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The Internet Media Music

How Podcasting and Satellite Changed Radio 139

Posted by Zonk from the your-own-personal-stream dept.
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine discusses how podcasting changes the radio industry: "Consider the basics: With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They're bypassing an entire industry." The article notes about some advertising deals that podcasters managed to procure, but it also notes that another industry, satellite radio, represented by Sirius and XM Satellite radio, is already changing the radio landscape."
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How Podcasting and Satellite Changed Radio More

How Podcasting and Satellite Changed Radio

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  • All this hype about 'podcasting' (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fwice ( 841569 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @09:52AM (#11851896)
    There is all this hype about podcasting but nothing about shoutcasting or other forms of internet radio -- which have been aroudn longer and have more than quite a bit of a userbase...

    • Re:All this hype about 'podcasting' (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The difference is, Shout/Icecasting is just that... Radio. Podcasting is something different:

      1. It is different in that the low-speed delayed delivery makes publishing (read: bandwidth) costs much cheaper, and it stacks with BitTorrent.

      2. It is different in that the listener doesn't have to schedule their listening around a broadcaster. The TiVo metaphor is apt.

      3. It is different in that it is built around mobile. Shoutcast is great, unless you are in your car on an hour and a half commute on 285.

      Person

      • Once 3G-ish technologies roll out widely enough, shout/icecast will kill satellite radio dead. I mean, why have this extra box and another subscription service when you already have a cell phone and an iPod?

        Assuming carriers manage to deliver devices that actually allow you to take advantage of streaming media and don't cripple their EV-DO and etc. networks with poorly implemented gateways that break streaming. I'm not optimistic.

    • Let's see there no tower or frequencies involved.

      Uh yeah but there's billions of miles of internet cables, all sorts of frequencies, amplifiers, ....

      radio can be picked up and amplified by a couple transistors and a coat hanger.

      Radio is the simpler of the two.

      1. There is all this hype about podcasting but nothing about shoutcasting or other forms of internet radio -- which have been aroudn longer and have more than quite a bit of a userbase...

      The two are different enough that -- for traveling and other uses -- Podcasts tend to be more practical.

      1. 1. Blog/show format vs. radio. While podcasting is referred to as a type of radio...it's not. It's an audio blog. If you don't like blogs, and could care less about talk radio or public radio, podcasting is a waste

    • I totally agree. But I have to give major credit to Apple's PR department. Truly some first class work they've been doing with this podcasting thing.

      However, I believe the reason podcasting is getting press as opposed to its predecessor, shoutcasting, is because the iPod is the new hip mainstream consumer electronic device. So that means that readers are more likely to read about something involving the iPod than just Winamp for example. Plus, it combines the coolness of the iPod with the "coolness" of

    • THANK YOU!!!!!. I only know, maybe two people on my entire campus that know how to listen to a podcast, let alone how TO podcast.
  • I suppose that it could ultimately mean that digital DAB radio will never really take off. It could be surpassed by other mediums before it is fully taken on board...

    • Re:Digital Radio Obsolete? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In the US perhaps. Except in the UK we've had DAB for almost two years and DAB receivers are both cheap and widespread. And nobody would even dream of getting satelite radio. And 'podcasting' is just an excuse to shout "iPod! iPod!" ad infinitum. But then we have the BBC and you just have a load of crappy commercial broadcasters... Poor you...

      • The BBC have the power (Score:2, Interesting)

        by matt me ( 850665 )
        DAB and Digital TV are already going full steam with the backing of the BBC. The BBC want to start podcasting soon, so that might help it take off here, as soon as they get legal problems sorted.

        As for podcasting ever killing commercial radio, you might as well expect amateur movies filmed by bloggers to destroy Hollywood and music on Creative Commons to kill EMI.

        Podcasting really needs a better name. The 'pod' bit, is just another commercial plug for Apple. It wouldn't be acceptable to call all PCs 'Wind
        • Podcasting really needs a better name. The 'pod' bit, is just another commercial plug for Apple. It wouldn't be acceptable to call all PCs 'Window-machines', would it? Or websites 'Internet Explorer sites'?

