Apr

20

Hope for Podcasting?

April 20, 2007 |

podcasting.jpgThe AlarmClock reports that Podbridge has been able to raise $8.5 million in is Series B funding route.

Today, podcast advertising network PodBridge raised around $8.5M in Series B funding, according to a regulatory filing dug by PEWire. The Mountain View, CA-based startup is backed by Sutter Hill Ventures in the round and joined by return backers Mayfield and Worldview Technology Partners.

There are a couple of other players in this market, including Podtrac and Kliptronic.

I think there are good reasons to be skeptical about the future of podcast advertising. With such low mainstream penetration, the idea just doesn’t scale yet. While the podcasting niche is at least free from competition with Google so far, I think the reason Google isn’t in the game is because it just doesn’t make enough money yet.

The ROI for podcast advertising is probably pretty good. Few media outlets have such a close relationship with their listeners. However, the scale is just too small to make sense yet.

At times I wonder if those of us in the podcasting community started thinking about the commerical aspects too early. I think instead of focusing on money, we might be better off evangelizing. So far, there is still nobody out there who is the face of podcasting to a mainstream audience (except maybe Adam Curry could have been that person, but I unsubscribed from his show a year ago because it got too boring for me).

And what the hell do they need $8.5M for? I still haven’t figured out what podshow’s 70 people are doing. Wasn’t the idea behind podcasting that it was simple and anybody with a cheap hosting account could do it?

Another good comment comes from Pete Cashmore of Mashable:

Podcasting seems like one of those trends that was overhyped, over-funded, and didn’t prove as popular with consumers as many first thought. Hence the bearishness on sites like PodShow and Podtech.net (both, in their defense, have realized that video is far more appealing). I’m not going to say that Podbridge is overcooked, but come on: $8.5 million? What would they need to deliver to live up to that?

Technorati Tags: , ,


Share This

Related Posts

Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. John Furrier on April 20, 2007 11:56 pm

    Podcasting is definitely here to stay. Video is very strong. Podcasting was never overhyped and overfunded. The majority of podcasters are not funded by venture. All major media companies and corporations are putting out tons of podcasts.

    I have no idea what Pete means by bearishness.

  2. Frederic on April 21, 2007 12:07 pm

    John, I am not sure I can fully agree with you on that. Video seems to be getting very strong indeed, and that is a good thing and you guys at PodTech are producing some pretty good content (especially now that you Scoble to do dirctor’s cuts of his videos).

    But I think podcasting saw a lot of hype in late 2005 and it still hasn’t quite lived up to that promise. I think a lot of people have seen their subscriptions stagnate (even the big ones like TwiT) - I sure have with my own podcasts.

    And while the majority of podcasters is not funded, podshow and the likes are/were and I am not sure that was money well spend by the VCs.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind