although podcasting

and blogging are indeed revolutionary, i don't think that either app will live up to its hype. businessweek ran a story an issue or two ago about how blogs are going to change the face of business. hold on a minute...while blogs are definitely having an effect (and will continue to), i don't see them fundamentally changing the face of business. podcasting is in the same boat - it's cool now, but once everybody and their mothers starts podcasting (much like blogging), the novelty will eventually wear off, and it will be business as usual, with a slight twist. i remember, back in 1995, when it was really cool to have your own webpage. not a lot of people knew how to write html, and so there were few compelling webpages. fast forward ten years: now, everyone and everything has a webpage - it's just not a big deal anymore. i think blogs are hitting that point: there are so many useless blogs out there publishing useless drivel (like mine, for example), that most will never get read by more than an audience of 1 or 2 people, if that. the power, of course, are in the blogs that publish compelling content: if you've got something interesting and novel to say, the public will pay attention. but this is the way it's always been: viewers will tune in if nbc has a cool show (e.g., seinfeld) and listeners will listen if labels turn out good music. so blogging and podcasting are the same thing, just different: no one's going to read your blog or listen to your podcast if you don't have compelling content. the difference, of course, with blogging and podcasting, is that these are much more democratic applications: it costs millions of dollars to produce a season of seinfeld, but it's virtually free to publish a blog. that's the difference: blogging and podcasting will allow those people who have something interesting to say to say it. the thing is, most people are boring, and don't have much to say. so while i'd like to say that blogging and podcasting are going to drastically change the way that the public gets its news/information and music, i don't see it happening. after all, when tv news broadcasts came out, newspapers didn't disappear. blogging and podcasting are all the rage right now, but i don't see traditional news sources and radio going anywhere anytime soon.