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Yahoo! Businesses The Internet

Yahoo Launches New Podcasting Service 104

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the love-my-presidential-playlist dept.
sdirrim writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that Yahoo! has just released a test version of its new podcasting service From the (short) article: "Yahoo's new service will allow users to download shows from National Public Radio, the weekly presidential address, and independent shows with subjects ranging from sports to knitting." Additionally Yahoo! Podcast users have the ability to rate shows.
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Yahoo Launches New Podcasting Service More

Yahoo Launches New Podcasting Service

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  • Whoah!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @02:55PM (#13758525) Journal
    NPR, the oration of George W. Bush and knitting!?! Truly, Steve Jobs hath led us into a glorious new existence!
    • All Things Considered...that's a breath of Fresh Air!

    • Re:Whoah!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Initial list of offerings appears to be Public Domain and/or those with easily obtainable permission to deliver copyrighted works. Apparently no contracts in hand to deliver "popular" copyrighted works that might have elicited more excitement in you. If Yahoo promises to deliver content not under contract it puts them at a disadvantage in negotiating the contracts. If the service becomes popular before Yahoo approaches major content providers then the major content providers might approach Yahoo with deals

    • This American Life (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Skim123 ( 3322 )
      I like many of the PBS radio programs, but it's frustrating that (IMHO) their best show - This American Life [thisamericanlife.org] - is not podcastable. Boo.

  • Great! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @02:55PM (#13758529) Journal
    Now I'll get to listen to even more poorly produced podcasts put on by people who have no business behind a microphone.

    Some of the podcasts are pretty good (The ones produced by NPR are generally good), but almost all of the other's I've heard I can't stand to listen to for more than a minute or two.

    I wish Apple or Yahoo would come up with a way to rate the podcasts, so I know right off which ones to not even bother wasting my time with.

    • Re:Great! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by sdirrim ( 909976 )
      If you RTFA, you see that you can rate podcasts for other users. I'm signing up now... once I get an iPod :P

    • Re:Great! (Score:3, Informative)

      by generic-man ( 33649 ) *
      According to Slashdot, [slashdot.org] "Yahoo! Podcast users have the ability to rate shows."

    • Re:Great! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      MOD PARENT UP! It's not redundant, it's insightful! Most people that podcast (should be called blogcast) have no business doing so. Most peoples blogs/podcasts simply make them look like idiots. I have yet to find a podcast that I have been able to listen to for more than a few minutes. Diggnation is IMO the worst podcast I have ever listened too. It's just two "wannabe" hacker jackasses regurgitating whatever has been all over the Internet for the last month or more....
  • Increasingly popular podcasts, which allow users to download audio programs from the Web and listen to them on portable music devices, have attracted interest from some of the biggest names in technology, including Apple Computer Inc..

    I should hope podcasting's got Apple's attention. Rumour has it, they're the ones behind the iPod in the first place. :)

    • False... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The rumor has been discredited. The iPod was created by terrorist music pirates who are bent on destroy the recording industry.

    • Re:Ya Don't Say? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Chyeld ( 713439 )
      They may have been behind the iPod, but they were late to the podcast party. It existed (and evolved) for quite a while before they even gave it a nod. Even now their current implementation is about a generation behind, having no builtin support for things such as bittorent downloads, different feed types, prebuilt OPML lists of feeds, or even feed:// links.

  • Rating.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Karma_fucker_sucker ( 898393 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @02:59PM (#13758556)
    Now, I'm starting to see some reason to get one of those pods. I'm a really cheap guy and I don't like much of the new music these days so I never had a reason to get one. But, I have a hard time catching The Infinite Mind [infinitemind.com] and other PBS/NPR shows I love and I can't always listen to it over the net when I'm at my computer - it does suck up a lot of badwidth.

    • Re:Rating.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by ZachPruckowski ( 918562 )
      Well, fundamentally, you still have to download it, so this is just getting the whole thing at once. The other option is to not get an iPod, but just get iTunes or Windows Media Player (they have links on Yahoo! podcasts). No need for the actual iPod, unless you want to carry it with you.

      • Re:Rating.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by hazem ( 472289 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:20PM (#13758699) Journal
        i-podder http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php [sourceforge.net]

        Is a nice OSS program for downloading podcasts too. No need for spyware/bloatware/crapware from the big guys.
        • Sounds cool. But they'll suffer because almost everyone has an iPod, so they're competing for a smaller market. That's the glory of Apple's software/hardware one-two punch.
          • The iPod is irrelevant. This is a program that automatically downloads new podcasts to your computer, and can do things like adding them to your iTunes library.