          You might as well call Kleenex "tissues", call a Xerox machine a "photocopier", or a Band-aid a "bandage". The iPod has the vast majority of the market share and mind share for digital music players, and it's not going away.
        • Can't see what the BBC would want to use ipods for, they already have a proper commercial broadcast license.

          It'll probably always be a US thing... having a private radio transmitter is illegal in the UK and most of Europe, which is why the podcast devices aren't sold here.

          • Here many ppl have iPods and other mp3 players but very few ppl have mobile DAB radios. (Not sure if/when they plan to turn off FM radio. Analogue TV is 2012, I think.) I cannot listen to 6music or any other DAB station whilst travelling in the morning. If the BBC were to podcast programs, I could funk my way to school with Craig Charles. Woo.
      • DAB is neither cheap nor particularly widespread (wake me up when they make a portable DAB for £5. That's all my FM radio cost & it does exactly the same thing). Hell, less than £50 would be a start.

        Satellite (and DTT) radio is a free addon to satellite TV and everyone who has satellite already has it... it's not particularly mobile though.
        • Try larger Sainsbury;s stores. They sell a Dual Band FM/DAB receiver for under £50.00(Brand name "Red"). This is a Mains/Battery receiver. There are truly portable DAB receivers on the way to market as well(Pocketsize). IMHO Satellite Radio is really a non starter while there is a total monopoly in service provider. SKY (prop R Murdoch) does not want it to take off so it won't. He wants all the commercial revenue from the dross he calls TV and as the parent said, its not mobile. US Satellite Radio st
  • I have XM. I love it, although I received a notice yesterday that they were raising their fees to $13. It will now, however, include internet access to their feeds, and the premium chanel you previously had to add on for a fee.
    • Kind of reminds me of what Charter Communications is doing.

      They just rolled out the DVR box for an additional $10 a month; optional service of course.

      Because it's so sweet and easy to use, people are adopting like crazy. Then Charter will see how willing people are to pay for it and before you know it, bam, the DVR is your cable box and it's no longer optional, but is simply "included" now. Oh, and instead of being $10 a month, now it's 16.99.

      That's a look at 18 months from now.
    • Here is more information [xmradio.com] about the XM rate increase. Now I can listen to XM over the computer! Except that I can't do it at work :(

  • Podcasting? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NeuralAbyss ( 12335 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @09:58AM (#11851916) Homepage
    ....am I the only one who's had absolutely no experience, nor been affected by either podcasting or satellite radio? I'm tempted to just write it off as a fad... who'd spend time downloading a multi-hour 'podcasting' program just to play later?

    I personally would much rather go for a personal selection of mp3s.

    • Re:Podcasting? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Does anyone sell an pod with Wifi RSS type capabilities? It'd be kinda need to set it up and then whenever I'm in range of a WiFi it automatically looks for content updates and downloads.

    • It's not just you. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by solios ( 53048 )
      I'm in the WTF boat myself.

      But then, I stopped listening to radio years ago- I pull my weather from the *.gov, and get everything else through iTunes and the internets. I once heard podcasting described as "an audio blog"- my response was something along the lines of "just what I want to hear- more talk radio."

      Blogs have given us a few million Spider Jerusalem wannabes- podcasting and cheap cams will give us a few million Edison Carter wannabes. While technology has decimated the entry barrier and give
      • Well, AT&T's Natural Voice speech synth is pretty good, about the best I've ever heard come out of a computer. I have the "Crystal16" voice and I use it to announce incoming phone calls around the house. If you listen closely you can tell it's synthetic, but it's so much more understandable than all the Votrax SC-01 wannabes out there that it's actually pleasant to hear. Dunno if I'd want to have it (her?) read my news to me though.

        Other than that I feel pretty much the same way you do. I'm all for t
      • my response was something along the lines of "just what I want to hear- more talk radio."

