Podcast & Portable Media Expo showcases the present and future of portable content with demonstration exhibits and conference sessions devoted to creating, editing, delivering, viewing and profiting from unique audio and video media.
I don’t suppose I’ll make it over to California, but it looks like it might be fun if you are in the area. Exhibit hall is free, or $149 for the conference itself.
Read more at Podcast & Portable Media Expo
The Podcast Hotel, explains Corante’s Alex Williams, will turn a hotel in Portland, Oregon, into a podcast and videoblog studio. It’s a place where people come to learn and share how these content creation tools can be used in any way they want, be it for their personal use, their business or their community.
Surely these sort of events should be going on in community colleges and local universities, too. Several years ago I attended a short evening class about making video at my local college. I learned a huge amount. Sadly, they don’t seem to offer that sort of course any more.
Hmm … Maybe they’d pay me to teach such a course …
Read more at unmediated: The Podcast Hotel
There are plenty of bloggging applications out there. You can tell the actively developed ones because they are adding (and documenting) simple support for RSS enclosures (the core distribution technology behind podcasting). Here’s a blog entry with a video of how to attach an enclosure using the fairly popular “blojsom” blogging tool.
And guess what, the author even attached the video as an enclosure :)
In amongst a blog article full of meanderings on things such as airline peanuts and teaching English, I found this little nugget:
Which brings me to my next point. Since when did “So"become the official way to begin a response? I’m a big fan of the podcasts on itconversations.com which records interviews and conferences with geeks and lets you listen to what they have to say without smelling their breath. But these people can absolutely not answer a question without starting it with with “So …” or “So … it turns out that” And it’s not only geeks; graduate students are also infected. It’s such a sick disease. Don’t you people understand how belittling it sounds? You don’t have to tell me “So … it turns out, little man, that the world is actually round” - just tell me it’s a freaking sphere. I think this should be official podcast (and grad school) etiquette: no starting responses with “So".
So … we should all maybe think about how we reply. Has “so” become the new “err” or “umm” ?
Read more at El Oso, El Moreno, and El Abogado � Blog Archive � Half A Life
Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine writes about the possibilities of using closed-caption data associated with a video feed as a source of searchable information. In particular, the time-synchronized nature of the caption information would allow linking to specific sections of a media file, from a text search.
Chicago Captioning Corp. added closed captioning to the video.
They did that in an effort to serve the 10 percent of Americans who are hard of hearing. And that’s great.
But I see another important use that is of value to 100 percent of Internet users:
By attaching a script to the video, we get metadata associated with it. That makes the video searchable via Google et al. That means that the content of the video can be analyzed. That means we can link to specific content.
This sounds great, but closed captions are only available for video, right?
Well, no. MP3 audio files have had “lyrics” support for a long time, and a surprising number of players will play “karaoke” audio files. And “karaoke” is nothing but time-synchronized text associated with an audio file, exactly like closed-caption data in video.
While I’ll agree that supporting closed-caption metadata should be a priority for video-blogging software, it’s currently a reality that there are far fewer videoblogs being produced than audio-only podcasts. Supporting “lyrics” (a.k.a “show notes") and “karaoke” (a.k.a “transcript") metdata in podcast creation, distribution and player tools would be a much more significant step.
It seems to me that there is even an “organic” way to achieve this. If podcast creation tools routinely supported display of “teleprompt"-style notes while recording, it would encourage people to enter their notes that way rather than fumbling with paper or a wordprocessor. Once the text is in the creation application, and scrolling in time with the input, it’s a snap to output synchronized and unsynchronized metadata to the recorded file. No tedious manual synchronization or after-the-fact transcription needed.
It’s my most popular rant at the moment. Audio creation, distribution and player applications are really missing out on the richness of opportunities in metadata. So much that people using these systems don’t even realize that things could be so much better.
To quote jeff Jarvis again:
Metadata, man, metadata.
Read more at BuzzMachine… by Jeff Jarvis
I haven’t listened to any of this one yet, but I’ve really enjoyed the small number of podcast audio books I’ve heard so far. This one has now been added to my feed, and I’ll report back after I’ve played a few chapters.
“EarthCore is the world’s first podcast-only novel: you can’t find it in stores, you can’t download the full audio, and the only way to find out what happens is to subscribe to the podcast. This novel is a cross between episodic modern-action fare like “24″ and classic sci-fi movies like Predator and Starship Troopers.”
