ONTARIO -- CA. Leo Laporte gave the opening keynote, titled Podcasting's Terrible Twos: Setting The Agenda For The Next Two Years, at this week's Podcast and Portable Media Expo (PPME). Mr. Laporte is, among other things, an author, TWiT.tv Host, G4TechTV Host and Tech Host on KFI AM640.

Mr. Laporte's first concern was the the term podcasting doesn't accurately reflect the nature of the medium. One doesn't need an iPod or iTunes to access audio and video content, although many people are under the impression these tools are required to enjoy the medium. He proposed the term "netcasting" as being more accurate, and not providing a tie to a specific vendor. Mr. Laporte acknowledged the great good that Apple has done to promote the medium via their devices and software, but was disappointed with their recent action again podcastready, claiming rights to the term podcast. In light of this, Mr. Laporte proposed an industry consortium that could trademark a vendor-neutral term like "netcast" and keep the lawyers out of the picture.

Mr. Laporte then noted that, at this point, events such as PPME should function like a party, where everyone should be cooperating to help build the medium, and not to compete for the most listeners or ad dollars. He reflected on how, for the most part, traditional media channels have fossilized due to the involvement of dollars and suits, and would hate to see a promising medium like podcasting fall prey to the same stagnation. Mr. Laporte suggested that podcasters should get creative in the ways they reward and engage their listeners, since pure advertising and trying to monetize the podcast could turn listeners off.

Mr. Laporte them commented on the lack of good tools for measuring a podcast's audience, and suggested that the numbers one can get at this point are not a good measure of the relevance or impact of the podcast. He mentioned how certain groups that currently perform measurements will discount hits that are from the same IP address, or hits from outside the US. But the real value is not the size of the audience or the number of hits, but the relationship the podcasters have with their listeners.