Podcasting: “irrational exuberance,” and illegal services?

My problem with podcasting is that the data becomes dated and stale as soon as it’s created. I don’t think this matters so much with podcasts based upon music shows, but formats based around the talk show format suffer from this static nature immediately. I just finished listening to Evan Williams of Odeo who just recently received primary funding from Charles River. I wanted to ask Evan how Odeo will make money and how his business will compete with Adam Curry’s venture funded endeavor, Podshow. But I can’t interact with a podcast stream because it’s nothing but an mp3 file wrapped up with some XML.

Personally, I don’t think there’s a business model behind podcasting for the creators of the stream nor do I think the companies like Podshow and Odeo are worthy of venture funding simply because I don’t see their offerings as being really innovative in the long-term. As soon as iPods and other mp3 players are capable of communicating with content in a more dynamic and immediate fashion without requiring a user to synchronize with an application like iTunes, Podshow and Odeo are out of business.

Are we heading back to a time of “irrational exuberance” like we were in the go-go 90’s where any bloke off the street could start a dotcom bomb and get valuations in the billions? It’s a scary thought considering we haven’t fully recovered from the irrational investments that were made before the bust.

What do Grokster, Podcast, and Odeo have in common? They may facilitate in the ability to download copywritten content. Podcasting may have some very real legal implications that have yet to be challenged. It won’t be contested in the legal system until podacsting is used for the wholesale and illicit distribution of protected content. It’s actually already happening. I’m just waiting for Lars to complain about it.