Read more and subscribe at PalmAddicts: EarthCore
Last week I picked up a new PlayStation Portable (PSP) in the hopes that I could use FeedDemon to download podcasts and other audio files to it. Turns out it’s possible, but it wasn’t as straightforward as I would’ve liked
Read more at: Nick Bradbury: Download audio to your PlayStation Portable (PSP) with FeedDemon
David F. Warlick, who describes himself as a “Technology Consultant and Author", has gathered a useful and fairly comprehensive page of information and links about podcasting. He has a particular emphasis on educational podcasting, but the links are still generally interesting.
There is a growing amount of information available on the Internet about podcasting and a grown number of podcast programs. Below are some links to podcasting resources on the Net
Read more at Podcasting – DFW
Via johndan at datacloud, a neat collection of audio articles and links: Pro DAW - Audio Related Articles & Resources Directory
Another player has enteres the field of “free” media hosting. This is certainly worth a look if you are overflowing your bandwidth at another provider, but (as I mentioned in my summary of podcast hosting options) you need to be careful that you understand and agree with the “small print” on any “too good to be true” service.
This one seems to be ad-supported, so make sure that you are comfortable with the idea of a third party adding their own choice of ad content to your feed.
The bottom line is still that if you want full control, you have to pay for it.
We provide free bandwidth for your video, podcast, software download, or any other file you want to post. We will support downloads of any quantity and are adding infrastructure to support very large volumes of downloads. Please keep in mind that this is our Beta version, and that we really need your comments (and bug reports).
Read more at: Welcome to The Free Bandwidth Project (Beta)
A fairly comprehensive article with several really good tips for recording what you have got to say.
If sound quality is your primary concern, it’s best to use a professional sound studio. But if time and budget concerns are also part of the equation, it’s possible to create high-quality narration yourself by adding some inexpensive recording equipment and software to your computer and following some basic recording guidelines.
Read more at: Record better narration
I’m always looking for interesting new uses for the podcast medium. Over the last few weeks I have been enjoying the “podquiz” from podquiz.com.
Podquiz is a short quiz with typically four rounds of five questions each. The quizmaster (who doesn’t mention his name on the podquiz site, but goes by “james” on another) chooses a different topic for each round, and asks the questions in order. After a few minutes of musical break, he reads the answers. The whole ‘cast lasts about 20 minutes. The quiz is presented in a fairly breathy, close-miked, English accent. The questions are usually very clear, although I did notice a slight stumble on the word “siblings", which is not a particularly commonly-known word at the best of times.
As I’m writing this I’ve just listened to podquiz number five. As the series has progressed so far, the format has developed subtly. The incidental music and general production quality seems to have improved, and the quizmaster seems to have gained some confidence, which results in a more relaxed presentation. The questions vary in difficulty - some rounds I get an easy 5/5, others I’m lucky to manage one or two. A particular strand that runs through a lot of the rounds is the use of audio material to make it less easy to just ask the internet for the answers. This also gives more justification for doing this as a podcast rather than just a text web site.
I do have a minor suggestions for improvement, though. I notice that the quizzes are numbered rather than dated, which is a fine choice. Unfortunately (particularly in quiz number four) some questions include references to date-specific information.
It can be tempting when making a podcast to think of it existing at the time of creation, with everyone downloading it the same week. In practice these quizzes (and podcasts in general) may well be listened to in years to come as as people discover the “back issues". My suggestion is simply that any question which might have a date-specific answer, be tied to a particular date. For example, instead of asking:
How old is Prince Charles
Ask something like:
In 2005, Prince Charles marries Camilla Parker-Bowles. How old is the prince at the wedding?
Similarly for a question like “What is the name of Paris Hilton’s dog?“. Dogs have a relatively short life, so the answer could well be different in a few years’ time.
Apart from that minor point, I am enjoying these quizzes. The ‘cast length is just about right, skipping the music is easy if I want to, and the questions are hard enough to present a challenge, but easy enough to feel just a little smug in some rounds. I look forward to many more.
Read more at: podquiz.com.
While I’m on the subject of low-budget studio kit for improving recordings, take a look at this neat technique for building a small “desktop sound booth".
One of the real challenges of recording sound is making sure the only noise that reaches the mic is your voice. Ambient noise from office fans and chatter must be eliminated for the recording to sound professional. However, not every company can afford the luxury of a professional sound booth with acoustic panels. Depending on how ambitious you are there are some tricks of the trade you can employ:
Read more at: Cut down on the noise.
Want some wierd and quirky media to mix in with your podcast or audio art? UBUWEB have certainly gathered an interesting collection which may prove worth exploring.
