Oh. My. God.
OMG ❗

Podcasts. I’ve been technically aware of them since they started mid last year, and impressed by the seemingly obvious extension of RSS and the subscription/syndication distribution model. Of course I say seemingly obvious, because everything is obvious in hindsight. Like the cat-flap. 😉

I won’t innundate you with links on podcasting other than these two:
* iPodder application to automate the download of casts and insertion into your media player.
* iPodder web directory of a gazillion casts on just about any topic you like.

Since grabbing iPodder late on Friday night, I have subscribed to 18 feeds, listened to over 6 hours of various casts and have a few more to go… 😀

I am actually surprised by the quality and quantity of Australian content out there already. In particular, I’m very happy to see the ABC getting into it. They offer three main areas at present (Radio National, dig Studio Sessions, triplej), and I can only hope they offer more soon.

I have been undecided on the merits of an MP3 player but I believe I have found my killer app for one. The lure of listening to just music was not enough for me. Listening to music I choose, quality podcasts from established broadcasters/radio journalists/etc, crappy (but improving) podcasts from complete nobodys, all the other casts that fit in between, and regular FM radio – that makes it worthwhile. Given that I spend anywhere from 1 – 4 hours a day commuting on public transport, this is something I can really see myself using now.

And no, I’m not going to do a podcast 😐 As revealed by my total invisibility in the blogosphere, I just don’t have enough interesting things to say. 🙂

Update: Apple has released iTunes 4.9 with integrated Podcast support. It’s not too bad, but I find iPodder’s integration to be more functional and usable (e.g. An iTunes podcast does not appear in your library and cannot be filtered with “smart” playlists. My favourite playlist so far is a very quick custom one – “Genre = Podcast && Play Count = 0”, better known as unplayed podcasts.) And if you’ve got no reason to actually use iTunes, iPodder integrates just fine with Windows Media Player. And iPodder can import/export/sync your subscription lists. And it’s free, open-source goodness. 😀

Another Update: Oh, and when using iTunes podcasts you can’t burn them to a CD for non-iPod listening. Which of course you CAN do with iPodder 😉