Sep

28

Podshow Raises $15 Million More in VC

September 28, 2006 |

PE Week Wire and Venturebeat report that Podshow has raised another $15 Million in venture capital.

I have been down on Podshow ever since its botched (un)launch a few month ago. They distribute podcasts - add advertising to it - and work with a few mainstream companies to help them to podcast. Honestly, I never saw where the value was that Podshow produced for them. Everybody with a $5 hosting account at a podcast hosting company can do what they are doing (they can’t tell me SwitchPod couldn’t handle an Acura ‘target-cast’ - hey - their interface looks like Podshow’s anyway). Hire a consultant, some voice talent and be done.

Podshow’s homepage/directory/social networking site is ridiculously stupid in its user interface design and how many Podshow shows exactly show up in the iTunes Top 100? Let’s have a quick look - no - none - let me check again - nope - still - NONE.

Here is VentureBeat’s take:

This is, frankly, surprising, because the business model still hasn’t been proven for this medium. This is a lot of money. There are other players out there, too, like Odeo (funding from Charles River & others) and Podtech (raised $5.5M from USVP & Venrock).

But then a number of investors see a land-grab going on here, an effort to be the primary destination where thousands of individual musicians and other content producers will come to provide their wares, and where millions of listeners will want to download them. We just saw Digg founders launch Revision3 to go for this market in the video area. And like Podtech, Podshow is working with bigger companies — in PodShow’s case, mainstream media companies — to help them produce and distribute podcasts. PodShow is also buying up other podcasting companies, so the cash could be meant for buying up more sites to become the biggest player. Its programming is extensive.

I agree - to a point - their programming is extensive - but not as good as Leo Laporte’s TWIT network or the newly launched Revision3. Forget about Odeo and Podtech - Odeo is going under soon and Podtech has no name recognition whatsoever. Podshow - they had a chance, but they still have to prove that they can get past their botched launch and gain some more credit within the podcasting community.

But Jason Calacanis asks the right question: What could Podshow even do with $15 Million?

Unless Podshow is looking to do a rollup (which is what Ron and Adam were involved in during the last bubble) this is gonna end badly. I’d love to believe a podcasting business could grow to a billion dollars–but I just don’t.

But Adam always says he is in it for the long run - and Adam wouldn’t lie, right? But see Jason - they need the money. Just think about how much money Curry blows on Virgin Atlantic upper class every month - oh - and there is that condo in San Francisco. Somebody got to pay for that. Oh - and the spliff. Let’s not forget about the spliff.

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2006/09/28/podshow-raises-15m-more-forpodcasting-yikes/

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