            Unfortunately, the term "Podcasting", with all its trademark inferences, was the first one to catch on. Podcasting has little to do with Apple or the iPod. Apple has even been one of the latest and least cooperative parties to come to the whole game. They had to be repeatedly beaten over the head with the popular idea just to get some iTunes support,
            • No, I think you were misunderstanding what I said or was trying to say. I was the first one to say the iPod is unnecessary, and all you need is the software. what I said in my most recent post is that the OSS has to fight the popularity of iTunes, which won't be easy. most people have iPods for the music reason, and have iTunes with the pod because they're lazy, or because it works well enough (I'm one of them). It has nothing to do with the people needing the iPods.
              • Ahh, yes, perhaps. Although, the OSS does have the advantage of not being dependent for life on commercial success. If iPodder takes a commercial dip, there'll still be a few people around to use or maintain it.

    • Re:Rating.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:11PM (#13758636)
      and I don't like much of the new music these days

      I'm always puzzled by this. There's probably a wider variety of music available today than at any time in history. Just last week I ran across some really great new progressive stuff out of Holland. You just need to look beyond the top 40 lists. Most of the new stuff I listen to will probably never be played by any radio station anywhere. You just have to look for it. Gosh, if only there were some sort of tool for that. Like some sort of international network or something. ;-)

      • dude, this is totally true. I think that the biggest thing about having so much music available to one is that one becomes aware of the wealth of music all across the world that is worth listening to. It requires a bit of work, but finding really good music is so worthwhile.

        I'm listening to so many kinds of music i'd otherwise not be listening to if i let radio or MTV et al program my listening choices.

        There's some really good stuff coming out of Germany and Brazil too. Mostly death metal out of Germany - m
      • People complain about music, but the funny thing is you have better selection today than you ever have. Because you know what? If you don't like the music being created in 2005, you can still get your hands on music from the 90s/80s/70s. It's not like that music is magically destroyed or something. Music accumulates, it doesn't go away...

        -everphilski-
        • Music accumulates, it doesn't go away...

          You post on Slashdot and you haven't heard of DRM? ;-)


        • but the funny thing is you have better selection today than you ever have.

          WHen I read the gp post and then the responses about the selection being better now than ever before, I couldn't help but think of Devo [amazon.com]'s song, Freedom of Choice.

          Freedom of Choice is what you've got...
          Freedom FROM Choice is what you want...

          The GP is probably suffering from too many choices and has given up the search for music.

          Seth

          • You know, it's true though. There is just too much information out there for the brain to process. I like solutions such as Pandora [pandora.com], where experts have classified the music for you so that it is easy to search.

            Actually, I'm selling Pandora a bit short. They have done far more than just classified the music. The algorithm they use to help you find new music is the really redeeming feature. It's like the TiVo interface: you give it a "seed" song, and then start rating songs with the thumbs-up or the thumbs-d

            • Thanks for this recommendation. I hadn't heard of it. I've mostly been depending on internet radio through iTunes to find different music, but a lot of the stations I listen to don't really broadcast the artist info, so I end up continuing to listen to those stations for those sounds rather than seeking out individual artists.

              I'll check out Pandora.

              Appreciatively,
              Seth
      • To be honest, the variety avaliable now via the internet is just as bad as the absense in variety in the mainstream media.

        If it's not playing I'm unlikely to go looking for it. It's not that I think the top X lists are at all worthy of paying attention to, but my time is precious and spending it filtering the out the 10k possible artists that I might like down to something that I could resonably listen to doesn't seem to be worthwhile. By the time I get it narrowed down, I'm dead.
        • If it's not playing I'm unlikely to go looking for it. It's not that I think the top X lists are at all worthy of paying attention to, but my time is precious and spending it filtering the out the 10k possible artists that I might like down to something that I could resonably listen to doesn't seem to be worthwhile. By the time I get it narrowed down, I'm dead.

          If it's not in my bookmarks I'm unlikely to go looking for it. It's not that I think the top X sites are at all worthy of paying attention to, but my
          • I completely agree, the web:search engine metaphor is a good one. However, how many of these sites are really that deep in terms of what they cover? The last time I hit a "listen to what you do and recommend" site, they told me I would like George Micheal because I listened to Garbage. The last time I went to 'search' site, I came to the conclusion that the entire music world was composed of only video game soundtrack remixes, punk, and metal.

