Call it a conspiracy of market timing, Moore’s Law and Murphy’s Law, but just as video killed the radio star in 1980, YouTube, and to a certain extent, the video iPod, killed the audio podcaster.
Yahoo To Axe Podcast Search
Well, “kill” is a strong word. You might use “stamped down and crowded back onto its own turf,” forever in the shadow of its burgeoning video brother. Like with radio, there will always be people you’d rather hear than see, and vice versa, and always a place where listening is more appropriate than ogling.
In the year 2005, podcasting was all the buzz; anybody with a mic and some software could make their own show, upload it to iTunes and someone, somewhere could download it to their iPod — still a relatively new phenomenon.
But in that same year another phenomenon was budding, a whisper of a site called YouTube that rapidly began stealing thunder. And that October, the video iPod was released, just the right size for YouTubers.
Audio podcasting then, sort of went the way of ham radio – an outlet for hobbyists and those who’d rather not be lens-to-snout with a camera.
That’s not to say there’s not a place for audio. After all, radio’s still alive and kicking after all these years. It’s just to say that podcasting sort of missed its hour in the spotlight. Just as the mainstream was starting to understand what it even was, in walk YouTube and iPod’s younger brother to steal the show.
Chalk up the impending death of Yahoo’s podcast search site to whatever cause you like, but the site is scheduled for demolition on Halloween. This is Yahoo’s least traversed property, says PCPro, which means either a lack of interest or a lack of promotion, for there are, presumably, enough enthusiasts out there to keep a niche site like that afloat.
