I haven't written too much about it here, but I do have some online audio/video specific ideas for the iCite net, and I've been pretty regularly involved with posting audio and (later) video on the web since about 1995.

So, I wanted to point out Lucas Gonze's recent posts on the history of podcasting, which I think are right on:

• Distortion from the power-law structure of web logs
  (note: scroll down page)
• Digging podcasting out of the memory hole
• An alternate history of podcasting
• co-construction of podcasting users and technology

As with some of the recent hype about tagging and folksonomy (and with some of the past and ongoing hype about RSS), part of the problem with the hype about podcasting is that it takes some concepts that are blossoming and locks them inside a container of fixed perspectives. So, you get a kind-of party line that suggests that folks need question no farther because "we all know why this is great".

Then, this party-line, as such, gets repeated and spread widely. And, IMO, a relatively shallow common viewpoint counter-indicates really looking at what is going on. Consequentially, different, often deeper, insights, or more open perspectives (e.g., we really don't know what's great about this yet, but we're interested) get forgotten and ignored.

Thanks Lucas for going "on the record"—someone needed to say it!