            Right now, the tools out there cover maybe 10% of what's avaliabl
        • The answer lies somewhere between the crapfest that was MP3.com and the crapfeed that is popular radio.

          For me, the answer is in the sub-popular labels. Once you get beyond the BMGs and Warners, labels often have a distinctive style, and can act as an advocate or a guide to helping you find good music.

          Me? I put stock in names like Emperor Norton, the defunct Grass label, Eighteenth Street Lounge, Polyvinyl Record Co., and City Slang (a distributor, actually, but they have good taste). There are a few that ar
      • which uses audioscrobbler to profile your taste and connect you with new music
    • If you're looking for new music outside the top-40 crap, try the NPR All Songs Considered podcast. It goes over the music used on All Things Considered, and it's an incredible variety of music.

  • I like user ratings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Safe Sex Goddess ( 910415 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:02PM (#13758577) Homepage Journal
    I wish there were some way to give a revenue split from advertisers to the best rated podcasts.

  • Uploading Shows (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:04PM (#13758591)
    If someone wants their podcast show to succeed, they would have to put it on iTunes, Yahoo, and at least a couple other podcast sites. How about a single site that uploads to the multiple destinations for you. Maybe that's what people need instead.

    • Re:Uploading Shows (Score:3, Informative)

      by Chuckstar ( 799005 )
      I don't think its that hard to register your RSS feed at multiple sites. It only takes about 10 seconds.

      • Re:Uploading Shows (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Have you listened to a podcast lately? Most of these people would have trouble tying their shoes....

        P.S. I just listened to the TWIT podcast and holy shit was it bad. How anyone regularly listens to this crap is beyond me....

  • Oh for the love of God podcast is a stupid name (Score:4, Interesting)

    by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:07PM (#13758614)
    it is "Diary" not blog it is an audio file not a podcast I got a revolution for ya, lets put an audio file for download on the internet (yeah nobody has ever done that before), but give it a hip new name: "Podcast" cause you need a $400 piece of electronics to duplicate 20 year old technology. Next you will see "Podcast Novels" at barnes and noble, cause "books on tape" is just not a shiney. Get off my lawn :))
    • I have to agree. "Podcasting". What is it? Downloading mp3s. that. is. it.

      "Oh, but now you can tell via RSS that a new mp3 is ready". Oh joy.

      • Re:Oh for the love of God podcast is a stupid name (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tsiangkun ( 746511 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:23PM (#13758721) Homepage
        Technically, sure, it's just downloading mp3s.

        But, when it's done through iTunes, using RSS to autmatically grab new content from sites, it's starts to become something different. When the player keeps track of how much of the podcast has been played, and automatically manages the downloaded content according to user criteria, it becomes a podcast.

        Yes, you can just download the mp3, but it's the iTunes experience that makes the system complete.
        I used to think it was dumb too, but now I'm hooked.

        I like knowing which shows I've heard, and which I still need to have a listen, and being able to pick up where I left off when I get interupted. iTunes, presents this information in a very intuitive way, and just downloading the mp3 doesn't, using RSS or not.

      • Yeah, and that stupid "reading" buzzword just describes looking at symbols!

        Honestly. You'd think every use of the term kills one of your pets or something.

        If a website said "download my MP3", I'd treat that differently than "subscribe to my podcast". It's a descriptive term, and it's not going away anytime soon.
      • Other stupid names:

        TiVo/DVR: Just. Downloading. MP4s. Oh joy.
        Internet: Just. A. Glorified. BBS. Oh joy.

        I listen to 5-10 podcasts a day in the car and at work. Perhaps you wouldn't mind tracking 5-10 sites for updates, but I'm happy to have it automated.

        I also don't memorize the TV guide in order to figure out when my favorite shows are on. I don't log into a different BBS in order to get information from every mailing list I'm on or site that I want to check.

        Why are these automated developm

    • Podcast novels? Do you mean something like this [westervillelibrary.org]? Or this [kcls.org]? Not to mention this [montgomerycountymd.gov] and this [overdrive.com].

      I wish we had something like this in New Mexico.
    • Hey, even as a "blogger" myself, I agree that the whole blog thing is obnoxiously overhyped. Okay, easy publishing, we get it. Neato.

