Most Valuable Podcast – Pimp For Votes Or Link Bait? You Decide

Fly-Over Marketing guy and regular audio comment contributor to Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast, Kevin Behringer, has started a Most Valuable Podcast survey over here: Most Valuable Podcast Voting Now Open! and Six Pixels of Separation made the -sweet 16- final list.
I thought the least I could do was vote for myself and then realized that he-s pitting Podcasts against one another, and I have been put up against one of my favorites – American Copywriter (which sucks the big RSS). Tug and John are two of the best and brightest Podcasters out there (and a big reason why I started Six Pixels of Separation), so how pathetic am I that I was slightly tempted to vote for them over me (don-t go high-five-ing yourselves just yet Tug and John, I came to my senses).
So why do I hesitate to Blog about this -contest-? We-ve all become so cynical about this sort of Survey Monkey-driven stuff (myself included). Is Fly Over Marketing doing this to get some link love (or link bait) and popularity? Does pimping for votes here make me a bad Blogger? After all, if Six Pixels of Separation is so good, then people will naturally vote for it and would not need me to nudge them to do so.
So, while it is flattering that Kevin has put me on this list, I see all of the other Podcasts represented and I-m left a little empty and guilty feeling. I follow all of these Podcasts. I consider most of the hosts of these Podcasts friends (some of them good friends). I respect them all. I listen to them all. I know, it-s not very competitive of me, but that may be the main point: there does not have to be one Most Valuable Podcast, because all of them are so varied and different and do co-exist quite happily. It’s like only having only one Avatar in Second Life – not much of a community if that happened.
In a marketing world where we use terms of warfare when describing the competition, the only solace I take from the Most Valuable Podcast Blog posting is that I-m on the right path by listening to the best and brightest talk about marketing, communications, advertising and PR – maybe there are no MVPs in Social Media?
So thanks for thinking of, but I would rather look at the list of Podcasts as a directory and less as a ranking. I-m also reminded to add some of these people to my Pod Roll (on the left-hand side of this Blog).
Here is the Sweet 16 (and they are, sweet indeed):
– Across the Sound.
– Six Pixels of Separation.
– Managing the Gray.
– Inside PR.
– For Immediate Release.
– The Accidental Creative.
– The Engaging Brand.
– Forward Podcast.
– Trafcom News.
– CrayonCast.
– Marketing Martini.
– American Copywriter.
– Diary of a Shameless Self Promoter.
– The Client Side.
– New Comm Road.
– The M Show.