What Podcasting Portends for PR Pros

Over the past several weeks there has been quite a bit of blogosphere hype about Podcasting. Now the buzz is starting to crack into the mainstream press. If the trend holds, Podcasting, while nascent, certainly can have a lot of potential for the PR professional in the near future.

In case you're not familiar with it, Podcasting is the brainchild of Adam Curry. You might remember Adam from when he was a v-jay on MTV. These days Adam is a blogger/entrepreneur living in Amsterdam. The concept is simple. Anyone with a passion and time can use free tools (Curry's iPodder software and Apple iTunes) to broadcast audio content via RSS onto subscribers’ iPods or other portable devices. All a user needs to do is subscribe to the Podcast feed, hook up their iPod and they’re listening to audio programs.

For the PR industry, the Podcasting revolution is worth noting for several reasons. For one, some of the more pioneering radio stations will soon start Podcasting their news and programs to connect with gear-head audiences who are hungry for time-shifted content. Already, Mark Glaser at the Online Journalism Review is reporting that KOMO 1010 AM news in Seattle and WGBH have both started Podcasting news reports. If you score a placement on these stations you should now factor in that you are actually reaching a larger audience thanks to this new format.

Second, Podcasting – if it continues to catch on at its current rate - has the potential to disintermediate traditional and even satellite radio just the way blogging is doing with print. I can easily see how in the next few months Podcasting will give rise to new homespun "radio" personalities who – unfettered by FCC regulations - will connect with younger audiences. This will give PR professionals even more places to pitch clients, companies and products.

Finally, it is not impossible to envision major companies using Podcasting to broadcast highly relevant information to key audiences. For example, artists and record labels may one day set up RSS feeds to give their fans sneak preview snippets of forthcoming releases. And, even more importantly, I bet several publicly-traded firms this year (maybe Apple?) will start Podcasting their quarterly shareholder and analyst calls to investors via RSS.

Whether Podcasting is here to stay, simply hype or the beginning of a technology that will eventually morph into something else is anyone’s guess. However, the fact is this – eventually multimedia RSS feeds will become very common and it will only add even more powerful tools to the PR professional’s 21st Century toolkit. Keep your ear to the ground and keep reaching for the Podcasting stars. I have added a Podcasting category to this blog to track future developments.