@ben Nice post. To me, authenticity is they key. If there is real thought and authenticity, then effort will be put into achieving something interesting.

Blogging has been consumed by the aggregators, and in many ways podcasting is the same – most podcasts have joined one of the networks.

Aggregation makes some sense, but the pressures to publish to a schedule, and to gain and keep advertising revenue means that maintaining authenticity gets harder.

The micro-casts like those by @manton and @colinwalker are great examples of casts that, like their author's blogs, publish when the author has something to say.