        Yep, me too, only without the sarcastic overtones. I'm tired of being stuck with ultra-conservatives as my only sources of good talk radio. NPR is OK, but they are more entertainment and liberal news and I prefer issue-based discussions. Most of the podcasters I listen to seem to be more open and honest and have a down to earth feel, but that's typical with independent broadcasters vs. those who answer to the under

    • Re:Podcasting? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ewg ( 158266 )

      Podcasting and satellite radio are ways to deliver topical content and new music to your ears without too much work.

      Satellite radio has general news, talk, and live sports covered. The music channels give you essentially a self-updating playlist in a huge number of genres you'd never have time to keep up with on your own.

      Podcasting offers the promise of very specialized topical content. Think of a talk show that covers very narrow areas of interest. Things much too specialized to ever be "broadcast".

    • Re:Podcasting? (Score:3, Informative)

      by nicktripp ( 717517 )
      While it may just be a fad, I don't "spend" any time downloading Podcast content. When I wake up in the morning my Powerbook has already done the work during the night. Schedules and RSS feeds are a beautiful thing. As for "just to play later", isn't that what gets people so excited about PVR's? I love being able to find a favorite show and always have it available on my iPod for when I'm in the car or at the gym. Okay, okay. So just in the car, but my point still stands.
    • i've not done the podcasting thing, though its really just a variation of making "mix tapes for friends" which became "making mixed cds for friends", which is now "making a mix as a giant mp3 stream for friends to download so i don't have to actually send them anything". its a kids thing, and if i was a kid now, i'd probably be in the heart of it.

      at work, i tend to be in very tight control over what music is being played, both to control my mood (and ease frustrations when windows sucks) and to keep thing
      • Since I bought my Roady and activated it, I've hardly listened to any MP3s.

        For one, the enclosure for the hard drive most of my MP3s are on is not working and I haven't gotten around to replacing/fixing it (I'm pretty sure the HD itself is fine.) One of the reasons I've been lazy about replacing/fixing the HD is because I don't need the MP3s as much.

        XM gives me a huge variety of music with an amazing selection, and exposes me to new music I'd NEVER have found on my own, and it's so damn convenient too.
        • annoyingly, the one major review of the myfi unit was from an mp3-o-phile who was so addicted to having total control that anything bad (like sound quality on some of the older rips) was a major bad.

          as Fripp would say, the reviewer reviews himself far more than the target of his review.

          the myfi isn't really my thing (the main time i listen with headphones is on the subway, where xm wouldn't reach. but one thing that will likely reduce my mp3-playing @ work would be listen.xmradio.com's online service.

          • MyFi (Score:2)

            by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
            Yeah, as an existing XM listener, the MyFI makes me drool.

            Too expensive for me though. My Roady (not Roady2 even, the original Roady) is more than enough for me.
    • podcasting rocks. there is so much good music out there, for free, being put out by individuals who really do have talent.

      if you're blowing podcast off on the basis of 'bleh', you're missing the beginning of something big.

      the era of Brand Is Your Master is OVER. The People have killed it.
    • if i can download and synch a radio show overnight so i can listen to it on the underground (where there is no radio reception) and discover new music, then why not.
    • I was not interested in podcasting until it occurred to me that I could download programs I like and save 'em up for long drives. Once a month I work at a location 5 hours away, and I have to drive to get there. The idea of listening to stuff I like instead of to six different variations of religious programming sounded very good indeed. I just have to figure out the cheapest way to listen to it, now, since I don't own an iPod.
      • If you have a cassette player in your car, you can probably find a portable MP3 CD player with a cassette adapter and 12V DC power adapter for around twenty bucks. The sound isn't the best, but if you're just listening to speech, it's more than sufficient. If you want something fancier, MP3-CD head units can be had for around a hundred bucks these days. Really, the only advantage I can see of a solid-state or HDD-based MP3 player over an MP3-CD player is portability (for the solid-state players) or total ca
    • Would you be interested if the podcast was your personal selection of MP3 content, freshly aggregated from various sources & sync'd to your portable media player? That's what podcasting is all about.

