Platforms Are The New Portals
We don’t live in a tube. We cease to be entertained by them. Yet they say the most popular is Yours.
Category: podcast
Podshow redirecting?
Hmm.. All my web requests to anything dot podshow.com are being redirected to btpodshow.com
I know they have just done a deal with BT. But hiking the stats like that is a bit rum.
Is this just a UK thing BT are forcing them to do with IP address blocks (as the BBC do). If you are outside the UK, what happens when you try?
Also, I wish they’d fix up the OPML over on podcastalley. OPML lists of RSS feeds should have entries which are type=rss and the feed url is set to the xmlURL= attribute 🙂
Expect to see some new OPML tools to manage lots of folders full of feeds in the very near future at podcast.com ;p
An A-Z of Podcasts
If you head on over to index.podcast.com , you will find a browsable A to Z index of all the podcasts in the podcast.com system.
Soon, you’ll be able to easily add feeds from this or the search (or anywhere!) to your own podcast directory and share the shows you like to listen to and organise them into feed folders, all with lovely OPML for you to build nice widgets out of 😉 – and we will to!
Libsyn Bought By Wizzard
Wow! Congratulations to Libsyn!!! According to this, they have been bought by a company called Wizzard Software. (who I havent heard of – they do voice tech stuff- they also bought switchpod recently too?)
This must be great news for mah good buddies Dave, Dave and Marty!! Those guys have such great mojo and smarts and are a hoot to hang out with!! 🙂
Well done!!! You deserve it! 🙂
Nokia N91 as a mobile podcatcher
Recently, I have been playing with the Nokia N91 – with Wifi built-in and a 4gb hard disk on board too – to test some podcast stuff I have been building. I have to say I really like it – especially as they let me plug standard headphones into the jack.
They have a neat little podcasting application on there by default, which makes it very easy to enter an OPML file url (or locally open one from the handset) for a podcast directory, or an RSS for a direct podcast subscription. I’ll do a full report on this soon.
But one very odd thing I found is that while the handset has no problems whatsoever in playing an AAC+ (.m4a) file which I copied over on the device, when I try to subscribe it to an RSS feed with .m4a audio enclosures ( audio/x-m4a ) the application tells me that the device will not play this format.
Ermm…hello??
Also, a quick note to say that this app is apparently called ‘mPodder‘ in the apps folder of the device. Hmmmm…
Virtual ‘3D’ Podcasting Expo
I just read about an expo billed as a ‘Virtual International Podcasting Expo’. The details are here.
When I read this, I thought ‘ooo, in Second Life?’ – but apparently not. The site seems extremely vague about the hows and whatnot of this ‘3-D Virtual Expo’ but looking at one of the pages here, it looks like a web-based habbo hotel-type thing.
They appear to have a pretty good (and long!) lineup of speakers. It will be interesting to see what happens and how it all works.
There could be all sorts of reasons why they do not choose Second Life to do this, but I think they could do it there too, to an extent. I get the feeling it’s jumping on the bandwagon a bit, but if it’s good for podcasting and it helps people learn, then that’s good enough for me. 😉
Portable Media Expo Day 1
Woo. Well, after a few days over in Boston to hook up some more development firepower for the site and check out our great new offices in Cambridge, I am now right over the other side of the USA in Ontario California for the second Portable Media Expo.
LOADS of people here – and so many that I coulnd’t even get in to the first keynote from Leo Laporte. It’s a shame they have no ‘break-out’ screen to let thse who the fire marshall won’t let in be able to listen or watch.
So, I’m now sat here in the ballroom listening to the Ron Moore who produced the Battlestar Galactica podcasts. Pretty entertaining. Hey! Just realised I’m sat next to Don McAllister from ScreenCastsOnline, who I’ve met in London a few times. Small world. HUGE medium.
Looking forward to seeing the exhibits and networking with people I have either met before, or emailed in the past, Skyped with or never met at all.
No sign of Apple. Heh. 🙂
THERE IS NO i PODCAST !
How Microsoft could win the portable player game
I think this looks like a great product.
I hope it can read an RSS feed directly over that WiFi (like a PSP can)! So I can download podcasts too, over the connection (like PSP can).
As well as wifi connectivity (for download) the killer app, for me, would be the ability to record AND upload too. This could be based on something like Nokias old uploader api (which was very easy to implement in any scripting language). Or a simple/simplified ftp client.
If they (MS) offered storage too, along with their desktop client/shop/aggregator based on the account, then they would have it all wrapped up.
Location agnostic consuming and publishing – desktop or mobile device – listening, viewing, subscribing etc. All synced up the next time the device links to the desktop. Full of real statistics, linkage and relevance.
Bingo! You’d have it all.
THEN if your reading AND writing/publishing tools support the core content and organisation XML standards for podcasts of RSS and OPML, PLUS additional support for microformats such as FOAF etc AND OTHER community APIS (though this could be done by any developer community or group of widgetwelders)
If Microsoft did this, they would win – imho
By ‘closing the content loop’ (by effectively flipping one end and connecting it to the other) – publish to receive : AND discover/navigate : subscribe , it would be like APple where things ‘seem’ to be locked in, they wuold have the opportunity to turn the whole network inside out, exposing all the data needed – all the ‘neural’ connections – all the paths, all the people and all the content.
This would ‘connect’ the owners of such devices to eachother, creating the community feel, but also prove they are not going to create a ‘walled garden’ of content – for devices that don’t know (much) about anything else.
[given that i am talking about ‘open’ podcasts here – user generated (argh) – as opposed to music/video/protected shopping/purchases with their own DRM.]
You don’t have to be able to read the ZUNESTONES to see it. Do you?
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ps: When are Google or Yahoo! going to produce a device? They should! 😉
pps: people who know me personally, will know that I am a huge love love and passionate user of gadgets. I have been on this crusade for a while. 😉
Tech Trends
According to Google Trends (an interesting site I had forgotten about until Dave Winer just linked to it), Podcasting is just as popular as Blogging 😉 (But blogging has been around for longer)
Also, RSS is way more popular than ATOM. (It’s easier imho)
Podcast.com Upgrade
Well, after ages of thinking and and coding, I have managed to do a huge overhaul of the podcast.com code, mainly in the directory / feed folder rendering department.
Ever since I built the first rendition of the renderer. I knew I’d have to rethink it somewhat, to cope with many, many users without losing the very cool functionality that I have put in there (for good reason).
Now you will find that the site loads ALOT faster. A quick peek at the OPML for each folder (see the red opml icons – which may change – when you open a feed folder) will show you that we use inclusion at every level now. This helps the whole system to scale.
Also, this means that one user can now link easily to another user’s folder without breaking the ‘tree’. It works with internally generated and managed ‘feed folders’ (creating OPML) as well as external OPML.
When you view a feed, you will also notice with added a link to show ‘where’ this feed appears in our users’ folder structures. (OK.. not so many users as yet, but we hope to add to them by the end of October) Also, you’ll see a button to show single-click subscription methods will a list of chicklets.
Another cool thing you should see is that EVERY folder has a permalink url – also with some links to add to del.icio.us or digg
We want the data here to work EVERYWHERE. We have an opportunity to work with EVERYONE.
We love you guys. Now I gotta do me a podcast! 🙂