Evan Williams (the guy who founded Blogger) and Noah Glass (the guy you hear on NPR that does the really good radio) have started a new company called Odeo (sounds like rodeo) that is “aimed at making a business of podcasting.” From the NYT story:
“While still too much in its infancy to be considered an immediate threat to the radio industry, podcasting does present the prospect of a growing army of iPod-toting commuters who take programming decisions out of the hands of broadcasters and customize their own listening.”
“Odeo’s founders say they believe that, as with other old and new media, conventional radio and podcasting can coexist in the long term. If, through podcasting, conventional radio programs are increasingly stored and played back on the listener’s schedule, rather than the broadcaster’s, then the trend could have the same time-shifting impact that TiVo-style video recorders have had on the viewing habits of television audiences.”
“But Mr. Williams said that the real promise of podcasting might lie not in what it means for conventional radio but in the new forms of expression the medium will permit. “We’re going to let people do what they do,” he said, “and we’ll see what they do and hope they do it a lot.”
Rex Hammock, on the other hands, says “Podcasting does not want to have a ‘central place’.”
Correction: IRA Glass is the genius behind This American Life and other great radio. I’m not sure who Noah Glass is.