All materials on UbuWeb are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s). UbuWeb is completely free
Some people reckon that podcasting is complicated. Lloyd Davis thinks otherwise …
Read more at: Perfect Path: Podcasting…complicated???? Do me a favour!
As mentioned by Andy at Slashdot Review, jake Luddington has written a detailled set of instructions on how to build a “pop screen” to clean up your podcast recordings.
Read more at: Build Your Own Microphone Pop Screen
Hmm. Looks like the Sony PSP is lining up to become an “iPod for video". Software is already appearing to support podcast-like auto-download …
“people in Japan are creating weird little clips already encoded in the PSP format” to distribute through BitTorrent, says Cherian. “They want other people to download and watch (the videos), and they want to get comments and feedback. I think it’s going to be pretty popular.”
Read more at: Cinema Minima: Personal Digital Cinema: news service for movie-makers
Although it’s not directly positioned as a podcasting system, “Olivelink” shares a lot of the same chracteristics. It’s a system for sharing large media files (usually video) either between individuals or small groups, or to anyone who wants.
Olivelink. It’s a person-to-person video broadcast service
Read more at Interview with the Olivelink folks | PVRblog
Joseph Palmer has put together a podcast, and jotted down some notes on his blog about what he learned while doing it. Short, but interesting.
Read more at Joseph Palmer’s Weblin Edit System
Brandon Watts at Lockergnome writes about microphones for podcasting:
Many of the elite podcasters may try to convince you that you need to setup a home studio to really make podcasting work for you. They’ll suggest condenser mic’s, mixers, and other tools that will cost more than you bargained for. I’m here to tell you that you don’t need a supreme studio to take part in the podcasting festivities.
This may well be the case, but unfortunately the reviews of equipment that I’ve seen are extremely subjective, if not completely wishy-washy. And that includes this article.
For example, almost all (at least 90%) of the microphone “reviews” that I have read go something like I had an old (usually built-in or webcam) mic and it was crap. I just bought this one and it’s great! But without knowing a little more about things like the amount and type of ambient noise in the user’s environment and the way the mic is used (into a desktop PC?, a laptop?, an MP3 recorder?, a minidisc? a tapedeck? a camcorder?) whether it needs “phantom power", whether it needs a pre-amp, whether it has any form of “noise cancelling", whether it needs soundcard “mic power", whether it has a pop filter or wind shield, whether it is omnidirectional or has some directionality, what sort of connection or cable it uses, etc. etc. it’s really hard to tell if the mic under consideration would be any use to me, or to anyone else.
Lets consider two genuine requirements:
One of the main reasons audio pros recommend some of the expensive microphones is that the manufacturers provide lots of detailled technical information. Most people recommending low-budget alternatives don’t even provide any recorded samples, let alone frequency response plots and impedance tables.
I certainly don’t wish to “dis” Brandon’s recommendations. I’d dearly love to cut through the “mine’s more expensive than yours” one-upmanship, and go for the cheap-and-cheerful alternative. It’s just that (particularly when buying on-line) details make the difference.
Read more at Podcast Microphone Suggestion (Gnewbie Gnook)
Mike Oliveri at lockergnome has written about his experiences with jPodder, the portable Java podcatcher:
I poked around a little and decided to start with jPodder. Written in Java, jPodder is itself cross-platform and has a simple GUI. Java’s already included in Slackware, so I downloaded jPodder, unzipped it, and ran the installer: java -jar install.jar.
Read more at: jPodder First Impressions (Review)
I had some time yesterday between things, and while waiting during my daughter’s orchestra practice, so I thought I’d catch up with a few podcasts that have intrigued me enough to load on my player, but which I’d not seriously listened to. This post I’ll focus on “Geek Fu Action Grip” by Mur Lafferty.
Mur (I guess this is a kind of nickname, but she obviously prefers it to her “real” name, so I’ll leave that for you to find out, if you care) has been producing a podcast approximately once a week since December 2004. ‘Casts range in length by a few minutes, but are usually each around 10 minutes long. Mostly the format is the same each time. Each ‘cast starts with a few minutes of general discussion, business, whining about things, and general hat-tipping and back-slapping to other podcasters. So far this is much like many others. What distinguishes Mur’s podcast is the bit that follows.
The “meat” of each ‘cast is an audio essay. Subjects range widely - I listened to things from a discussion of the subtext of a trip to a pharmacy, through the hidden passions of housewives for childrens’ TV presenters and stereotypical “hot doctors", to memories of youthful ballet and martial arts lessons and the liberal guilt of owning an “SUV". Mur obviously has an extensive “back catalog” of material, and mixes older pieces with more reccent ones. Sometimes she will add an update, such as following the essay on being a “cry baby” with the note that she finds it strangely easier to well up now she has a child of her own.
