Blogs & Podcasts: the tipping point has occurred!

I really enjoy being ever-so-slightly ahead of the curve on trends (but not fads…as my 16 year old daughter will be happy to point out since she submits that I dress “like an old man”). After observing in early 2004 that what was going on with blogs was accelerating — and that this new way of engaging people in driving opinions, media and grassroots efforts online was going to change communications and human connections in new and fundamental ways — I got in the game with my own blog in December. I believe you have to live something experientially to truly build an intuitive understanding of a technology, movement or opportunity.

Besides straight blogs with text and images, I’ve really been enamored with the acceleration in podcasting (and, I believe quite soon, videocasting in some new form) and am thinking about this a lot every day. The compression in cost around enabling technologies and tools that are quite high quality (3-chip camcorders, audio recorders, computer software, multi-megapixel digital cameras, mobile phones with cameras) along with new web offerings (Typepad, Blogger, iPodder, Audioblog, Flickr) is driving A LOT of innovation in this space.

So imagine my delight with the following occurrences:

+ Yesterday Yahoo debuts “Yahoo360“, a blog/moblogging/photoshareing/music playin’ hub

+ Adam Curry (so-called “father of podcasting”) and a partner debut “Podshow“, a place for talent to come together with producers and distribution (plus advertisers!) and be the hub for this new genre

+ …and, of course, the previously released MSN Spaces offering from Microsoft.

Unless you’re living this right now in some form (which I feel I am in a small way with my own blog and my goofin’ around with podcasting), you probably don’t feel the excitement. I do. The innovation I’m seeing and also experiencing is the most I’ve seen happen in personal empowerment technology since the late Nineties.

Say goodbye to the first stage of the World Wide Web…and say hello to Web 2.0.