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I Know Why Yahoo! Podcasts is Closing
So we learned today via Marshall that Yahoo Podcasts will be closing on the spookiest day of the year, October 31. Now, I like Marshall and he is a master blogger, but I slightly disagree on why Yahoo Podcasts is closing. He notes, "Some would argue that podcasting hasn’t caught on like it was expected to, that it’s been dominated by existing media giants and beaten as a medium by the rise of video. I still love me a good episode from ITConversations, Briefings Direct or our own new show Read/WriteTalk when I’m walking the dog - but Yahoo! users looking for podcasts will soon have to look elsewhere."
If we ignore his shameless plug for RWWTalk :) then we can see that he believes that podcasting hasn’t taken off like it was expected to and that video has been on the express track and audio the local. I agree with both arguments he makes in that video has moved faster overall and now that most multimedia players can handle video, it’s become preferred over audio. But here’s the real reason it’s closing:
THE DAMN THING NEVER WORKED. I spent hours trying to get CN podcasts to upload and never could get it to work. Emails to support went unanswered and I left. I wonder how many others were in the same boat.
Reading the Yahoo! Podcasters Listserve, other people are complaining too. It took a true act of journalistic courage to come out and say it here, though - and in such bold font! Glad to see someone with a podcast posting on this, and thanks for the kind words too.
Thanks Marshall - I used the big font becuase I thought it deserved it :) I love Yahoo but this was something that really frustrated me because I really wanted my podcasts on their network.
Of course I’m personally glad to see the end of the Yahoo! podcasts site as I built (and still am building) http://podcast.com ;) (single handedly, I might add! ;) phew!)
The funny thing is that once upon a time, Yahoo! was a huge collection of links ‘curated’ by people at Yahoo! All set in to nice categories etc. rather like DMOZ.
I’ve been building a similar model over at podcast.com, whicch as well as being a huge podcast search engine, also allows members to build their own directories of feeds - letting them tag them too and build playlists to share as rss too.
It’s taxomony PLUS folksonomy. There’s open OPML dta for every folder in the system for people to build their own verison of iTunes o the data, if they so wish. Mobile UIs too.
We’re just about to throw open the doors to the beta.
Fun times ahead! :)
Cheers!
Kosso
A recurring problem for Yahoo! is that they seem only tangentially interested in making their applications work.
In the past year, we have seen a few Yahoo! sites/applications disappear (Yahoo! auctions, now Yahoo! podcasts and there are probably a few others) and we have seen a lot of controversy surrounding certain Yahoo! properties (Flickr). We have seen a review of Yahoo!’s Internet radio application (LaunchCast) here on CN and a review of the new My Yahoo! beta on the HTMLCenter blog.
The same issue keeps rising to the surface in each of these incidents/posts: Yahoo! doesn’t seem to care about you (especially if you are not using a standard, out-of-the-box Microsoft-based computer). Many of their applications take a crap when you try to use them in anything but IE, their tech support seems to be consistently on vacation (occasionally you receive an automated response, but it rarely contains a solution or even an estimated time of repair) and their Web site is really not set up for anyone but IE users with a decent display. Forget about trying to use Yahoo!’s properties if you are using a mobile browser.