Podcasts suck

As a means of conveying information, podcasts suck.

• There's no good way of searching the content of an aggregate of podcasts through the likes of Google or Yahoo!.
• There's no good way of rapidly scanning through a single podcast for a particular keyword: the equivalent of CTRL-F or "/" in your browser.
• There's no good way of linking to a section in the middle of a podcast.
• If you're a half-way competent reader, you can ingest the same information in half the time it takes for someone to speak the same words.
• There is no way to automatically translate the content of a podcast into a different language (no matter how bad / funny automatic translations from things like Babelfish may be).
• If you're trapped in the middle of a boring meeting, it's really hard to browse through a podcast at the same time. Or to find the supporting statement for an argument that you're advancing at a more exciting meeting.

Give me a podcast if there's a really good reason for audio content; say, for example, if you're discussing your favourite new bands and playing clips of songs. Or if your VOIP is really screwed up and you end up sounding like Darth Wez. Or maybe if your content is of an adult nature and your vocal performance really adds to the effect. But otherwise--death to podcasts!