Why audio blogs?

I just clicked over to Dan Gillmor's opinion piece about how Microsoft is helping China use its software to squash democracy. Seemed mildly interesting so I thought I'd skim what he had to say. Oops, turns out it's a audio blog entry, a.k.a. "podcast." Well, sorry, I'm not going to listen.

I don't understand the recent popularity of audio blogs. What does the spoken word bring to the table? It's far easier to skim the contents of a couple of paragraphs than have to concentrate on someone's stream of conciousness thought for a minute or two. With audio, if you miss something, you have to fumble with rewind controls and it's difficult to find the part you are looking for. Want to quote something more than a couple of sentences in length? You better get your transcribing software out. Maybe audio blogs are great for professional announcers who can bring a piece to life, but your average blogger is much better off hiding behind the silence of the written word. On top of all this, search engines won't index your words.

For these reasons, I think audio blogs are a fad that will pass.