I dunno Chris. I get what you’re getting at, but isn’t what “matters” relative and matter of your perspective. When you say there’s lots of things in the TV guide that don’t “matter”, do you mean they don’t matter to you? Me? Anyone? I totally agree that not all food should be fast-food, but some probably should — you know, when you want something fast! Junk TV and magazines and the like do serve a purpose — to entertain and distract. And while I agree there’s a lot of junky TV and media, there’s plenty that’s good. Battlestar Galatica definitely ain’t junk food, nor is The Tutors or Weeds or any number of quite good shows I could name.

Maybe I’m missing the point here, please let me know if I am, but I just think it’s way to easy to paint everything with the same brush, or to throw the baby out with the bathwater… or something like that.

Good point, Jay. All TV isn’t bad. Bad TV is bad. And of course all our opinions are self-relevant. That’s not really a deflector for what we might consider making, however. I’m basically saying that recreating what we already have would be a wasted opportunity. We can do that, of course, but there’s so much MORE we can do with this media and the various mediums we work in.

N’est pas?

Hmmm… I guess it depends on “what we already have” means. Are you talking about cutting down on noise and repetition? Every kind of story has been told, and every opinion that makes any sense is probably held by someone else, and they probably already blogged it yesterday. Does that mean I shouldn’t tell my version of the story, or expressive my version of the opinion? Or do you mean something else entirely? I could just be totally missing the point here, wouldn’t be the first time! ;-)

I think that part of this goes back to the i-can-be-chris-or-i-can-be-jon conversation. If I’m trying to clone you, that’s not fresh. And part of this is the chain that has the slogan “not fast food, but fresh food fast”. Fast produciton and consumption, but still with fresh healthy stuff. And past of this is finding the niches and serving them well rather that lowest common denominator. And part of this is teaching valuing individuals rather than masses.

I think the conversation within the podcaster class, which is what we’re talking about, the producers, not the consumers, is very self referential. Some producers have tons of comments and emails to feed them, while others, and I’m one of them, have few to none.

So podcasts that speak to podcasters help fill the void. Podcasts such how to techniques, the meaning of social media, what’s out there in music you should know about, are comforting. Still, these are among one, maybe two dozen show formats that represent the bulk of podcasts and to me that means podcasters are playing it safe.

The focus on gaining mindshare makes it harder to legitimize taking chances and going out on your own. That’s my take and I don’t see it as a negative - yet. It’s a maturity thing, podcasters are still learning to think of themselves as content producers first, broadcasters second, regardless of whether it’s a hobby or a job.

My take on Chris’ comment is that the content is what needs redirection. We are following each other in a circle, or circles. I think we need to take risks with the content and follow our bliss, go where we really want to go, instead of forever circling it, and not worry who is going to be there when we arrive.

I could be wrong, there could be tons of podcasts out there doing this already, and I just don’t have a podcast version of TV Guide to let me know.