The past day or so I’ve been quite consumed with a very new technology that is the "New Hot Thing" on the Internet: podcasting. This is very cool technology and will, at least for a while, be quite the rage and then will settle down to being a "Good Thing".

So, just what is podcasting? It’s kind of like amateur radio broadcasting made initially possible by the Apple iPod. The capability is very new — perhaps about a month old. It works kind of like this:

1. Download software from ipodder.sourceforge.net and install it on your PC.

2. Subscribe to the audio feeds that you are interested in. One such list of audio feeds is found at radio.weblogs.com. Another list can be found at www.ipodder.org/directory/4/podcasts. These audio feeds come from a variety of sources, all amateur and all at no cost. It is quite possible that pay-for audio feeds will be available in the near future.

3. Set the ipodder software to regularly look for new audio feeds.

4. Sync your iPod with iTunes — and the subscribed audio feeds will be downloaded to the iPod.

5. Listen to the audio feeds at your leisure!

I’ve found several feeds that I’m interested in. A couple are related to computer technology. One is from Tokyo, Japan and another is from Helsinki, Finland. The American living and working in Tokyo puts out a new audio feed every few days and talks about life and things in Japan. A recent installment provided much more detail about the recent devastating earthquakes in northwest Japan. The feed from Helsinki is from a native Fin who speaks pretty good English and talks about life and things in Finland. Both have been interesting so far.

So what makes this all possible? Downloadable audio files on various web sites is not new. I’ve fussed with it a bit but haven’t been very happy with the results (it turns out I didn’t have the right software or technology). The real problem was finding these bits of audio and then getting them to some device where I can listen to the audio. A few weeks ago Adam Curry (some may recall him from the early days of MTv. Adam has been around radio and rock and roll music for many, many years) came up with a whiz-bang idea: put together a directory of pointers to the audio files along with a piece of software that would periodically check requested locations for new content, download that content to iTunes which would then make the content available on an iPod. The ipodder program is an aggregator — a facilitator to get the requested content to the player device. It works very well and it’s been quite fun listening to this stuff rather than the drivel that passes for music on FM radio on my way to and from work. There isn’t a classical music station here in Pocatello. The closest we come is a public radio station in Idaho Falls, which is broadcasting Morning Edition on my way to work and All Things Considered on the way home, neither of which have any interest for me. During the times when I’m not really able to listen to the radio, it broadcasts classical music. Not very useful at all!

But, now with podcasting, I can choose much more interesting things to listen to. When I left my previous job in Colorado Springs, I was gifted with an Apple mini-iPod. It’s a nice device and stores quite a lot of music. I’ve generally used it on airplane trips in the past. It has now become much more useful. However, if you don’t have an iPod, don’t dispair! There are also aggregator programs that will download content that can be played on Windows Media Player, either on a PC or on a WindowsPC device, such as a Compaq iPaq. The ipodder.org webside has some information on how to do that under the documentation links. However, because this is such a new phenomena, there isn’t a lot of good documentation available, yet.

I think this has some real business potential as well. I can easily see companies (like the one I work for), putting podcasts about products, or earnings releases, or other product and financial information on their corporate website and making that content available through an aggregator like ipodder.org. This would be a true publish and subscribe business. I like it a lot!

So, what does it take to become a podcaster? I’m not totally sure, but I’m going to figure it out. There are a couple of choices on how to get the audio content. Several MP3 players, such as the devices from iRiver, have the ability to record from a microphone and store the resulting audio as an MP3 file on the device. When the device is connected to the computer through a USB cable, the recorded sound file can be moved to the PC for mixing and editing. There is a great mixing and editing program called Audacity (free!), which can be found at audacity.sourceforge.net. This program can also take a microphone feed as well. The program is then used to edit and mix the desired output which is saved as an MP3 file. Then through a web form, the link to the new content is inserted into ipodder.org. Now this is how it is supposed to work. Over the next week or so I’ll get it figured out and working.

Then comes the big question: What to do with the capability? I don’t really know, yet. It may well be a solution looking for a problem! On the other hand, I can see it being a great way to store and distribute oral family history interviews and stories. I’m interested in suggestions.