Podcasting is almost mainstream

Is podcasting really starting to move as a serious business communication tool, never mind it's entertainment appeal? Yet more signs:

1. iTunes to directly support podcasts

Engadget via Charlene Li:

Steve Jobs just revealed at the D: All Things Digital Conference that iTunes 4.9 will add support for podcasts. With one click you’ll be able to subscribe to different feeds and have them automatically delivered to your iPod without using a third-party app like iPodder. You’ll be able to search through a directory of available podcasts (producers will be able to register their podcasts with the iTunes Music Store), but users will have the option of adding whatever feeds they want to iTunes. The other big news: Jobs says that he would consider selling podcasts through the iTunes Music Store, something which should have Audible just a little worried.

2. BBC starts podcasting experiment

The BBC offers 12 different radio shows as direct downloads and as a podcast RSS feed. Via Stuart Bruce:

As part of a trial we're offering some programmes and programme highlights as downloads and podcasts. The trial runs from May to December 2005 and programmes will start appearing on Monday 16 May. [...] Look out for the 'three ways to listen again' icons, they'll appear on a page where the programme is available for download or podcast. Should you choose not to download or podcast then you can, of course, always listen with the Radio Player.

And in a BBC News story published on Friday, technology analyst Bill Thompson  says that podasting could be 'a revolution' -

The quality of some of the podcasts I have listened to is certainly as good as many supposedly professional radio stations, and as the tools for finding and filtering what is out there improve we will inevitably see new ideas, new approaches and new names emerge. [...] A podcast with no listeners may take up disk space, but it is not stopping anyone else doing their own thing, so there is absolutely no argument for any form of quality control. It is not like radio, where the fact that I am talking on a frequency means that you cannot be.

[...] Podcasting will not replace radio in my life, not least because I like to listen in real-time. But it adds an interesting element to the mix and is an easy way to find new voices that would otherwise never come to my attention.

Still with the BBC - a great feature by Peter Day, a presenter on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, on his thoughts about podcasting following a visit with Adam Curry.

Key snippet:

[...] all the assumptions I have made in 30 years of being a radio practitioner are suddenly up for grabs.

Related NevOn posts:

• A business model for podcasting
• Podcasting: Adding the human and informal touch
• Kick-starting a broadcasting revolution

Comments

[Nicole Simon]

Garageband just announced to go 'podcasting' all over it. While I dislike the style of this message, it adds another 40,000 'podcast' to the scene. ;o)

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050523/235409.html?.v=1

[Jonathan Marks]

Mainstream? Lets say the latest move increases the numbers of active podcasters from 5500 to 55,000. Still a fraction of the nearly 50 million blogs out there.

I saw that because I think the podcast hype could go wrong unless there are more tools for non-tech authors out there - and soon.

I am looking for the "podcast" button on an MP3 recorder and simply tools to mix audio, mix in skype calls, and then post the result (perhaps with a prompt for shownotes). Until then, podcasts are still in technoland.