This post is meant to start a discussion. I have a deep respect for everyone that put work into organizing Podcamp Boston 3. I’m sure it’s difficult to organize a conference the size of the one this past weekend and I appreciate everyone who contributed to getting it together.
My impression of Podcamp Boston 3 is that it’s time to rethink the word of Podcamp as a name for these parties we throw for ourselves. This year the direction of Podcamp Boston 3 shifted away from podcasting. This isn’t just the opinion of one person, but an opinion that I know is shared by other people that attended. Not podcasting, but “Social media” dominated the discussion. With each discussion that I overheard, no one could define what social media is. I refuse to get sucked into this lunacy. The term social media is just a way to sex up the Internet once more.
Social media as defined by wikipedia:
Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.
Dan Patterson put up a post reflecting back on Podcamp Boston 3. I suggest that you read it: Dan Patterson on Podcamp Boston. His thoughts are close to my own.
Perhaps Michael Geohagan was right. Maybe Podcasting is Dead and Podcamps should go the way of the Podcast and New Media Expo. The term “Social Media Camp” fits what just happened in Boston better than Podcamp does, and it hops on the bandwagon of a buzzword, just like Podcamp did back in 2006.
I have a lot to say about Podcamp, and I’ll be saying it on the blog and across the internet on other blog’s comments, my Twitter, 12Seconds, Seesmic and other accounts. I’m not offering non-constructive criticism here. I think it’s time to change the name of the conference for the sake of clarity.
Let me very clear about this. I am not saying the conference was a failure, nor am I saying that I did not have a great time there. I am saying that it is time to seriously consider retiring the word Pocamp and moving forward as a community if Podcamp Boston 3 is an indication of the direction that we are headed in. Despite how we define Podcamp (the definition changes regularly), perhaps “pod” is getting in the way of public perception. The public will always hear “pod” and associate that with the iPod.
Am I off base? I think that it is it time to change the name and follow the example set by the New Media Expo and move on from “pod” and podcasting if this is our focus? Let me know with a text or video comment. Seesmic comments are new to the blog as of this post.
Update #1: There’s some conversation going on at David Fisher’s blog What is Noise as well as at Dan’s previously mentioned blog.
6 Comments
I don’t think a new name is needed. After all, BarCamp makes one think of imbibing in the woods. If BarCamp had a literal name, it would be ComputerCamp, SoftwareCamp, or ProgrammingCamp, none of which have a good ring to them. Mashable has taken action on your suggestion and created SocialMediaCamp. Also, podcasting itself caught on as a name, just because it sounds cool and has a good ring to it. If it were named literally, it would be audiocast. So I don’t know that calling it PodCamp is hurting the event.
I did just have the realization that Podcasting is one of the oldest tools in the social media toolbox. We could view it as a ‘cornerstone’ and thus someone we want to stand on, or try to move away from it. Just be thankful it didn’t start earlier, else we’d have “EmailCamp”. That’s a scary thought.
Great thoughts, Rob - thanks!
David - We had other “camps” before Podcamp, and we had camps after Podcamp. I’m just kind of wondering if there isn’t another camp meeting the needs of the people who don’t want to talk about podcasting.
Those were my exact thoughts when I decided to create BlogCamp. You could say that I’m making something that is already out there (in PodCamp), or you could say I’m letting PodCamp be what it was originally meant to me, and take the weight of social media. PS I wanted to make SocialMediaCamp but apparently it’s already taken and happening August 5th in correlation with the Mashable party in Boston.
Interesting thoughts Rob. I kind of fell into this after I founded the New Jersey Podcasters Association. As we all enter into various forms of media, not just podcasting, the name became obsolete, as did the group. So, we changed the name - and the group - to New Media in New Jersey. Maybe the podcamp organizers, should take a look at their product. A new identity might open the doors to a wider variety of people. I, for one, support that idea.