An Exhibition, Not a Competition

Was thinking about my post yesterday about Danny Does Duluth. I was stressed about his show as competition; never had to deal with local competition before. It had already been a stressful night, for various reasons. Anyway, this morning it struck me, saying we're in competition is equivalent to saying Hawaii and Alaska are in competition.

Hawaii and Alaska both are US states, have Pacific coasts, mountains, forests, beautiful natural scenery. Both actively seek tourists and tourist dollars. So in a sense, they are competing.

But they are very different places. Someone who wants to go to a place like Alaska for their vacation, they could go to Alaska, Washington State maybe, Idaho, Colorado, the UP of Michigan, places like that. They'd be unlikely to go to Hawaii anyway, not because it's a worse place, but it's not a place like Alaska.

Ditto for Hawaii. You want a place like Hawaii, there's the state itself, maybe California, Baja, other Pacific islands of course, Carribean islands, whatever. Not liable to go to Alaska instead, because it ain't like Hawaii, and "like Hawaii" is what they want. They're appealing to different audiences, different demographics. Doesn't mean next year the Hawaii guy won't go to Alaska, and vice versa. This year, they have what they want, and that's what they're going to get.

Danny's show and my show are both podcasts from Duluth, hosted on Libsyn. And there the similarities end. We talk differently, act different, treat people different, cover differeent content, and have different plans for our shows. Apples and oranges. The folks who want to listen to a show like mine, listen to mine. The folks who want to listen to a show like his, listen to mine -- er, his. I'm not losing audience to him, and vice versa. And that's not liable to change. So no real competition.

Add to that, there's no reason if someone actually wanted to they couldn't listen to both shows. If he becomes a great success doing what he's doing, no harm done to me. I couldn't and wouldn't want to do a show just like his, even if his style produced a greater success and/or larger audience. It simply isn't the way I do things. I'm pretty sure he'd feel the same way.

And if one show inspires more people to listen to podcasts in general and increases awareness of the medium, it's good for the other show, at least up to a point.

So... please, no wagering.