      Podcasting News [podcastingnews.com] is a good place to find out more info, from the perspective of the podcasting community.

  • Radio's Advatages Over Podcasting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:01AM (#11851928)
    To me, the advantage of radio is that stations exist that broadcast programming in specific formats. I can tune into these stations anytime and listen to programming that I enjoy.

    For example, 3 FM stations exists within 25 miles of me that have 24/7 jazz formats. I'm a jazz fan, so that makes me happy.

    I'm not aware of any podcast sources that provide comparable services. Podcasts require that I go out and find digital files I want and then set them up for play. I don't have the time to do that to build up a podcast playlist as lengthy as the one I can get just be turning on my radio.

    There's no reason why someone couldn't hire a staff, pay them to create and collect podcasts and then broadcast them over AM or FM on a 24/7 format, but that would be very much the same as radio anyway.
    • Sat radio offers that advantage and moe. For example Sirius offers 6 channels dedicated to Jazz and XM offers 5. With the added bonus of being able to listen to these stations anywhere in the country. Heck it gets any more specific, Sirius offers a channel that plays nothing but 80s hairbands 24/7 if that is your thing.
      • I've checked into satellite radio but the programming is similar to what I can get free on local FM. Perhaps if/when I relocate.
        • I live in Portland OR, where the radio market sucks, but I also travel back and forth to South Dakota and Wyoming, so Satellite radio (XM) is a huge bonus, you get out there in Montana and Wyoming and theres nothing on FM and often nothing at all on AM during the day. You can put the tuner on search for an hour and get no hits.
        • It isn't even remotely close to what you would find on any FM station in your market, I don't care where you live. You need "check" it out a little more I think.
          • I've got 3 FM stations playing the music I enjoy and one flagship NPR station giving me everything else. And I it's free.

            I don't buy satellite radio for the same reason I don't buy anything more than basic cable: I looked at the programming and saw nothing I'd watch or listen.

            Satellite radio couold carry a thousand formats and I wouldn't buy it if I didn'y want to listen to those 1000 formats.

    • The problem with that... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by solios ( 53048 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:18AM (#11852001) Homepage
      ... is that these "specific formats" typically consist of a 200 song playlist. There were a hell of a lot more hit singles in the 80s- nevermind hit albums or hit artists.

      I listened to the local Clear Channel Alternapop Earcock a couple of days ago for the first time in months... in a thirty minute span, I didn't hear anything I haven't heard a few hundred times before, and years previously. Last I checked, Radiohead has written more songs than "Creep"- but you wouldn't know it to listen to these asshats.

      When I got to this town (Pittsburgh) in 1997, there was a Jazz station parked at 104.{5|7}. It was nice and I listened to it quite a bit... until one day it magically Changed Format to hiphop/r&b. Just like that. A few years later and that frequency is a black hole of Rod Stewart / Michael Bolton-esque soft rock. :-| And College Radio can't get the OMFG TECHNO OMFG GANSTA RAP OMFG HIPPY MUSIC out of their systems either.

      Radio's great when you're in the serviced demographic- if you're noti, it's a vast, staticy wasteland.
      • Radio's great when you're in the serviced demographic- if you're noti, it's a vast, staticy wasteland.

        Agree, but the same applies to any medium. If someone doesn't make podcasts I want to listen to, I'm not going to listen.
    • Podcasts offer programming in specific formats, i.e. people create podcasts based on their own personal interests. There are podcasts for every possible type of interest out there, plus a few that radio would never even consider investing in.

      You aren't willing to go out and find digital files and set them up for play? So you've never downloaded music off of the internet, ever?

      Podcasts are also usually quite long. One podcast can last anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes. There is plenty of free podcasti
      • The advantage of radio for me is that it is free, available 24/7, and I can listen to it pretty much wherever I am.

