Here Come the Podcasters
Blogging meets pirate radio.By Erick Schonfeld, November 12, 2004
How boring. That is the sentiment behind a budding new phenomenon among bloggers and others known as podcasting. Just as the 4,585,680 weblogs out there have opened up a whole new world of self-publishing, the podcasters hope to open up a whole new world of Internet audio broadcasting. Think of it as pirate radio for the blogosphere.
Podcasting gets its catchy name from the iPod music player. The idea is that you can subscribe for free to a show on the Internet (just like you can subscribe to your favorite blogs through an RSS feed), download it to your iPod, and then listen to it on the go. But you don't even need an iPod, because you can listen to podcasts on your computer as well.
Podcasting got its start just last summer when Adam Curry of MTV fame started his podcast, Daily Source Code, to rally software developers around improving the open-source podcasting software. (It turns out Curry is just as big a fan of technology as he is of music, having co-founded a few Web startups since his VJ heyday.) Now, in addition to the iPodder software that he helped kick off, there are at least half a dozen more. And this software has, in turn, given rise to hundreds of podcasts, with people recording daily talk shows on topics as diverse as technology, sports, news, and music.
Many of the early podcasters are bloggers such as Scripting News's Dave Winer and Engadget's Peter Rojas who want to add an audio component to their commentary, which has been mostly text until now. But what podcasting represents is the democratization of broadcasting. Anyone with a computer and a microphone can now try his or her hand at being a radio talk-show host or DJ, and can build an audience of thousands -- potentially millions.
Podcasting is not limited to audio. With Apple's latest color-screen iPod Photo devices, still images can be incorporated as well. (Engadget's podcast, which includes photos of the devices being reviewed, is the first to do so.) Can video be far behind? If podcasting takes off, it could roil the traditional radio and TV businesses just as weblogs are challenging traditional print media. Of course, podcasters who disseminate copyrighted songs or video clips might find themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
Nevertheless, this could be the beginning of how on-demand content will work on the Internet: You go to a podcast directory or program guide on the Web and pick your favorite shows, and then every time a new episode is posted, your computer (or maybe your TiVo (TIVO)) automatically downloads it. There might be millions of podcasts someday, so we will need some sort of ranking system (a download count or audience vote, for instance). At some point, for podcasting to survive and become mainstream, there will have to be an economic model to support it. Just like weblogs, podcasts will be able to profitably mine thousands of niche audiences that broadcasters today ignore. Perhaps the more popular podcasts will start incorporating ads into their shows or charging subscribers. It's a perfect forum for selling new music. Or they might even sell some of their clips to the broadcast radio networks themselves. Before that happens, though, podcasting will have to broaden from the hobbyist sensation it is today.
How boring. That is the sentiment behind a budding new phenomenon among bloggers and others known as podcasting. Just as the 4,585,680 weblogs out there have opened up a whole new world of self-publishing, the podcasters hope to open up a whole new world of Internet audio broadcasting. Think of it as pirate radio for the blogosphere.
Podcasting gets its catchy name from the iPod music player. The idea is that you can subscribe for free to a show on the Internet (just like you can subscribe to your favorite blogs through an RSS feed), download it to your iPod, and then listen to it on the go. But you don't even need an iPod, because you can listen to podcasts on your computer as well.
Podcasting got its start just last summer when Adam Curry of MTV fame started his podcast, Daily Source Code, to rally software developers around improving the open-source podcasting software. (It turns out Curry is just as big a fan of technology as he is of music, having co-founded a few Web startups since his VJ heyday.) Now, in addition to the iPodder software that he helped kick off, there are at least half a dozen more. And this software has, in turn, given rise to hundreds of podcasts, with people recording daily talk shows on topics as diverse as technology, sports, news, and music.
Many of the early podcasters are bloggers such as Scripting News's Dave Winer and Engadget's Peter Rojas who want to add an audio component to their commentary, which has been mostly text until now. But what podcasting represents is the democratization of broadcasting. Anyone with a computer and a microphone can now try his or her hand at being a radio talk-show host or DJ, and can build an audience of thousands -- potentially millions.
Podcasting is not limited to audio. With Apple's latest color-screen iPod Photo devices, still images can be incorporated as well. (Engadget's podcast, which includes photos of the devices being reviewed, is the first to do so.) Can video be far behind? If podcasting takes off, it could roil the traditional radio and TV businesses just as weblogs are challenging traditional print media. Of course, podcasters who disseminate copyrighted songs or video clips might find themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
Nevertheless, this could be the beginning of how on-demand content will work on the Internet: You go to a podcast directory or program guide on the Web and pick your favorite shows, and then every time a new episode is posted, your computer (or maybe your TiVo (TIVO)) automatically downloads it. There might be millions of podcasts someday, so we will need some sort of ranking system (a download count or audience vote, for instance). At some point, for podcasting to survive and become mainstream, there will have to be an economic model to support it. Just like weblogs, podcasts will be able to profitably mine thousands of niche audiences that broadcasters today ignore. Perhaps the more popular podcasts will start incorporating ads into their shows or charging subscribers. It's a perfect forum for selling new music. Or they might even sell some of their clips to the broadcast radio networks themselves. Before that happens, though, podcasting will have to broaden from the hobbyist sensation it is today.
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11:46 AM
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