Anyone who thinks podcasting has peaked or faded obviously doesn’t understand the hype curve. Go read “Inside the Tornado” by Geoffrey Moore. Sure - podcasting hasn’t had the same hype over the last 18 months that it had in it’s first 18 months. Guess what? That’s a GOOD thing. It’s a good thing for the industry, it’s a good thing for podcasters, and it’s a good thing for the audience.

Podcasting hasn’t even begun yet. We’re not even a scratch on a scratch of old media. The vast majority of the world do not yet have a portable media player. The process for getting podcasts onto portable media players is still crappy. The advertising model for podcasts is still coming together. In this way, podcasting isn’t very different from where the web was in general about ten years ago.

Yahoo’s podcast directory fell victim to the basic problem of all open podcast directories - iTunes. For all of iTunes’ problems, they nailed the position of podcast directory #1 because they nailed the device. I still don’t think they will hold that position of importance in podcasting long term, but it will take someone like Microsoft or Sony Ericsson or Nokia getting their shit together and coming up with a model for getting podcasts on next gen mobile phones.