Adam Curry to Podcast for Sirius

The announcement that Adam Curry and Sirius are teaming up to produce a four hour daily program on podcasting shows that, like it or not, Mel Karmazin continues to transform the lagging satellite radio service into a contender. The Sirius news release will frost Dave Winer. It calls Adam the father of podcasting, when in reality the concept had several early proponents, notably Dave. By many accounts, he and Adam had a falling out over how to monitize podcasting. Adam should have exerted a bit more influence to get the story straight in the release. The key question is: How much worthy podcast product is really out there? For every Todd Cochrane and Michael Geoghegan there are probably 50 wannabes with Powerbooks, microphones and rose colored glasses who want to grow up to be an Adam Curry. What ego wouldn't want their own wikipedia entry? To paraphrase Jonathan Wolfert, "Quality takes time." Listen to a cross section of what's on Podcast Alley and you'll find that there is still a lot more trash than treasure. But that's ok with us. Podcasting has opened up broadcasting to thousands of new voices. Like the days before voice tracking and megamedia, there is once again a place where it's ok to be bad while you're learning the trade. Even the Keener jocks have air checks they hide and will tell you that it took a lot of practice to find the rhythm. Podcasting gives us that vehicle. So kudos to Sirius for having the vision to showcase this emerging medium in all it's uneven glory. We'll be listening.