I thoroughly enjoy Mur’s style - both in the “writing” of the essays, and the pleasant way she delivers them as audio. Mur podcasts from Durham in North Carolina (at least I assume it’s spelled “Durham” like the town in the north east of England, rather than “Durum” like the wheat used in pasta - that’s the trouble with podcasts). I’ve never listened to anyone else from around there, but I guess she has the local accent. Her voice is melodic and easy to listen to, without the harshness and stridency of many podcasters.
In general the presentation is Mur’s voice only. Occasionally she adds some music (I laughed out loud at the “Bjork” song), or a snippet of another podcast. This seems to be partly due to trepidation about using the Audacity sound-editing software, as much as a production choice, but it certainly suits me. As an aside, if you want to listen to a podcast that’s more like 80% intro/outro and only 20% content, check out Sound of the day!
I find the content of the essays engaging because they deftly mix a dash of personal experience with just enough of the general human condition, and don’t go so deep or long that I get twitchy with the lack of somewhere to take notes, or a web browser to cross-check details.
Sometimes the cultural context leaves me slightly adrift, though. The whole North vs South and Liberal vs Democrat thing adds a bit of local colour, I’m sure, but it lacks emotional impact for me - from here they seem much more alike than different. As another example, in one ‘cast, Mur makes much of the difference between two presenters of the kids’ TV show “Blue’s Clues". I’ve seen the show a few times, but didn’t recognize either of the names of the presenters. In my memory the presenter’s name was “Kevin". On later research it seems that the show is extensively localized, with a wholly different presenter, and different voices for the cartoon characters, for different target markets. If you are familiar with the US version, check out the UK version to see how strangely different it looks and sounds.
In summary, this podcast evokes fond memories of some of the BBC talk radio I listened to in my youth. There are presumably similar things on NPR in the USA. If that’s what Mur was aiming for, I reckon she’s made it.
I’ll certainly keep listening.
Amid all the commercialism and advertising frenzy surrounding podcasts at the moment, it looks like some people are still considering the idea that stuff should be free for the benefit of everyone.
Ourmedia.org officially launched.
I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve put aside my freelance writing for the past half year to work almost exclusively on Ourmedia – on a strictly voluntary, unpaid basis. Why? Because I deeply believe that citizens media efforts such as this are the wave of the future.
Read more at New Media Musings: Ourmedia is here!!
This really made me laugh out loud. A really sharp poke at the soft underbelly of podcasting, and a strangely cool idea at the same time.
Chris Seibold at “applematters” has an interesting analysis of the state of podcasting, and possible future trends.
When Hadley Stern opined that podcasting would be dead within a year the notion gave me serious pause. After all I am involved in a podcast in a very small way and, since I lack any natural ability, I put a lot of work into each segment. I’d hate to think all my efforts would be for naught within a year. Clearly some research was needed. Was Hadley right? Is podcasting nothing more than a short-lived fad? To make the decision I listened to a weekend worth of podcasts. My conclusion: podcasts aren’t going away any time soon but I sure wish most of them would.
One thing I think Chris may be missing is that podcasting, just like blogs and web sites, does not exist in a resource-constrained environment. There are no frequency slots to bid for, no huge up-front infrastructure costs for transmitters, and so on. The barrier to entry is low, so people will continue to make podcasts.
The key concept in podcasting is that it is narrow and specific. I can keep looking and listening and finding stuff that’s closer and closer to what I want. I’d rather listen to podcasts that are perfect for me - I don’t care if they are “popular” or “big". On the other hand, for advertising-driven content, where audience figures matter, content providers are pretty much forced to produce output that’s least inoffensive to the largest identifiable demographic. That makes it bland. That makes it same-old. That makes it like most radio and TV programming. This stuff will serve the fine purpose of drawing listeners in to podcasting, but many of them will move on, once they realise there’s more out there.
Sure, there will be “big names". But unlike radio, TV, or movies, they won’t find it easy to “crowd out” the smaller players. I don’t listen to Adam Curry, I don’t read slashdot or boing boing, I don’t queue up to see the “summer blockbuster", or buy chart music. There are a lot like me - what we have in common is that we are not the same.
Read more at applematters
Harold J Johnson over at Audioblogs.info has got the scent of money:
Ladies and Gentlemen, there’s money to be made in podcasting. That’s right–money, honies–and it’s already being made by some real podcasters.
