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Tom Scott Has a New Podcast and of Course It Has Video

Posted by Matt Birchler
β€” 1 min read
Tom Scott Has a New Podcast and of Course It Has Video

Tom Scott in his weekly newsletter:

You may also remember, a couple of months ago, I pointed newsletter readers at a mysterious new YouTube channel and said that it might be worth subscribing over there. Well: that project is now ready to launch! It's a podcast called Lateral, and you can find it at lateralcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The trailer's up now, and the first episode will land at 4pm on Friday. Of course, these days a podcast means audio and video, so the full episodes and highlight clips will go up on the YouTube channel too.

I love podcasts and Tom Scott, so this is an instant-sub for me, but I found it interesting that he said "these days a podcast means audio and video," which isn't strictly true, but it certainly seems more true than ever before.

I remember the early days of podcasts where things like T.W.I.T. and Diggnation were video and audio, and then audio-only won out basically everywhere (even though T.W.I.T. still does video to this day). I liked this because the production is much easier and more people can do a good podcast when video is not required.

I don't mind people consuming podcasts on video platforms (and yes, you're still enjoying a podcast even if you didn't get the file from an RSS feed), but I don't love the idea that everything must have video. The added overhead video adds is substantial, and not as many people can do that as can record their voice. Besides, good video requires good audio, so you still have to do the audio work anyway.