The Last Days of PodTech?

Robert Scoble has been thinking a lot about his future. According to TechCrunch, PodTech isn’t in it.

Roughly 18 months after the technology evangelist left his corporate blogging gig at Microsoft to join John Furrrier’s new media startup, the tech-biz videoblogger is reportedly packing up his eponymous, self-hosted Scoble Show (Tilzy.TV page) and leaving the online video network to start the moving picture side of Fast Company magazine.

Similar to Wired’s recent announcement of its aspirations for its web video wing, Fast Company seems to be riding the inevitable trend of periodicals incorporating original programming into their online destinations. There’s no word yet on whether Scoble will continue his casual interview show with “geeks, technologists, and developers”, but considering the mag’s mission statement is to chart “the evolution of business through a unique focus on the most creative individuals sparking change in the marketplace,” it would be an easy fit.

For PodTech, the announcement is the latest in a string of misfortunes and PR mishaps that might render the company defunct in the very near future. ###

After parting ways with the female face of their network, Irina Slutsky and her poppy tech-geek web show, Geek Entertainment TV (Tilzy.TV page), and now with the imminent loss of Scoble, PodTech is lacking regular, quality content with any appeal outside of a narrow, Silicon Valley niche.

The company’s deals with Bill Streeter of LoFi St. Louis (Tilzy.TV page) and Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine (Tilzy.TV page) have kept two great independent content producers in the business of consistently producing content for the past several months, and have helped to spread the PodTech name outside of the Valley.

For all the bad things that have been said about PodTech, their support of these two shows is commendable, though if I were Streeter or Smooth, I’d start looking for a new home.