By Rex Hammock

Perhaps you’ve heard the big news of the week. No, not the midterm elections. I’m referring to Amazon sending out a 70-page catalog promoting Christmas toys this year. A real catalog. The kind printed on paper pages, not displayed on web pages. The kind of catalog I used to look forward to every year about this time.

By Rex Hammock

Last week, Mathew Ingram, Columbia Journalism Review‘s chief digital writer, wrote an essay titled, “Is the Podcast Bubble Bursting?” A couple of years ago, I wrote an Idea Email essay with an opposite title, “Why Podcasting Is, Once Again, The Next Big Thing.

Podcasting, which has been declared dead or revived more than any category of web content I can think of, has managed to stay alive for 14 years. However, web-based content tools and strategies are known for their extreme love-hate cycles.