Singletrack Magazine hails from the U.K. and is generally pretty good at covering mountain biking on the whole, although it naturally focuses on the scene in Britain and Europe. Once in a while I pick up the print version of the magazine at my local Tower Records, but I mostly read the news they put forth online. They always seem to have the first look at the next model years bikes and they do a pretty thorough job describing them.
So today Singletrack announced its finalists for their Annual Readers Award 2005. Only they did it via podcast. I have to say, I am not a big podcast fan. Mostly because they are usually boring as sin! Nonetheless, I understand the ideals and promise of podcasting...time-shifting...radio for the masses...the long tail...that sort of thing...but if people don't start to improve the quality it will be too hard to weed through all of the shit to get to the good stuff and the phenomenon will die on the vine. (End rant now).
I looked around a little on their site to see if there was a printed list of the award nominees/recipients...no such luck. So I sucked it up and decided to listen to the podcast...not for me...but for you...the fans (there I go again...just kidding...ok).
What a snoozer...
Two staffers at Singletrack just simply read the names of the nominees for each of their categories. ZZZZZZZZZZ...ZZZZZZZZZ... The winners were not even announced!(Ok...so I should have known the winners would be announced on a later date, but I didn't read the intro closely enough.) There was no fanfare...no drum rolls...no staged jokes...nothing!
Alright, let me back up and say that Singletrack deserves some credit. This is their first podcast. They are trying to do something new in an industry (magazine publishing) that is, for the most part, terrified of anything that doesn't follow the old print based/ad revenue model. It always takes one or two tries before it becomes clear how the new media/technique/technology/thing should be used.
Here's the thing. A podcast should add value to the overall site content. Too many podcasts simply replace what could be done in writing. It should be of things that are not easily conveyed in print. A list of nominees...definitely print! An interview with a gregarious personality...maybe a podcast. Still too many people out there are either starry-eyed by the technology or just plain lazy and fall into the podcast trap.
Getting back to the Singletrack Awards. Writing the categories and nominees down while listening to the podcast was a bit like jotting down a hastily provided phone number from someones voice mail while driving. In other words, I'll wait until they put it in writing on the Web.
