Podcasting: Can Business Adapt?

Podcasting, for those of you who are not familiar, is creating your own audio files for your blog and then having them delivered automatically to your "subscribers". The word comes from the Apple I-Pod, which is a personal audio player. It's become popular to create music or audio, "podcast", and have all your subscribers listen to your content. It's like blogging, it's like radio; it's free, easy, and everybody seems to be doing it. It's very popular, but the big question is: where's the profit model?
We're going to see a lot of larger programs spring up around podcasting. Microsoft is already talking about using RSS extensively in its next operating system -- although don't use the word "Podcast" in Redmond: they prefer "Blogcast" instead. The Washington Post this week started integrating advertisements into their RSS feeds.
I wish them well, but I don't see advertising in RSS as being a profit center. Maybe for top-tier content providers, like the Washington Post or Slashdot. Sure, I see a lot of people trying, but the model isn't out there. Pay-as-you-go downloadable tunes might work, but even then there is going to be fierce competition from free content providers.
Of course, I'm a content provider too -- you're reading my content here. And I have a simple profit model for my web site: there is no profit model. It's like the Seinfeld show: it's a show about nothing. Well, blogs are content without reward. Adam Smith's invisible hand has tweaked the dissemination of information in a big way over the last decade: perhaps more has changed with blogs and podcasting than we've realized yet.
So I don't think advertising, link-trading, RSS-ads -- any of it -- is going to work as a profit model for most content creators. Can you get paid to blog and put in plugs for products? I would never do that, but it might be a valid message dissemination model. One could imagine a big company setting up a dozen or so bloggers and then "guiding" their content, probably through free gifts and such.
Usually when an industry cranks up like this, there will be all sorts of product development groups kicking off products to leverage the trend. Apple is updating their Ipods to allow purchase-and-download podcasting, and the RSS specification is open enough so that you can do all kinds of neat things with it. I could even imagine an asynchronous game played by RSS, with players receiving "news" updates and making decisions using web forms. Lots of fun stuff out there to do. Likewise, most new commercial business products will have RSS support in the next decade.
So is there a profit model in content providers? I don't think so. But there is and opportunity for extra features for software products, an opportunity for gamers, and an opportunity for major entertainment companies. And that means there will be a lot of development going on, which means that it will be a good few years for programmers and consultants.