Read more at audioblogs.info: Podcasters Getting Paid in a Big Way
One complaint – nay, suggestion – for Lehrer: Don’t JUST put up podcasts; also put up MP3s so we can download any show without necessarily subscribing to a podcast feed. Please.
Read more at Podcasts grow like dandelions
Makes me think that the whole “RSS enclosures” setup would have been better replaced by something simple like one or more <a href=’..’ rel=’enclosure’>…</a> tags in the body text of a blog. That way all podcasts would automatically appear as individually downloadable links. And search engines would know what to do with the links.
I didn’t know such services existed, but apparently you can go to someone like Conference Calls Unlimited and they’ll arrange a conference call, record it, and send you the MP3. Instant podcast!
Read more at The Invent Blog | Nipper’s Patent Blog: Podcasting lesson #1 – don’t do work someone else has already done for you
I’ve still not sorted out areview of Sparks! myself, but in the meanwhile, here’s one from Lloyd Davis.
Perfect Path: Sparks!, Odeo, Podshow - the phoney war continues
Looks like the popular RSS reader “feedDemon” has been updated to better support podcasting. There are even a couple of videos which show how to use the new features.
I’ll take a more detailled look soon, but from a brief glance at the videos they don’t seem to be breaking any new ground, just coat-tailling on ideas from existing podcatchers. I guess if you already use feedDemon, this might make things a little simpler.
In version 1.5 (released in February 2005), FeedDemon adds support for podcasting with a built-in utility named FeedStation. The powerful podcasting tool enables you to download audio files and automatically sync them to your media players (applications and devices):
Read more, and watch the video clips at: Podcasting Download and Scheduling with FeedDemon 1.5
Wikimedia Commons looks like another free-media resource I didn’t know about.
The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository for free images, music, sound, video clips and, possibly, texts and spoken texts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project. Unlike images uploaded on other projects, images on Commons can be embedded on pages of all Wikimedia projects.
The Commons was launched on September 7,2004.Currentlyitcontains 8108 collections.
Read more at Wikimedia Commons
I love these strange ideas that push the limits. “Whole Wheat Radio” has set up a phone line linked direct to a live audio feed. The idea is that anyone can call and leave a message which will be “broadcast". No censorship, no rules. Feels like an audio version of all those (pretty lame) “guest book” scripts you can add to a web site. Maybe it will have more “zing” (and less spam) with audio?
Just a reminder that the “Wheatgram” telephone is available and does work. What is it? It’s an answering machine plugged directly into the webcast stream. When you call and leave a message, that message goes out on-the-air after the current song that’s playing is done. The message is also archived and will play randomly at various times too.
Why mention it yet again? Because it’s your chance to be creative with audio and reach an interested audience without having to set up a podcast or a webcast or know anything technical except how to talk over a telephone. The phone has taken over 1,000 calls but it still hasn’t come close to reaching its potential.
I’m interested in what happens when you give out a phone number that is attached directly to audience ears. Are people able to differentiate between what is ‘appropriate’ (i.e. creative) and what isn’t (i.e. advertising)? Given a forum with a particular slant (our listening audience) how long will it take before the public abuses a priviledge to the point that I have to start screening the phone ins? Can it be self-policeing?
Read more at Whole Wheat Radio Blog, Talkeetna - Alaska
copy-art.net is a repository of “free for non-commercial use” media. There may be something in there of interest to podcasters.
On copy-art.net you are free to download, copy, use, change, display and distribute all works.
You can also upload the works that you modify or post comments and feedback.
For photos and movies use the gallery uploads (supported file types: jpg, gif, png, avi, mpg, mpeg, wmv, mov, swf)
For music files, mp3s, waf, pdf, aiff, docs… use the uploader.
You don’t have to login or register to use the website to upload your work and post your news.
Please remember to credit the original author and note that commercial use of the works is not allowed.
Read more at copy-art.net===copyright free -
There’s not a lot about it on the web site, just a few notes about the release and a download, but “Sparks!” from Blogmatrix claims to be an integrated download/listen/create/upload tool for podcasters. I’ll download it, have a go, and report back in a few days.
In the meanwhile, read more at BlogMatrix.com Sparks!
Hmm. Wierd, minimal site with no real explanition of what it is, or how it works. Apparently, though, it’s a podcast-specific search engine. I tried a few keywords, and it found some interesting stuff. I may work for you, too.
Try it out at PodRazor :: Find what you want to hear.. I won’t say my usual “read more", because there is so little to read!
I just read about a new buzzword term “spotcast". Currently it seems to be defined as a podcast of one minute or less. This sounds like a cool challenge to me. I’ve seen some incredible video stuff done with such harsh time constraints.
