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Who's Making All Those Free Podcasts?

By Mark Sounding


Podcasting, unlike any other media forms, almost never has charges for services, and the majority of feed producers distribute free podcasts. This puts at odds with, say, online radio stations, reports websites which offer media to customers, or the net music biz generally.

Even though podcasting has very direct correlations with industries like stories and music that have powerful business models, podcasting differs.

Listening to podcasts is a pleasant experience. Particularly if you're commuting, it's a great way to leverage that time. Wear a top quality set of the best iPhone headphones available, and listen away!

Podcasting doesn't truly have a financial model, and barely any person is podcasting to gain from it. There are some businesses and stories sites that podcast,but they do it as a technique to supplement their companies and to gain technical geek credibility, not to make money. This is an odd thing, but explainable in light of what podcasting is.

The free podcast problem isn't troublesome, and podcasting differs in one or two key techniques from other media areas. First, podcasting involves the physical transfer of a file from the host to the users computer. An internet radio station does not do this; all that they supply to their listeners is a streaming sound file that can't be saved without difficulty and work.

If someone did manage to do that the station would have strong grounds for suing them since they were never given the rights to keep and store the files. By podcasting the entire file to the users computer, express permission is granted theuser to replicate and use as they wish.

Second, the podcasts are, usually, made by individuals who've low costs concerned in making and distributing the files, in opposition to a stories broadcast or song by a music company. These people have small reason to charge for their work since there is little cost to them to do so.

As the files are distributed in a way permits their duplicating and does not control the media, and since podcasting is a particularly low cost media outlet, feed producers have small reason or ability to charge for their work.




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