      But calling blogs 'diaries' is kinda lame, too. Though you can still see a zillion angsty "I hate myself, I love my cheese sandwich" blogs, there are a ton more that aggregate or commentate on interesting tech stories or political issues, and so on.
    • The name "Podcasting" is often misused to simply mean "listen to our audio file". I know you are being fecisious, but the "Pod" in "Podcast" doesn't mean that you need to buy a $400 piece of equipment to listen to a Podcast.

      The word "Podcast" implies automation -- You tell the computer what shows you want to watch. The broadcaster distributes the audio file on a regular schedule. Your computer monitors the feed, downloads the files and does the work for you.

      Using this method, an audio producer effectively d
    • It's not a diary unless your version of a diary lets other users subscribe to it and post feedback.

      It's not just an audio file, a podcast is the entire mechanism of easily subscribing to a audio program, and having it sync up automatically to your listening software/hardware of preference.

      Please actually research what you're talking about before sounding like a moron by trying to make fun of something you don't get.

  • quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by unk1911 ( 250141 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:16PM (#13758674) Homepage
    The following quote seems very appropriate for this newsstory:

    We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
    - Robert Wilensky

    --
    http://unk1911.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
  • ...and saving and/or playing them in the player of my choice. Despite owning a portable music player (a gift), I never did quite understand all the excitement of podcast time/placeshifting. When do people find the time to listen to all this stuff anyway? (commutes, I suppose, but beyond that...?)

    Anyway, the idea of a podcast directory is nice, and I'm neither surprised nor unhappy that Y! has stepped up to the plate. However, some of the whizbang stuff they've tacked on isn't, well, very user-friendly.

    Fo

  • Podcasting to a simplified existence (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:31PM (#13758776)
    The next big thing is going to be listening to a podcast of a guy telling you how you should simplify your life into a state of analog nirvana. The podcast will tell you the joys of reconnecting to your friends and family by ditching the mp3 player and getting off of the computer.

  • Nothing too special (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Transcendent ( 204992 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:33PM (#13758786)
    NPR already allows you to download a "podcast" from their website. Yahoo just collects it and gives you another link to it.

  • Works with iTunes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by freaktheclown ( 826263 ) *
    It works with iTunes, too. When you click Subscribe, it opens up iTunes and downloads it automatically.
  • OK we get it.. podcasting is gonna diminish the power of global media. Just like blogging, the internet and linux on the desktop... Jeez I wonder when we'll see podcasts.google.com

    • Re:Free podcasts? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ForumTroll ( 900233 )
      I know you're being sarcastic however it's really quite funny how many people actually think that blogs and podcasts will revolutionize the way we get news. Blogging has had a very little effect on changing global media. The vast majority of people don't read blogs nor do they care what some random person has to say over the Internet. Most blogs are incredibly poorly written and it shows almost immediately. Podcasts generally are incredibly poorly produced and often have little to no content. Most of t

      • Re:Free podcasts? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fupeg ( 653970 )

        Blogging has had a very little effect on changing global media.

        Whoa, where have you been? Perhaps you were not around a year ago when it was blogs reacting to exit poll data that were first claiming that Kerry was going to dethrone Bush. News outlets turned around and reported much the same thing, but only after the blogs focussed attention on it. Mainstream media didn't want such hasty conclusions, not because they were wrong, but because they wanted people to stay tuned all night long.

        Even more recent

        • "Whoa, where have you been? Perhaps you were not around a year ago when it was blogs reacting to exit poll data that were first claiming that Kerry was going to dethrone Bush. News outlets turned around and reported much the same thing, but only after the blogs focussed attention on it. Mainstream media didn't want such hasty conclusions, not because they were wrong, but because they wanted people to stay tuned all night long."

          Most of the blogs were wrong so I hardly see how it paid off in the end. News
  • Yahoo! just seems to be agregating shows that already exist. They do not have whole NPR shows, just the crappy podcasts [npr.org] that are already available from the NPR site.

    I'm still pissed that NPR abandonded Audible.com [audible.com] with no backup plan. I mean, what the hell? Who had the brilliant idea?

    "I know, let's turn of this service that is generating a revenue stream and replace it with ... ground seashells and sand! I wonder if anyone will notice."

    Feh.

