Podcasting

Podcasts are great time killers

In Podcasting on 3 August 2006 with no comments

On Tuesday, I had to make a trip to a remote office that needed some software updated. I called in the morning and confirmed that 2:00pm was a good time to do the job.

When I got there, it wasn’t a good time. It was swamped. I should’ve called before I left the main office to make sure it’d be a good time.

Anyway, I ended up waiting over an hour because they were so busy. Fortunately, I had a book and my iPod (with a few podcasts to catch up on).

Remember: You can listen to podcasts with any MP3 or CD player! (Here’s some more posts categorized under podcasting. PodcastAlley and Podcast.net look like good places to find podcasts to listen to. I mainly listen to Diggnation and Buzz Out Loud. I was listening to TWiT, but they’ve been too lengthy for me. I download them in case I run out of stuff to listen to.

I’m writing about this because podcasting still isn’t mainstream.

KTLA discusses podcasts

In Podcasting on 19 October 2005 with no comments

Podcasting is one of the biggest hi-tech crazes now combining iPods and self-made music broadcasts. We’ll talk to the authors of “Podcast Solutions” about what Podcasting is and how you can actually listen or make your own cast.

I saw the above news item talked about on the KTLA morning news today. However, for better clarification, go to the Podcasting Wikipedia entry. An excerpt, with the important points in bold:

The word “Podcast” is often incorrectly used to describe the posting of any link to a media-player-compatible audio file (typically MP3) on a website. Some radio personalities post MP3 versions of their shows daily, and even though they are not part of any subscription model, they are often called podcasts.

Most podcatching software enables the user to copy podcasts to portable music players. Any digital audio player or computer with audio-playing software can play podcasts. From the earliest RSS-enclosure tests, feeds have been used to deliver video files as well as audio. By 2005 some aggregators and mobile devices could receive and play video, but the “podcast” name remained most associated with audio.

“Podcasting” is a portmanteau misnomer that combines the words “broadcasting” and “iPod.” The term can be misleading since neither podcasting nor listening to podcasts requires an iPod or any portable player. Also podcasting does not involve broadcasting or sending out of audio, since citizens need to point software to XML-tagged file to pull it down to their computer or portable device.

So, it’s not limited to iPods, okay? That’s what Kurt the Cyberguy missed. Also, you don’t need a book to learn about it. I believe those pages are more than enough information to go from.

iLounge Goodness

Actually, in case you still can’t wrap your head around this, here’s some more links to sift through:

Conclusion

If you have an iPod, use iTunes. (That’s what I’m doing right now.) Look for the “Podcasts” section, then click on “Podcast Directory” to find and subscribe to a podcast. If you don’t have an iPod, there’s a huge list of news aggregators. Find one that supports podcasts, then when a podcast is updated, copy the MP3 file to your digital audio player. I know someone that uses Doppler (free) to download podcasts, then burns them to CD for his truck. Before iTunes supported podcasts, I used iPodder Lemon (free). Oh, and you can listen to podcasts just on your computer (if you don’t have a DAP).

I know the audience here, but I figured that if it was on the morning news, people might look more into this. (Plus I was somewhat annoyed - wasn’t thorough enough.) If this entry hits somewhere in the top of some search results, it’ll be worth it.

What am I listening to?

Please note that I probably won’t update this list. But I think these will stick around for awhile. You can always ask me if I added or removed any subscriptions, no problem.

Podcast ID3 tags

In Asides, ID3, Podcasting on 8 June 2005 with no comments

If you’ve got a podcast, can you please format your ID3 tags properly? Thanks!

iPodder 2.0

In Asides, Podcasting on 17 March 2005 with no comments

iPodder 2.0 is out. A very nice improvement from the previous version. I’m loving it and looking for more podcasts to try. (Related: First time podcast listener)

Enclosure support

In Asides, Podcasting, WordPress on 7 February 2005 with 2 comments

I don’t know if I’d ever do Podcasting, but it’s nice to know that WordPress handles this right off the bat.

Hey, I don’t care that it’s a late post coming from last October! I just thought it’d be cool for people to see again if they wanted to get into Podcasting and were trying to figure out which blogging software to use. In which case, WordPress would be just fine.

First time Podcast listener

In Podcasting on 14 January 2005 with 5 comments

I haven’t written about Podcasting just because I wanted to get a feel for it. So far, it’s been pretty neat. (Don’t be intimidated by the long scrollbar on that Wikipedia definition. There’s a lot of external links.)

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve started listening to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code. I guess the very first podcast I heard from him was when he just arrived in South Beach, Florida, and he was doing the podcast from his hotel bed.

Jumping ahead to today, I listened to the DSC for yesterday and today (while I was getting ready for work, plus during the drive). Adam Curry got ticked because Podcasting was described incorrectly. Wikipedia is your friend. Then again, Dave Winer has a more simple definition. In any case, it’s all quite new. Until I scrutinized the Wikipedia definition, I didn’t realize it was developed in August 2004.

How do I feel about it? I like that you can listen to it whenever you want. I can pause, fast forward, rewind. It’s an MP3, and on my iPod, I can treat it as such. I like how Adam Curry has show notes. When he was talking about this one podcaster, “Madge Weinstein”, she was pretty - grotesque. Not for the kids. Some people don’t mind - I do, and I skipped later into the podcast. He might swear occasionally, or more when he gets into a deep rant, but at least it’s not like music where it sticks in my head.

I like the fact that he’s just talking. It sounds personal, he doesn’t have to promote anybody, and if he feels a topic needs to be discussed more in depth, he’ll dive into it. Once in South Beach and in today’s podcast, he did a podcast sound-seeing. He got his mic, plugged in, and went about part of his day to do his podcast. Today was pretty funny because he was going to Starbucks to get his Cappuccino Grande and go online (his broadband connection isn’t up at home). He talked about parking, and how he got a ticket for touching one of the lines. It’s really funny because in a meeting last Friday at work, someone mentioned to watch how you park next to a handicap spot, because you can get a ticket if you’re on their line.

In any case, if you:

have any type of MP3 player
can listen to that MP3 player in your car
have a commute to work or school

…you should give listening to podcasts a shot. Really. Not just a geek thing - maybe a little bit.

Note: Podcast doesn’t mean it’s for the iPod only. That’s a misconception. It’s just derived from the name of the iPod.

I think the 2+ hours that went into this post should be enough, don’t you think?

Oh yeah, I use iPodder.

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