        Podcasts require me to buy an mp3 player, carry it with me wherever I go or buy several players to put in the car and in differnet places around the house, and then locate and collect the programming I want.

        So far, I much prefer just turning on the radio to listen to the kind of music I know is going to be there.

        I'm not questioning the validity of podcasting, just suggesting that programming
        • Podcasts work great for those who already have an MP3 player.

          If I already have an iPod and is has several days of my music on it, then podcasts make a great addition, giving me things like some talk content like NPR's On The Media podcast or the opportunity to discover new music like with the Insomnia Radio podcast.

          Buying an MP3 player just for podcasts might be a bit too much at this point unless you already know there's content you want, but if you already have an MP3 player experimenting with some podc
    • Where I live, there is a single jazz station. The country stations only play popabilly CMT shite. There isn't a 24 hour classical station I can find, and the rock stations spend more time branding themselves as "The " and ripping on each other than playing actual music. All the stations within a given format range use the exact same 10-song playlist anyway, but they make it sound likethere's more variety with their vast libraries of IDs. The two NPR stations I can pick up just play All Things Considered
      • Yeah, I know most places are like that. Fortunately, I've got easy access to three local university FM stations that play real jazz, plus a large flagship NPR station with excellent local productions and news.
    • "For example, 3 FM stations exists within 25 miles of me that have 24/7 jazz formats. I'm a jazz fan, so that makes me happy."

      Consider yourself lucky, the only jazz station close to me turned into TALK RADIO, 96.9 in Boston. Grr.

    • Shoutcast [shoutcast.com] has a wide variety of formats available; however, since it's live netcasting, you can't carry it with you. C'est la vie.

  • Inveitable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by luckytroll ( 68214 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @10:04AM (#11851942) Homepage
    I stopped listening to radio a long time ago - my MP3-cd player for the car was the best money I ever spent. Aside from our commercial-free public radio (CBC) I have only occasionall listened to commercial radio, and was driven off by the advertising within a few minutes. The only thing that is missing from my de-commercialized listening experience is a way to inject new music and news into the stream of music I have chosen so as to keep it fresh.

    So - why not broadcast cue information about which stations are playing what so my (yet to be invented) intelligent radio/player can dash seamlessly between stations and canned tracks whilst avoiding the blaring Ads with tivo-like grace. We do it with the remote on television to avoid the chaff, why not with radio?
    • It's a good concept - I thought of something similar a while back.. 'why don't we have digital radio, like we do digital TV.. transmit the songs quickly, then keep playing if there's a dropout'... but you won't see them broadcasting playlist information in any meaningful format for two reasons:

      1. There's no 'standard' for naming tracks - some may spell things differently
      2. They'd lose their income stream - advertising!

      Unfortunate, but it's the way things are.
    • Maybe because most of these stations do not publish their playlists. And even if they did you would have to have some kind of cross ref to a database to look up the length of the song, genre, etc. Then you need some way to beam the data to your car.

      If radio stations were supportive of such an idea they could send the data on a subcarrier of the main freq, However your main intention is to skip their advertiser so why would they want to go to the expense of providing you with all this data?
  • Such industries should either evolve or die out.

  • Podcasting: Will it be as big as FLASH MOBS? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Another inane buzzword fad cooked up by the idiotic blog crowd. WTF is so special about downloading audio files of these morons talking?
    • A news story I read the other day about Podcasting being picked up by churches used the word "Godcasting". I wanted to puke. http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_2596528 [sltrib.com]

      Via one of my fav. news sites, right up there with /.
      http://www.witchvox.com/xwrensnest.html [witchvox.com]
  • Sure XM is great, but its still kinda pricey to have it installed. My alpine deck with XM was $600 + $400 to purchase and nstall the xm antenna. Playing MP3's and WMV's in the car deck is great, but gets a little stale unless you're constantly burning more cd's. So now, I've equipped the car with an 802.11 enabled pocket pc so that I can send porn to it and keep upto date on all my favorite Barely Legal DVD's. Makes getting stuck in traffic alot more fun. Plus the girls actually seem to like it when we're
    • I can't believe someone that bought an Alpine receiver is complaining about the money. You do realize Alpine is top of the line, right? You could've gotten XM for a LOT less - most $150 and up head units support it now, and maybe even some under that. You still have to buy the tuner for around $50 and an antenna (say, $40), but that's still far less than $600.