To me the important aspect of working on ultra-short pieces is that you are free to focus on getting tiny details perfect, without becoming overwhelmed by the size of the whole program.
So why not try a “spotcast"?
Read more at SPOTCAST: SXSW | EchoRadio
Someone calling himself “superpixel” describes the touble he had putting together a first podcast.
But here’s what I did to get the podcast “in the can"…
Worth reading, especially for the good suggestion about recording in a car as a “sound booth". Do it with the engine, off, though :)
Read more at How I did it… the hard way | Podcast CON Uk 2005
Addressing some of the same issues as PodcastRigs, you can now read about a reccomended podcasting setup from “PWOP":
We’ve spent a lot of time looking for high-quality gear that is also compact and affordable. This is our currently suggested podcasting kit
It’s a bit more prescriptive than PodcastRigs, only opting for a single setup. I find their choice of a potentially fragile and power-hungry “tube” mic preamp a little strange when coupled with a light-weight portable MP3 recorder, especially given that (as I found out a few days ago) the iRiver 700 series can already record mic level, so the only apparent benefit of the Behringer MIC200 is to provide “phantom power” for the mic.
On the other hand, it could be that this sort of unusual combination is just what podcasting needs.
Read more, and make up your own mind at PWOP Productions - Podcasting Kit. If you can put up with the large and annoying animated graphic at the top of the page, that is :)
Following from my irritation with loading an OPML feed list into nimiq yesterday, I’ve come to a more general conclusion. Podcast software should simply never make noises.
This may sound a bit harsh - after all, audio output is an accepted part of many applications. Windows warbles when it starts up; my FTP application spits out boings, chirps, and beeps to remind me when transfers have finished, or logins fail, and many applications issue a summary “plonk” if anything goes wrong. But I reckon that a whole lot of people never hear these noises. Why? because they run their PCs with sound turned off. I know I do.
But here’s the kicker. Podcasting finally offers a reason to turn those speakers back on or plug in those headphones. Then what do you find? it’s almost impossible to get through a single podcast without irritating bleeps and twangs from some piece of software. And many of these bits of software are even aimed at podcast listeners!
In my mind, there is no justification for the casual use of sound alerts in any software that is at all concerned with audio. And that includes podcatchers, audio sequencers, MP3 and ID3 browsers and editors, and anything else used in podcasting. After all, anyone using the software is almost guaranteed to want to listen to audio using the same machine at some point.
Authors of software take note. If your software is useful for anything to do with audio (and that includes podcasting), it should run silent.
I guess this was a bit of a rant. Needed to be said, though.
After looking at techpodcasts yesterday, I found another take on the idea of a podcast community today. Unlike techpodcasts, which is based on common content, this one is based on geography.
As far as I can tell, podcast con UK is trying to grow a community of podcasters located in the United Kingdom, and even plans to organize a physical meetup convention later in the year. If you are located in the UK, I suggest you take a look.
I was listening to Slashdot review and was once again reminded of ths potential for bittorrent downloading of podcasts. I took another look at iPodder 2.0, but there is no mention of bittorrent in the help or FAQ, and when I tried, it just seemed to download the .torrent files. Sigh. So, a bit of looking further and I found Nimiq (version 1.3.1), which bills itself as “enclosure ripper extraordinaire".
I must say that I found it pretty uncomfortable compared with iPodder 2.0 and Doppler. The first problem was importing my feeds from iPodder. Flush with my excitement about finally being able to export them, I attempted to load them into Nimiq. On the plus side, it understood the format. On the minus side, it insisted on putting up a little “import feed … yes/no” dialog box for every feed in the OPML. Worse, it just put up the feed URL, not the show title, so I had to try and remember which show comes from which URL. Worst of all, it made the computer “error beep” every time it put up the dialog, which was frickin’ annoying when I was trying to listen to a podcast while doing this. Grrr.
Let me make this clear. If I ask some software to import a feed collection, I want it to import the whole collection, with no annoying noises, and no “do you really want to import this feed". If I decide that I don’t want some of the feeds, I can either hand-edit the OPML before input (it’s just XML text, after all), or delete the feeds using the regular UI after import. I’ve only got about 50 feeds in my OPMLat the moment, but I’m adding them all the time, and doing anything on a per-feed basis without allowing multiple selections is a usability nightmare.
