Webb Alert, the Morgan Webb hosted daily tech news video podcast is no more.
The show, launched in August 2007 gained strong initial interest at a time tech video podcasts were starting to become popular. Webb fronted the camera to share the days news in traditional television news format, professionally edited and top of its class in presentation.
Webb said in a post that her decision to abandon the show is due to increased demands from TV show X-Play. Allen Stern at Centernetworks though questions whether the show was paying for itself, with low page views, although notably that’s not a great metric for video podcasts.
I did try regularly watching the show for a while, and while it was reasonable to watch, it wasn’t compelling viewing. That’s no criticism of Webb, who did a sterling job as host, but more a reflection of the format. Do people really want to watch a news broadcast style show that summarizes the news from the day before, when most people would already be aware of it? The show suffered the same issue newspapers and television news do: delayed timing. While we’ll undoubtedly see new online shows emerge in the space, it’s never going to be a hugely popular vertical. News needs to be entertaining if it’s old ( What the Buck comes to mind), not read out in a staid, traditional way, to attract scale.