      I'd say you paid too much for the installation, too - swapping a radio is a matter of minutes, and it can't be that hard to put in the antenna - I
      • Actually I was suprised myself that it cost $400, bit it included the antenna which was apparently $180. The rest was for wiring, and having it run to the rear windshield. Yeah I probably got fucked on that deal.
  • "Consider the basics: With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They're bypassing an entire industry"

    They'd sue you, buy your congressmen to get the laws changed, and consider you a criminal for being enthusiastic about the art and the industry.

  • Changed? It hasn't happened yet (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And if the masses move, the government is going to go for regulation, even of content. If they do that, the only thing that will change is the method of distribution.
    • The entire point of Howard Stern leaving broadcast radio was partially because he was sick of being harassed by the FCC, thanks to extremist right-wing Christian groups. The government is not regulating cable, and will not be regulating satellite radio any time in the near future. With Cable, advertising dollars fuel it, and advertisers aren't willing to pay for anything they deem as risky during the day. With Satellite, it's subscriber based and not advertisement based, like cable's pay-per-view, so the

  • It's Radios' Fault (Score:2, Interesting)

    by vapor2000 ( 59123 )
    Commercial radio is BAD. It stopped being about anything besides delivering specific market segment a long time ago and a medium radio is capable of so much more.

    It is only natural that somone that isn't as beholden to advertisers can be more creative and produce a higher quality product. Public radio has been demonstrating this for a long long time (at least here in MN).

    Sirius/XM is cool and is an extension of the cable/sat TV business model, but I wonder about Podcasting. It's one thing to spam your sig
    • You're forgetting our friend, BitTorrent. Which was pretty much designed for that.
    • Sirius/XM is cool and is an extension of the cable/sat TV business model

      In fact, one of the big draws is that satellite radio offers the chance for people to listen to many types of national broadcasts that you can't get with local radio. That's why ESPN Radio has done well because you can hear all of their programming 24 hours a day, and Fox Sports Radio is growing because of their association with XM. I wouldn't be surprised that once both Sirius and XM reach "critical mass" of listeners you will see a
  • "...listeners are creating the future. In just seven months, podcasts have appeared, covering subjects from Delta blues to vegetarian cooking..."

    Naw:

    "It's possible to imagine people paying monthly fees to hear programming-on-demand on the phone, PC, or in the car. Listeners could buy a song they hear on the radio with the click of a button."

    Actually a pretty good overview from the 'business' viewpoint. The world it's a changing.
  • It seems pretty obvious to me that as things continue on the current trend that it won't be too much longer that "videocasting" and the like will start to upset the right people in TV and Cable land . I could easily see that the only thing you have to pay for is bandwidth (which is enough in and of itself) and anyone with a server, the bandwidth, and a video camera could start "broadcasting" their show over the internet. Commercial (I know of the free ones as well, but that is another topic entirely) produc
    • Checking that new voyages website makes me think of one thing.... cue lawsuit in 10.. 9... 8... 7.. :)

      Anyway, the real point of this post is that what you describe is already happening (and has been happening for a while) in sites like iFILM [ifilm.com], Atomfilms [atomfilms.com] and Pocketmovies [pocketmovies.net], just to name a few that I can think of right now. As a 3D animator wannabe I still check them from time to time to see new animated shorts.

  • Since getting my iPod and haveing access to most of my collecation, I NEVER listen to radio. I find NO redeeming qualities to the ClearChannel owned FM band.

  • Shouldn't the title be: How Podcasting and Satellite Is Changing Radio?

