What Happens When You Don’t Engage Detractors: The Podshow Contract Controversy

A few days ago Keith and the Girl (a comedy podcast that is unsafe for both work and family environments), did an episode in which they read a contract - purportedly sent to them anonymously - between a podcaster and the podcast consolidation/promotion service Podshow.

The podcast, is at base a scathing criticism of a contract that the podcasters clearly believe to be one-sided.

There are varying opinions on this in the blogosphere. Eric Rice, podcasting guru and co-founder of AudioBlog posted that he thought something smelled “not-so-fresh” at Podshow. In an instant messenger conversation, he told me that it’s not any one issue that gives him pause. “What got me the most about the Podshow thing [referring to the Keith & the Girl Podcast],” he said, “is that it was ONE more thing in a long history of events that add to my belief that something is up with them…I don’t object to the contract, but what it represents: an old dying model on a fresh new medium that was not exactly the most transparent thing in the world.”

There are a number of responses to this issue in the blogosphere:

• r3v.com had a few choice (swear) words for Adam Curry, PodShow’s founder. He referenced the Wikipedia controversy wherein Curry edited an entry on the history of podcasting - which is one of the events that Rice referenced when he talked about his mistrust of Podshow.
• Multi-Media Me thinks that the contract is surprisingly “old-school” given how Curry often rails against the “old” way of doing things.
• Ewan Spence encourages a more level-headed response, “I can’t see anything that I wouldn’t expect to read in a contract from an organization like Podshow.”
• Paul Colligan thinks that the contract - while definitely worth thinking over before signing - isn’t as one sided as the podcasters make it seem.
• Finally, Creepy Sleepy, who has a contract in place with Podshow goes to bat for Podshow, saying, “PodShow, however bit they may be, has never violated my trust.” He criticizes Keith and the Girl for taking on such a news-worthy issue in such a one sided way. “You do your medium no good when jumping to conclusions and acting immaturely and irrationally. You harm yourself and your credibility, as well as the credibility of all who are working in your medium.”

As of this posting, Podshow has not posted anything about the Keith and the Girl incident on its blog which - from a critical perspective - does look an awful lot like a medium for press releases rather than an actual blog. And therein lies the lesson for business bloggers: Deal directly with problems like this when they come up instead of trying to sidestep them with a clever skit that doesn’t really do the complexities of the issue justice. If you’re going to engage with the blogosphere, it’s unwise to avoid a direct interaction with your core constituencies when something that gets people debating so fiercely crops up.

This is not to say that a business owes bloggers or pundits anything in particular simply because they have Internet access and an opinion. But when an issue becomes this widespread and explosive, it is wise to respond directly with an intelligent defense of your actions.