Podcasting: Money-making force or online fad?

From the BBC News: Is podcasting the dotcom revolution of the new millennium? Many, like former MTV veejay Adam Curry, seem to think so. He and his partner Ron Bloom have created PodShow, a venture that allows virtually anyone to create, distribute and market their podcasts online. This goal of this growing phenomenon, according to Curry, "is to create a network that, in aggregatiwill have enough numbers to support a return on investment for the advertisers and for the podcasters," since podcast audiences are pre-selected via their subscriptions to the program. Others, such as Scripting.com writer and RSS creator Dave Winer, are more conservative about the power of podcasts. "No matter how you look at it, commercializing this medium isn't going to make very much money," he says. "Podcasting is going to be a medium of niches, with 'audiences' measured in the single digits, like e-mail or blogs."