Podcasting

It has been awhile since I put up a podcast, but I have been thinking about Podcasting alot latley. I habitualy listen to a few podcast's each day depending on my mood. I was listening to more podcast's, but now I have Siruis radio in my car, so I often leave the ipod at home.

My attention is a a premium and I have so many choices for my listening and viewing experience. As I type this I am listening to The Catholic Insider which I enjoy greatly, but it is one of few daily podcasts I don't get to hear that often. So with all the choices we have, how does a podcast producer like myself stay motivated to compete with everyone else? I am not sure how compelling I can be especially since there are so many talented people producing great content. A dilemma I am sure will get worse with more options growing daily.

Sites like Youtube.com and ourmedia.org help the explosion of video and podcasting for the masses and Google Video and Itunes provide good content, albeit for a fee. So what can we expect from my podcast in the future?

I will continue to produce my podcast because I enjoy doing it. I am sure I don't have many listeners, and I know the infrequent nature of my posting doesn't help that. Which bothers me about podcasts I have been searching. Some interesting podcasts seem to fizzle out after half a dozen episodes leaving an interested listener having to search for similar content.

For searching I have been using Yahoo's podcast search. It seems to be the best place to search for those niche podcasts that I like listening to. My taste varies across the board, but right now I am into Catholic Insider, TWIT, The Amateur Traveler Podcast, Rick Steves podcast, and World Soccer Daily podcast. As you can see, there are a few commercial ventures I am listening to in Podcast form. I think this is the best feature of podcasting. Being able to get the commercial content I am used to when I want to listen to it. Some Podcasting purists might think the commercialization of podcasting is bad, but as a consumer I am being better served and I am a happy camper.

I just downloaded Dave Winer's Podcatching client for his OPML software. I like what Dave brings to the table with his ideas of RSS, Reading Lists and OMPL, but I find his software a little to banal. His software serves a good purpose for advanced users who like simple interfaces, but I guess I am too new school to value his approach. I like the integration of Itunes and the podcast catching it provides. Syncing with my ipod is easy, I can easily organize my podcasts and subscription is a no brainer. The idea of being locked in or the Apple DRM model does not bother me. I am happy with Apple since they introduced their updated Itunes with podcasting. I will always try out new tools like Dave Winers, but I haven't seen anything that can blow Apple out of the water (yet?).

Podcasting is a great use of technology to give consumers choice and producers the means to reach an audience. I am glad it continues to grow and hope to grow my podcast as well.