Mark Cuban made a couple of posts about podcasting. To a certain degree I agree with what he says.

Podcasting is exploding right now. Many do it because they enjoy doing it (like me). Others are doing it with the idea of earning a living off of it (it would be nice – who wouldn’t want to make money doing something they enjoy?). Depending on the business model only few will reach their goal compared to the number of people attempting to do it. I think The Podcast Nework (TPN) will make it because they are delivering a wide variety of podcasts and content via blogs. But there is something I think is more important…the podcasters are not in competition with each other.

For example, there is The MS Dev Show, The Media Center Show, my show The Microsoft Show and hopefully one day The Gaming Show. There will be some overlapping with these podcasts because it can’t be helped but the content will not be the same. If something significant happens with Media Center of course The Media Center Show and the Microsoft Show will cover it…but how we cover it will be different and there will be other content surrounded by the coverage. See, if I see The Media Center Show doing something big about it I might only make a blog post about it…it depends but I have the option to do that. Most podcasting networks don’t give that option. The podcast is in one place and the content is someplace else.

Then there are podcast networks all about one thing. I wrote about the Sports Network. What stands out to me is that all the podcasters are in competition with each other. Yes, there are large amounts of people listening to podcasts but there are also a large number of people starting their own podcasts. Maybe it’s just my twisted logic but why would I want to be on a network where there are several other people doing the same thing, the same way? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising these types of networks but I am saying I see a problem with their business model. The individual podcasters (in my opinion) are getting a raw deal because it’s difficult to stand out when there are so many people doing the same thing. Look at TechPodcasts – there are so many and I’d actually have to download the podcast to see if I like it. There are at least five Apple/Mac podcasts on that list. Am I really going to go through five of them in an attempt to find one good one?

Nope, I’ll just go to TPN and listen to The Mac User Show. Or go completely away from networks and listen to Wizards of Technology, which is supposed to be about all technology but ends up being about Apple/Mac…go figure.

Another point – advertising. I wouldn’t have a problem running The Media Show or the MS Dev Show on my podcast because the shows are completely different from what mine will be, even though we might criss-cross content wise occasionally. Of course all the other shows are so different content wise I really don’t see a conflict of interest cross-promoting. The ability to cross promote is huge and that only strengthens the network. Niche networks don’t have the same flexibility without ticking off their listeners. If I subscribe to a Microsoft podcast I better not hear and Apple ad. And would a Microsoft podcaster really want to promote another podcaster whose doing almost the same thing they are? Highly unlikely.

Anyway, I agree with Marc Cuban’s perspective. Some people (in my opinion) are just going about it the wrong way to make money. With any technology that is cheap and easy to use it becomes diluted quickly (many people use it). With the number of podcasters growing along with the number of listeners it’s obvious all podcasters attempting to run a business off of it will not be able to do so. Think wisely, do something different, make your podcast stand out if you want to make money off of it.