Podcasting: The Truly Free Press – A Solo Episode with James Beshara on Below the Line

Check out the Below the Line podcast website

This is a solo episode with James Beshara (@jamesbeshara)—his first “plog” (podcast blog).

Key Takeaways

• Podcasting is the free press
  • “The internet, in the last 20 years, has been amazing for many things, but I think it was built for podcasting more than anything else—more than social media. I think e-commerce is great, but buying things isn’t nearly as beneficial to humanity as dissemination of information … I think it’s the Gutenberg press of our time.” – James Beshara
• The benefits of podcasts:
  • It’s free to start one (there’s a time cost, but much less than writing a long blog post)
  • They’re free to distribute globally
  • They’re free to consume
    • Think about it—for FREE you can be a fly on the wall, listening to world experts discussing their favorite topics
  • News outlets have agendas; most podcasters don’t
  • They’re easy to consume on the move
  • Compared to a long book, with podcasts, you’re able to consume a higher density of information in a shorter period of time
• “There are a lot of problems that we need to solve over the next 50 years. I don’t think there’s anything more powerful for improving for our collective consciousness—our collective psychology—than podcasting.” – James Beshara
• “I predict that, over the next decade, it’ll become more and more clear that podcasting will become the preferred medium for all of us to get our information from.” – James Beshara