used properly, but they’re often used to spam everyone’s friend list with some sort of announcement. In particular, what sent me over the edge was some podcaster who apparently added me to their friend list a while back sent out an event invitation to, I presume, his entire friend list to announce that he had posted episode #10 of his or her podcast. Said podcaster is no longer on my friend list.

Now, this could be the best podcast ever created, but I’m already sour on it, and the event invitation had the exact opposite effect of what this podcaster intended. Now, if this person had taken the time to send me a personal message (preferably indicating that they’d at least heard of my show), I’d probably give his show a listen, even if it’s not my thing. I’ll go way out of my way for my listeners. But I get so much spam lately that all I’m looking for is ways to reduce it, so anyone who’s bombing me with unsolicited e-mail on MySpace is going to be taken off my friend list as a defensive measure, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this line of thinking.

I think all the social networking opportunities that are available on the internet now are creating a Pokemon-esque “gotta catch ‘em all” mentality, and a lot of folks are so consumed with building said networks that they don’t give much thought to how to use them effectively. It’s really easy to send out a mass message to everyone in your network and hope that it sticks with a couple of people. But keep in mind that you’re not the only one who’s building these gigantic, loosely-associated networks (especially on MySpace, where “friend” is used in only the loosest of senses; I probably couldn’t tell you who half of my MySpace friends are without looking at their profiles), and that you’ll probably alienate twice as many people as you bring in. You’re much better off using these social networking sites to create personal connections with people and bring them in that way. It doesn’t have the instant gratification of a blast, but it’ll pay off better in the long run.

Social networking can be really powerful mojo, and as a wise man once said: With great power comes great responsibility.