Tag Archives: iPod

The rise of podcasts

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NPR’s Robert Smith reports on the rise of “podcasts” — amateur music and talk shows created by the users of Apple’s popular iPod personal music devices and other digital music players. Whole “shows” of music and talk can be downloaded from the Internet to individual players automatically, and some of the show hosts have become celebrities among the burgeoning podcast audience. Related stories from NPR:Personal Radio Via Podcasting Grows More Popular; Slate’s Gizmos: The Future of Radio; Does the iPod Play Favorites?; TiVo, iPod, the Human Ego and the Future.

“My Very Own Radio Station”

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Michael Bazeley, writing in the Mercury News (My Very Own Radio Station), does the best job of ‘splaining the podcasting thing I’ve come across:

“Thanks to a new technology called podcasting, I’ve turned my iPod into a personalized radio station, loading it with talk shows and cutting edge music that I’d never be able hear on traditional radio stations. It’s transformed my listening habits overnight. Although it’s new, I’m convinced podcasting will transform the way many people consume media, just as blogging and TiVo have. When you can program your own radio station, carry it with you anywhere and pause and restart it at will, who needs mainstream, advertising-supported broadcast radio?”

His piece quotes Doc Searls who believes:

“Podcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it as well.”

Hey, I’m just posting this shit so I can say I told you so.

Pod-Think.

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Consultant John Silliman Dodge recently offered broadcasters his “iPod approach” to programming and marketing radio. In a recent article for FMQB he asks:

“Look at your 21st century customer: Blackberry in one hand, iPod in the other, and a cell phone on the belt. Ask yourself the defining question: how does my radio station fit into this person’s life?”

Podcasting

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“In less than six months, more than 2,000 podcasters have sprung up. Eventually an iPod-like device will have a subscription capability built in so you won’t even need to be tethered to a computer. It’s not hard to imagine an iPod with WiFi capabilities that could become a radio with no geographic limits.”

— Dave Winer

NFL podcasts

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The National Football League has a deal to make recordings of this year’s remaining playoff games available for portable audio players (iPods, etc). The recordings will be available for purchase at iTunes and other sites that sell audio over the Internet.

BBC Radio gives podcasting a try.

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“BBC Radio has for the last month been making some of its radio shows available for MP3 download. Is this news? Well yes, previously they’ve always streamed their content, so you had to be by your computer to receive it. With downloads you’ve been able to take it with you.” [via Scripting.com]

Our networks should be exploring podcasting but when I talk to people about it they think I’m nuts. The fact that BBC Radio is jumping in (and NPR and a shit-load of other pretty reputable broadcasters) is completely lost on them.

SanDisk Digital Music Player

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I gave some serious thought to purchasing an iPod or similar digital audio device. But the buggers cost $300-400 and I didn’t want to pay that much. And I don’t have 10,000 mp3 files, anyway. But I have started downloading and listening to interviews from IT Conversations.

Listening to these on my laptop was somewhat limiting so I sprung for a SanDisk Digital Music Player. This little gem has 512 meg of (flash) storage and will play for 15 hours on a single AAA battery. It was on sale at Best Buy for about $120 and I can take it back if I don’t like it.

So when would you use a device like this? Today I went to see National Treasure and got there about 15 minutes before the movie began. Popped in my ear-buds and listened to the first part of a talk by Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class).

It got me thinking again about this whole podcasting thing. The stuff I’m interested in will never be broadcast on a traditional radio station. Or, if it is, I’m unlikely to know about it or pick up that station. But the IT Conversations website has hundreds of hours of content that I’m very interested in. And I can go and get it whenever I want. And listen to it whenever and where ever I want.

Radio programmers have always been about trying to find the right combination of music, news, talk, whatever… that would appeal to the greatest number of people within their coverage area. Lowest common denominator. That doesn’t work for me anymore. I want to listen to what I’m interested in. When I want to listen to it. Where ever I might be. The web makes this possible.

MSN Music Store

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I just purchased my first song online. I downloaded a few songs back in the early days of Napster and KaZaA but never really got into it and –later– hated the way KaZaA scewed with your system. While I love the look of the iPod, I don’t have one and probably won’t buy one, again, just because I’m not into walking around with ear-buds. While the new MSN Music Store might be inferior in every way to iTunes, I found it very easy to use. My Net Passport info was already on file so it took about 15 seconds to agree to let them bill me for music downloads (which will play on just about any device). Jackson Browne’s Stay was my choice for first legal download. MS made this pretty easy and I suspect I’ll buy more music online than I ever have (or would) at the music store.