Sitting here listening to call in shows on NPR (“On Point”) and thinking about podcasting. For all that it’s a 21st century, Internet-age technology, podcasting is amazingly non-interactive. You and some friends gather in some virtual meeting place, talk about some stuff, and then send it out into the world… but it’s a panel discussion – or just a lone person sending their thoughts into the void – but there isn’t the wide range of discussion. Especially when people know each other well, they may already be anticipating the sorts of things their friends will say – and so the give and take is edited before it’s even spoken.
Now, getting interested and articulate people to call in would be a struggle, and you’d need a producer to screen the people ahead of time and to let them have their time to make their comment or ask a question and then put them back into listen-only… yeah it would be a lot tougher. But wouldn’t you listen to a podcast about, oh I dunno, Age of Conan that included players, beta testers, Conan the Comic fans and such coming up and asking about the game or the lore?
It could work. Getting the word out and everyone online at the same time and screening the callers would take work. But discussion would go into entirely new directions just because of the wide variety of the callers.
Are there any podcasts that work this way already – with random people calling in for comments or questions? If so, I’d like to have a listen and see how well they work out.