April 22, 2005
Podcasting
"Podcasting" is a hip word that sounds scary to non-tech geeks, but it's just a codeword for a pretty simple, pretty cool concept. A podcast is just an audio or video program that you can subscribe to. Once you subscribe, the programs are downloaded automatically to your computer, and from there to your iPod (or whatever portable you use to take your music on the road).
When you're stuck on a long morning or afternoon commute, it can be refreshing to listen to a comedy show, or the latest narrowcast on a specific flavor of news, politics, science, TV or movie reviews, or whatever you're into. It's much better than radio because you choose the exact content you want. The cool thing about it is that it's almost zero effort. Subscribe to a feed topic you like and it just keeps coming.
How do you do it? Ignore all the talk about RSS 2.0 or XML. All you have to do is download the free application iPodderX if you're on a Mac or iPodder 2.0 if you're on a Windows box.
Once you install the app, there is a directory inside the program (at least there is on the Mac version, not sure about Windows) with a bunch of pre-loaded podcasts. You can pick any of these podcasts or go to even bigger directories at iPodder.org, Podcast.net or Podcast Alley, and copy and paste the addresses of the podcasts you want into iPodder. Or just do a Google search on "podcast" and you'll find tons of stuff.
So how good is all this material? Not very good, usually. The production values are very low and the podcasts are often targeted at an extremely narrow audience. But that's also what's great about it. Anybody can make one of these things because the technology is virtually free. That way the topics can be laser-targeted at tiny audiences that mainstream radio wouldn't touch. This is what the whole Internet felt like in 1994--very low production values, but a wide open space for alternative voices. And the potential is obvious. BBC is already podcasting some of their radio programs, and other high-quality content providers are certain to follow.
This isn't going to make you trash your television or stop listening to music, but it is a cool new way to get information and ideas.
Posted by case at April 22, 2005 12:27 PM