  • Licensing issues will burn podcasters (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DetroitSongBird ( 865128 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @11:46AM (#11852446)
    If you add songs to your podcast you'll need a set of licenses: for the songwriter (bmi, ascap, etc) and for the "mechanical" owner (the owner of the sound recording) at the very least. Or, you'll need explicit permission from the songwriter and the music label/artist. Podcasting won't fall under the internet broadcasting licenses. It's much closer to file sharing and will end up with the same issues as file sharing.

    That's why you'll start hearing about "podcast safe" music - usually by independent artists or small labels that explicitly give permission for their songs to be included in a podcast.

    Hopefully podcasters will keep this under control so that the paid for leaches in congress don't start passing legislation that would hurt this.

    For public radio stations and alternative news/music organizations podcasting is awesome! I could see some podcast producers being picked up by radio show distributors. Coverville, for example, would be an excellent show even on terrestrial radio.

  • I actually started to make my own 'podcast' but I thought it was too boring for anyone to listen to so I never released it.

    Can anyone recommend some good podcasts? Are there any big popular podcasters that many people like?

    What ever happened to "Geeks in Space: Slashdot Radio"? Wasn' that a 'podcast'?
    • Try the Dawn and Drew show http://www.dawnanddrew.com/ [dawnanddrew.com].

      It's quite funny, really. There are others, as well, including a podcast of Air America's daily programming (http://www.airamericaplace.com/ [airamericaplace.com]), which you'll get a few days late, but is still entertaining (especially for those of us stuck in the Hannitized Savage Nation of Rush).

      What most people here don't seem to understand is that podcasting is, currently, a purely talk format. Since most talk radio (with rare exceptions, above) is directed at
      1. Can anyone recommend some good podcasts? Are there any big popular podcasters that many people like?

      The group I listen to needs to be purged (getting borred of a couple podcasts). IT Conversations has the best content, though The Peanut Gallery looks promising for short thoughtful stories. Openpodcast quite a bit -- both the worst and best.

      For what it's worth, here's my complete current list (/. mangles it a bit);

      http://www.thepeanutgallery.info/peanut.xml
      http: //www.rocketboom.com/vlog/quicktime_

  • I really enjoy podcasts. There really isn't any interesting programming here in Finland and with three kids it's pretty impossible to tune in at some weekly schedule.

    I also recently got an iPod Mini. This part is essential. A portable media player that is. I only listen to podcasts when "travelling". On my way to work, lunch breaks, walks, etc... Listening while at the computer doesn't really work for me. Can't focus.

    Now I can get interesting programming and listen to it any time I get a few minutes fre

  • The people who were doing good radio shows on the web were doing them before anyway, and far more people have web browsers than have any sort of RSS vehicles. Everything Podcasting does is make it easier to download and automatically send it to your portable music player so that you might actually stumble upon it for a while. It's important to not downplay that it's a lot more convenient, but the medium was already far enough along to have relatively stable users - you will get very few absolute newbies who

  • Its a non-topic. A non-technology. Its not even widely utilised -- whatever it is.

    IMHO -- P2P streaming is important. Its the next logical step up from conventional streaming technologies.

    Why it gets no attention I have no idea.
  • Disruptive technology is putting the hurt on the establishment. And I'm loving it.

    Having witnessed the destruction of commercial radio and taken refuge in the open arms of NPR I'm so happy the established mega-stations are getting what is due them, their ultimate destruction.

    For example, DAB. The cost to implement DAB is going to be hideously high. And you just know that they're not going to give it away for free. Add the fact that sat providers already have the infrastructure in place, and people wil
  • ...are two of the things I really like about the podcasts I subscribe to. Whether it's "slacker astronomy" or an introduction to Opera or the finer points of wine selection, I think it's great that these people with so much knowledge of eclectic subjects have a forum to talk about what they love. I find it fascinating, like having a great college professor that got you interested in something you would never have thought could be. Yeah, there's a lot of crap, but that's the case with every medium. I have th

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