“Is it possible that Google, Silicon Valley’s golden tech company of the (Internet) moment, actually made a mistake? Silver Lake partner and famed Silicon Valley VC Roger McNamee thinks so: ‘How did Google miss podcasting?’ McNamee demanded last week during a gathering at an event, ‘Legends in Internet & New Media,’ sponsored by The Indus Entrepreneurs, or TiE,” John Boudreau and Michael Bazeley report for The San Jose Mercury News.

Boudreau and Bazeley report, “Shortly after launching a directory of thousands of free podcasts on its iTunes online music store, Apple reported more than 1 million podcast subscriptions, he noted to the networking group. ‘In one day, they won,’ McNamee said of Apple. ‘Google whiffed on it.’”

Full article here.
McNamee’s right. Rock on. How Google didn’t do something with podcasting is beyond us. They must have been too busy making cheese graphics for their moon maps. It’s a rare oversight for Google, but it might prove to be a very, very big miss – especially if suspicions about Apple’s future video plans pan out; Apple’s iTunes could become a bigger portal than Google.

Related iPodDailyNews articles:
The next big thing? Apple’s iTunes 4.9 supports Video Podcasts (with example) – July 29, 2005
NY Times: Apple has just mainstreamed podcasting and put another feather iPod’s cap – July 28, 2005
NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ now available as podcast – July 28, 2005
Survey reveals 87-percent of U.S. internet users don’t know meaning of term ‘podcast’ – July 22, 2005
Apple’s iTunes Music Store offers erotic podcasts that some are calling ‘porncasts’ – July 22, 2005
Fortune: podcasting is a celebration of power of the Internet – July 12, 2005
Microsoft employees squeamish about ‘podcast’ term, try using ‘blogcast’ instead – July 11, 2005
The Economist: Apple’s embrace of podcasting ‘could have significant consequences’ – July 08, 2005
Research group: U.S. podcast audience will grow to 56 million by 2010 – July 06, 2005