    • Re:No NPR shows, just the crappy podcasts (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There's some complete NPR shows. For example, On The Media, Living On Earth, Justice Talking, Latino USA, and Talk of the Nation Science Friday are all NPR shows avaliable in their entirety by podcast.

      There's also complete PRI (Public Radio International) shows like To The Point, Le Show, and Pacific Time also avaliable in their entirety by podcast.

      What you don't have is Morning Edition or All Things Considered avaliable by podcast. Instead, NPR takes stories from ME and ATC and puts them into different for
    • Here here!! I didn't like Audible.com. In fact I hated that company for many years. They had terrible customer service and surly workers. But at least they could deliver content (like All Things Considered) to a number of various devices. It really frustrates that me if I want to listen to National *Public* Radio, I have to use iTunes or an iPod. Why can't they just toss an MP3 up on the site and call it good? And an MP3 of the whole show too, music and everything. It's insanity.
      • So, to get at the reason behind this, you have to understand NPR's revenue model. If you think "*Public*" means government supported, you're almost certainly wrong - only 2% of total revenues [wikipedia.org] come from government grants, and a good portion of the rest comes from local member stations which pay the national arm for programming like Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

        So given that member stations rely on their listerners to pitch in to the basket so they can fund the national programming, how do yo

  • Rate shows? Karma? Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:51PM (#13758934) Homepage Journal
    Imagine if NPR shows could get rated [slashdot.org] and get karma like /.:

    Postitive: Interesting, Insightful, Informative, Underrated, Funny, and just for radio: timely
    Negative: Offtopic, Troll, Flamebait, Redundant, Overrated, and just for radio: yesterday's news

    What I want to know is: Do high-karma contributors start out at +2?

  • Yahoo! Music Podcasts? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ObligatoryUserName ( 126027 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @04:07PM (#13759030) Journal
    I've looked at the Yahoo! Music Engine (they emailed me about a job, but never got back to me) - and the one thing I don't understand is why they don't have special Yahoo! only Podcasts - YahooCasts or something -- something they aren't doing with this initiative. If you're sane you're asking "Why would they make Yahoo only podcasts?" - because their Music service is on a subscription model. People could make music show "podcast" (obviously in some sort of format specific to this service) with all the commercial music they want, and all the subscribers could listen to it without copyright concerns. It's something that might actually make their service appealing.

    I'm an iTunes/iPod user and shuffle always gets annoying, and I don't have the time to keep making new playlists (which don't duplicate the "surprise factor" of radio anyway). If there was a subscription service where I could listen to podcasts with Music on my portable device I would be quite interested. Of course, Yahoo! would still have to deal with the iPod lock-in - their service currently requires WMA music players, which I'm not likely to buy in the first place.
    • I just saw this article about Podsafe music, music that can be used in Podcasts, and thought I should add it to the thread.
      http://www.ipodarmy.com/2005/06/how-to-find-podsaf e-music/ [ipodarmy.com]

      Unfortunatly it doesn't look like much commercial music is Podsafe.
  • It's frustrating to be one of the few people on the planet who doesn't have an iPod AND wants to listen to All Things Considered in its entirety. Something that used to be available via Audible.com, but now is no longer available. Anyone know how to rip an NPR stream to MP3? I can do it from a member station MP3 stream, but then it comes out as a 128 kbs MP3 that is HUGE. I'd like to be able to downsample to 64 kbs.
    • I use this:

      # Small Script to download the previous day's StarDate episode.
      # Copyright 2005 Steven Patz
      #!/bin/bash
      DATE=`date -d "yesterday" +%Y%m%d`;
      NAME="sd$DATE.mp3";
      DIR="/home/sp"

      if test -e $DIR/$NAME;
      then printf "\n\nFile exists, nothing to do.\n\n";
      else
      wget http://stardate.org/audio/mp3s/$NAME -O $DIR/$NAME
      printf "\n\nDone!\n\n";
      #sleep 1;
      mplayer -vc dummy -vo null -ao pcm:file=$DIR/$DATE.wav $DIR/$NAME

      fi

  • This just in....

    Buoyed by their success with Yahoo Podcastg, Yahoo today announced a revolutionary system tha will allow internet users to "search" for "things" and eventually "find" them too.

    As part of that process, Yahoo also introduced a technique they are calling "hyperlinks" where users can "click" on a "search result" and actually see the result!

    Yahoo predicts "lots" of people will be using this system real soon!

    Innovation is everthing! Next they'll be offering up email and maybe even auctions

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