I am a big fan of the work that Ryan Holiday does with the books that he writes and especially his podcast, the Daily Stoic. It is the first (and only) daily podcast that I know of –– I imagine the rest of them were short-lived. It is an interesting format that I think is a little underrated. The daily nature of it is valuable to its creator and the listener.
On the creator’s side, the daily podcast becomes another form of forced reflection. I have read into the life of Holiday and thus know that he is a big advocate of journalling. I imagine, from a practical point of view, Holiday gives his journalling a once-over to find an interesting thread which he can then freestyle on for 2 to 5 minutes. In this way, there is a filtering which naturally brings the most compelling thoughts to mind. Each acts as a potential spark which can ignite further lines of inquiry and investigation. Even if only one in every ten days produces a thought that invites further exploration, I think it a valuable practice, I will take those odds any day.
I suppose this works well for Holiday because journalling and reflection is already a core part of his lifestyle. If someone who did not have that tried starting a daily podcast, I can very easily imagine it being a struggle finding a thought to freestyle on.
On the listeners side, the daily nature of the podcast should not matter especially as podcast episode discovery features mature. I am a liberal listener of podcasts because often I am doing so while I do something else, and so I don’t spend too much time finding things to listen to. On the app I use, they compile a playlist of all the latest episodes which I just chuck on when I have time. If I am not feeling something, I will just skip to the next one. This works fine for the moment, but I long for the technology that powers music discovery pioneered by the likes of Pandora Radio to become to podcast episodes. Once it gets to the level, I imagine that whether it is a daily podcast or weekly podcast matters not, the content becomes king.
I wait with bated breath to see the next popular daily podcast. In the meantime, I’ll probably try start one of my own to see if what I think proves true.