You know what the most amazing moment of PodCamp Philly 3 was?
At the opening, I asked the crowd – 200+ folks – how many people had never been to a PodCamp before.
About 80% of the room raised their hands.
That’s huge. That’s amazing. I have to give huge props to the Philly organizing team for continuing to attract new members to our community. When Chris Brogan and I started PodCamp in 2006, we never imagined that years later, events in cities all over the world would continue to attract lots and lots of new people.
Another interesting curiosity from the weekend – the podcasting sessions were stuffed to the gills, standing room only for many of them. If you’ve read Seth Godin’s The Dip, I think podcasting is on the other side of its dip now. It came out strong in 2004 and 2005, was the shiny darling of the new media world, and then more or less went through massive growing pains. Based on the number of folks I talked to over the weekend, podcasting isn’t the sexy new thing any more – and that’s incredibly good news for people interested in learning about podcasting. The snake oil salesmen have moved on (they’re now selling Twitter expert guides) and the space has technologically matured.
Clay Shirky said best at TED @ State that something like podcasting becomes socially interesting after it becomes technologically uninteresting. The shiny has worn off and now people from all businesses and all areas of focus are looking at podcasting for what it truly is: a delivery mechanism for content that can, if used properly and selectively, give people the information they want in the method best suited to their needs.
Hats off again to the PodCamp Philly team for a great event and for continuing to show that podcasting, far from being dead, is only now starting its march out of the dip and into mainstream usages of all kinds.
Photo credit: Jakob Montrasio
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