Once I’d got through the import process and calmed down a little, I looked at the feed list. In particular, I wanted to try out fetching Slashdot Review using bittorrent. While I was looking through the feeds and the configurations, I suddenly noticed that it had started downloading from a bunch of feeds. This wouldn’t be much of a problem, except that it seemed to be downloading from all the feeds, even the ones that I had already “topped up” using iPodder. Yikes! I had pointed it at my regular download directory, in the naive assumption that it wouldn’t download files that were there already. Apparently not.
I quickly stopped the downloads. But then I found that there seems to be no way to “cancel” a download, even if it is stopped.
On the plus side, downloading seems to be pretty fast, and nicely threaded, and it can add fresh downloads to a WMP or iTunes playlist, but the other usability issues place it behind iPodder 2.0 and Doppler for me.
YMMV, of course.
B.K. DeLong writes
one of the major things that’s been annoying me is the complete lack of proper ID3 name tag metadata in the MP3s that make up these podcasts
Amen. The sooner the podcasting community sees the value in sensible metadata, the sooner podcasts can become “first class citizens” of the internet, like web pages and emails.
Read more BrainStream: Note to Podcasters: Where’s your ID3-f00 ?, add sensible, meaningful ID3v2 metadata to your own podcasts, and petition your creation, distribution, searching, downloading, and playing software makers to properly support a wide range of tags.
And please don’t leave out my personal favourite: the PCNT “have I listened to this yet?” tag.
Here’s a more interesting idea than most of the “hey let’s set up a directory of podcasts” that seem to be springing up around the web. Let’s face it guys, those are just reinventing the likes of yahoo or dmoz - incomplete, and superseded by search.
Techpodcasts, on the other hand, seems to be attempting a tighter community of “affiliates” (which , as far as I can tell, seem to be more like “contributors” or “columnists” than affiliates in the usual web “click through me and I get a kickback” sense). The idea is that people can apply to become affiliates, and those that meet certain criteria on content, quality, and regularity get to join, and get listed.
The idea certainly seems reasonable. What worries me about techpodcasts in particular, though, is the very broad range of subject matter in the podcasts, and the apparent lack of easily browseable information about the feeds and the individual ‘casts. For example the current “affiliates” list is shown as:
Apple Logs Digital Experience Podcast eDave.org Security News Geek News Central Home Network Help In the Trenches Linux Log Podcast Michael Lehman Microsoft Log Mondays One Minute Tip .com Software as She Developed Tech Rag Tear Outs The Brad Cast The Chris Pirillo Show The Feed The MacCast .Net Rocks WebTalk Radio
Some of those give hints about typical content (the MacCast, Microsoft Log, .Net Rocks, Linux Log), but the rest could be anything that the site owners consider “tech” enough..
Personally, I’d like to know a bit more about a feed before I subscribe. I’m not at all interested in Mac-specific ramblings, for example, but stuff about cutting-edge OO and Agile software development would go in my podcatcher ASAP.
So, techpodcasts, for your “value add", please make finding out about the general content of feeds, and the specific content of ‘casts a painless (and maybe even pleasant) experience. Use your imagination, delight potential listeners.
Read more at www.techpodcasts.com - Home.
It looks like iPodder (probably the most popular podcatcher software) has released version 2. I’ve tried it out, and it does indeed have a bunch of major improvements:
All in all, a definite improvement. If you use iPodder, then you should almost definately upgrade. Just remember to fully exit your old version, the installer (on Windows, at least) doesn’t seem to check, and gets in a tangle if the old one is still running.
Read more and download the latest version at iPodder, the cross-platform podcast receiver.
At last, a detailled and informative guide to recording podcasts on an iRiver MP3 player/recorder. I’ve been puzzling recently over how some people seem to be able to just connect a microphone to their MP3 player and record stuff, where I can’t seem to get things working without a separate (and relatively bulky) pre-amp or mixer.
Looks like the iRiver 700 series contains a tiny pre-amp, and deep in the configurations, you can manually set the input jack to act as “line in” or “mic in". I haven’t found such a config in my EZAV player yet, so I assume mine always acts as “line in".
Just a shame that the config and recording process on the iRiver is so fiddly. On mine its as simple as press the dedicated record button to start, press it again to stop. It autodetects line-in or the built-in mic, records high-bit-rate stereo from line-in, and lower-rate mono from the built-in mic, and records without complaint until the drive is full.
Read more at: Geekfishing Blog: iRiver iFP-799 Recording
A lengthy and detailled rant about the current clunky, short-sighted approach of RSS enclosures and other podcast “standards". Sheds light on many of the things that make distribution of podcasts considerably less than the smooth process that it’s sometimes claimed to be.
