Om Malik posits that the deal is really about broadcasting not podcasting.

When you combine yesterday's announcement with the weekend strategy-cast that becomes obvious. Some talent is leaving the podcastosphere, and joining the broadcastosphere, where the issues are different. They don't have to worry about podsafe music up in satellite-land because they've made their deal with the RIAA. That means that there will be new content created for the 4-hour broadcast that can't be played on the Internet.

The scaling issues that confront a popular podcast like DSC go away in the satellite system that already has its scaling worked out. But also gone is the breathless freedom, the DIYness of podcasting. As one of Om's commenters points out, the satellite people will want some control, the kind of control that isn't present in podcasts.

The BitTorrent corner-turn is nowhere near as hard as some think, but it is a corner-turn, and will require careful work with developers. Now that the air has cleared, and we can see that there are two distinct approaches, one which is a revisit of an old medium (radio), and the other a continuation of the new (podcasting), it could be time for the podcast community to get moving again.

But there's still another shoe out there,which has yet to drop. Odeo. In the spirit of "we do what we know how to do," it seems fair to assume that Ev and company will look at podcasting and see Blogger plus some of the community improvements of Flickr. I suspect that will further clear up what podcasting is, and isn't.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 5/3/05; 9:05:26 AM - --