Indie Content Networks

Hey nice work on your radio program.

You know everywhere I see the same thing people trying to describe what podcasting is and it always is a lengthy endevour.

I would argue - and have bought this up a couple times in a couple different places - that there is a problem that stems from the fact that “Podcast” is a faulty and ill-advised term. No one “Podcasting” that I know of is broadcasting specifically to a “pod": ie, to an iPod or any other mobile audio device.

They are compressing their content, whatever it is, into the mp3 format and creating an RSS document that describes that mp3 file. That’s it.

Then, that RSS is being read by all types of RSS-consuming applications, on desktops and on mobile devices. One example not a mobile device: my www.hellthy.com reads MP3-RSS as a “radio playlist” and plays the mp3s.

Ie, once the author describes their mp3 in RSS and publish the RSS, the author has no control over how his or her content is distributed. Ie, authors do not control the entire distribution path - so it would be foolish to say they are “podcasting” or targeting a specific type of device or application. If apps like iPodder used a propriatary XML vocabulary other than RSS this could be true. But it doesn’t. That’s part of its beauty.

And even beyond that, the term wants to describe not only a very specific distribution path - but also wants to describe a very specific type of content: talkshow style audioblogs. If you want legal mp3’s 5 days a week downloaded through your iPodder app - you can consume www.hellthy.com’s MP3-RSS and have music content through this distribution method. Does this mean I’m podcasting?

It seems confusing to many to describe both a specific style of content and a specific form of distributionin in one term.

Seems that the type of content people are referring to is “Talk” or “Talk Show” - a collection of entertainment that is predominately talk.

And when the authors of this content publish their creations via MP3-RSS they are not specifcally “Podcasting” but are potentially “Podcasting” (mobile devices) and “Deskcasting” (desktop apps) and even, for WiFi home stereo users “Dencasting.” Ha. In other words they are “multicasting” (dare I say “broadcasting"?)– or better yet, they are “Metacasting” as they have no control over the distribution of the content other than properly describing the meta information in a format that a wide variety of applications can understand.

That's my two cents...

Exactly. Thanks for chiming in. In the frenzy to consume, digest and then create in a way that's perceived to be "new" we do rush to stick a label on it, don't we? I agree that it's about the distribution of content, not what the eventual target is. What I am focused on lately is not how to produce an audio show and tell people about it. I'm concerned with how that act can be taking another level and made into a real network of content, including discovery, delivery and consumption. That someone can download my show and listen is one thing. But that it's already there for me, like the things on my Tivo, is another. It promotes the content to another level of awareness and availability. I suspect you and I are perfectly willing and able to search and download what we value. But the masses are not. They need it either available on demand or delivered to their doorstep.

tanks i needed that what a strange name podie podie

There's an interesting gap between people who 'get' podcasts and the people who are supposed to be getting excited by them, as discussed in this "What's Podcasting?" article:

http://blogs.wwwcoder.com/jrda/articles/podcasting.aspx