If you are at all interested in the infrastructure at the heart of podcasting, you need to read this article:
Whole Wheat Radio Blog
I’ll say up front that I don’t like advertising in my media (and here).
Dave Writes:
So instead, create commercial information, in any form you like and make it available. This is very different from sneaking it in, or being annoying. Make it available. Then you have a responsibility to be: Informative. Respectful. Entertaining. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Given the choice I would eliminate advertising completely from “real-time” media (such as audio and video). It’s simply too obtrusive, however “relevant” someone else may think it. This “active” advertising steals my time and offers little or nothing in return. On the other hand, I’m a big fan of providing useful, informative information on the web and in print. In both of those cases I can choose content of interest to me, and ignore (or never see) the rest.
I can’t really see any point in traditional “blanket” advertising any more. The spam-like attitude of tell everyone, and any interested ones will get the message too is what has driven development of a huge variety of ways to eliminate ads. Pop-up filters, ad-eliminating tivos, copyright-busting bittorrents and podcasts of programs with the ads removed. The proportion of such ads that are of interest to me is vanishingly small. So my life is made much better by eliminating all ads completely, even though I miss some that I might actually find interesting or useful. Ultimitely this benefits nobody but the perveyors of ad-removal potions.
Here on the internet, we have much better solutions. Google, PubSub, the blogosphere, even the likes of Amazon and eBay, all allow me, the potential buyer, to drive the process. Simply putting real, detailled, current, searchable information on a web site can attract buyers from across the world. Setting up a web site costs a fraction of an ad campaign, and (provided the site isn’t filled with irrelevant sales crap) will get an astonishingly high proportion of interested, willing, buyers among the visitors. Add a blog, or similar site updates, with a RSS feed, and the information about latest releases and offers will percolate around, passed on from one interested customer or topic-specific aggregator to another. No traditional ad campaign can give this kind of ultra-precise targetting. All at negligible cost.
And yet, so many vendor web sites lack basic information about products, services, price, and availability. They would apparently rather spend thousands (or millions!) with an ad company than take a few hours to put detailled product descriptions and prices on the front page of a web site.
My key distinction in all this is between selling as typefied by traditional in-your-face advertising, and buying, which is what customers want to do.
It was probably just a quirk of my linguistic abilities, but this was all sparked in me, many years ago, during a visit to the Netherlands. I noticed a building marked with a sign “te koop” (roughly “to buy"), and was struck how that contrasted with the equivalent English “for sale". More and more I have come to the conclusion that I simply don’t want to be “sold” to. How different would the world be if “to buy” rather than “to sell” were the driver for commerce.
Read more at Dave’s Advertising-in-the-age-of-podcasts Manifesto
The title says it all, really. Passes both the “deliver via RSS” and “you don’t need an iPod” tests. It also discusses uses for podcasts beyond the obvious “mix tapes” and open-mike rambling.
Read more at What is Podcasting?
Here’s another neat idea, a random feed of podcasts you might never think to subscribe to.
following the “Life is Random” meme and looking for a way to experience podcasts that one might not otherwise find, Manton Reece put together a handy little RSS feed called Podcast Shuffle.
Sounds like an interesting way to find different feeds. I’m not sure I’d want to listen to it all the time, though, and current podcatchers don’t seem to have the flexibility to allow “pausing” or “dipping and skipping” a feed - it’s all or nothing.
And I can really imagine hearing something that I really like, but not being able to find the URL or feed. Most podcasts seem to assume that if you are listening, then you must have come via the web site or feed URL. This is an increasingly dangerous assumption.
If random feed listening becomes at all popular, people are really going to have to take to putting plenty of “station id” in their ‘casts (and choose some pronounceable, memorable URLs), and putting genuinely useful information in the audio metadata.
Read more at:
Becoming: Let’s do the Podcast Shuffle and Manton Reece: Podcast Shuflle
Adam Curry mentioned PodGuides.net.
What’s a PodGuide?.
A PodGuide is a very simple thing. It’s the combination of a map (PDF) of a certain place and a series of audio tracks (mp3) which you can download for your iPod. Think of an audio tour in a museum, but not limited to just that. You could have a PodGuide about the 10 coolest pubs in London for example, or a PodGuide which shows you the most known historic buildings in Bruges. But it might just as well be about the most strangest front doors in Kleit (no you don’t know Kleit).
This is an idea that brought back fond memories to me of a whole bunch of water-cooler and coffee-pot business ideas I used to talk about. This was mostly during a particularly lengthy and tedious software development contract back in 2001/2002.
One of my many “cunning plan