You guys know that I'm a big fan of podcasts. I've reviewed some on the blog in the past. They come and go. One that might be my favorite for months suddenly falls off the list. Or one that I hardly listen to becomes a regular, but I always am listening to something.
There's a new trend, though, in podcasts and I'm not a fan.
Podcasting on YouTube.
Or is it called Vodcasting?
What I've seen happen is the podcast gets posted on YouTube--sometimes via a live--and later gets posted to the podcast feed. I can live with that if the podcast is updated promptly. It isn't.
For example, I listen to Foul Territory, a baseball podcast. It's two hours of YouTube live from 1pm to 3pm Eastern every weekday. Later, they break it up so that each guest (usually a player) is uploaded to the podcast feed as their own segment and then an hour episode with everything else.
This would be really cool except that sometimes it takes them days--DAYS--to post the content to their feed. During the off season when they have a reporter updating us on signings or rumors of signings, waiting two days to listen is pointless. By then, the news is old and who cares?
I find it hugely annoying, but even more annoying are the people who only podcast on YouTube and never have a podcast feed at all.
I get it. It likely costs more money and it takes some technical savvy to make it work.
Here's my problem--I listen to podcasts while I'm driving. I can't watch YouTube while I'm behind the wheel and I'm not paying the ridiculous monthly fee Alphabet wants to turn off the screen and just listen. Then there are the mid-roll ads. I get that, too, but they're not timed for a break in the discussion. Someone can be mid-sentence and boom! There are ads. By the time they finish, I forgot the first half of the sentence the person was saying.
Again, $13.99 a month to get rid of ads. That's too much for the small amount of time I spend on YouTube. Although if this trend in podcasting continues, I might be spending more time on YouTube than I do today.
