Everybody around me is hyping [podcasts](http://podshow.com/) as the next best thing to take over radio. Terrestial radio is bleeding audience, and sattelite radio is just another Iridium.
I’m an enthusiastic podcast listener, and for a while I bought into the hype. Then something happened to make me realize podcast is disruptive technology, but the killer app is yet to come. And the killer app is radio. Of a different kind.
Last week I recorded my first two podcasts, crossing the line form listener to producer. WOW moment. I plugged the mic, clicked record, did a bit of editing afterwards, and uploaded. The sound is so so, I’m still learning that part. It may be crappy, but at least it’s interesting. You see, quality is not about expensive audio setup and sound engineering, quality is about something I want to listen to.
Turns out that if you have something interesting to say, creating quality content is easy. And it’s only going to get easier. Not everything will be quality, far from it. But it will be an explosion of content, where I can easily find 24 hours of quality programming each and every day. And you can find 24 hours of quality programming — different from mine — each and every day.
Which brings me to my second moment of WOW. I logged in to [Pandora](http://www.pandora.com). I picked one of my favorite artists, and it created a channel with similar music, most of which I never heard before, most of which I’d love to hear again. I’m hooked. Pandora knows what I like, and it can play that 24/7. Did I mention quality programming?
I also learned this week that I’m starting to dislike my iPod.
For all its slick interface and sexy form factor, the iPod is a clunky device. It really belongs [here](http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000430055334/). You need to line up content and synchronize it in advance, you can’t listen to anything that streams, it can’t do news. Not to mention, my iPod is anywhere I remember taking it with me. Which is not a lot of places.
Fire the iPod, hire a cell phone.
Cell phones do more, cost less, are always around, always connected, sans the wires. But it won’t be [this](http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/08/looks_like_moto.html). The future is not overpriced, DRM-laden music that you buy from cell phone carriers. What does Verizon know about music? Do you care for Cingular DJs?
The future of radio is radio. A two-way radio that allows you to listen and record, download and upload. It does GSM or maybe CDMA, WiFi or mabye WiMax, Bluetooth but probably all of the above. It has the download capability for streaming music, the storage space to keep it there, and an open architecture that lets you search for content on [Odeo](http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/08/looks_like_moto.html), let Pandora pick it for you, or use some future Web service I can’t imagine yet.
Think Web 2.0. Add an antenna. That’s Radio 2.0.
tags: radio podcast web2.0 ipod pandora radio2.0
Andrew Deal