I see that there are services popping up for people to do Live streamed Podcast, I had to laugh because people have been doing live streaming shows on services like live365.com a lot longer than podcasting has been around. I suppose super devoted fans would turn into a live stream but I have never listened to live streaming shows. Their is no way it works for my lifestyle I can’t hit pause when the phone rings etc..
Podcast are still in my book the perfect media, I get to listen when, where and how I want to. I am not stuck to a computer, I can e-mail my thoughts or call a voice mail contact line later to leave my impressions. This is the power of podcasting which is the true power of walk away content.
If Podcasters are not getting listener feedback in the form of e-mail or voice comments, they will likely not get feedback when they are on line live as well. Take for example the Tech Podcast Roundtable we do that show live, and on average we have about 50 people turn up for the live events. But when we post the show we typically see 20 to 25 thousand downloads. So you tell me which venue has more impact.
The cost of doing a live show are also very expensive if you want it to scale, typically will be way above the cost of what most shows can afford. The next question to ask is when your show is streamed live are now a podcast or are you a streaming audio show. Your guess is as good as mine.
On Micheal and Evo’s Wingin’ It the fans of the show set up the stream. They first started with Skype, but quickly out grew that. Then they moved on to a Shoutcast stream which is what they are doing now. When they record they push the stream out to a fans’ main streaming server, from there a couple other servers spead out the load from there. Granted there is about a 30 or so second delay. In combination with the IRC chat channel, it makes it a fun new way to listen to it unedited (yes they edit some). I don’t get a chance much to listen to the stream though.
My recommendation is if the fans demand it and you have enough to justify the compliation to get it working, do it. In general though, it is just too expensive to do it yourself if no one is listening.