You can now use your itunes to aggregate the podcasts that interest you! You'll need to download the itunes update but after that it's simple to find and add podcasts of interest. Apple also has created a list of 100 popular podcasts (I wonder how much those people paid to part of the list) - regardless of how those podcasts found themselves on the list, I feel the list does provide a pretty lengthy library of shows I am actually listening to and interested in. To be honest, I don't know if I completely buy into this podcasting wave, but it does provide me something interesting to listen to while I commute to work. I expect podcasts will continue to grow in popularity and use over the next year, however, I imagine they'll reach a point, similar to other contemporary technologies where they find their niche and then settle in, where those who enjoy the tool use them, and that's about it. The only reason I mention this, is simply because podcasting, although somewhat innovative, doesn't provide us (the consumer) an all that useful tool. Really all podcasting offers is simply another way to get your news, and talkshow info. I am still waiting for that tool that is actually life changing - well, maybe not life changing, but at least beneficial to the expanse and augmentation of knowledge.
1 comment:
Geoff,
Does the iTunes that does podcasting only work on Tiger (do you have Tiger now?) I've wondered that, and it keeps me from going to download it. It'd be nice if it works well because IPodder keeps crashing on me still.
About your reflection that podcasting doesn't really do anything new for us ... you're right that's really just rebatching an old idea (audio). But it's how it rebatches it, that I think, is innovative. You even said it: it gives you something new to listen to on your way to work. What did you listen to before? Probably news or talk radio, or music, where maybe five or 10 minutes of an entire 30 minutes of listening was anything you cared about. With podcasting you can listen to what you care about all the time, and not waste time on other things.
BTW--I've caught a few really interesting ITConversations shows lately. I'll have to tell you about them when I get back.
What I think would REALLY make podcasting VERY useful is when they can start breaking up the audio and making it searchable. So you could search for "information literacy" and pull five minute clips from several podcasts about the topic and aggregate them into a single podcast feed that you listen to every day.
Wouldn't that be a cool way to stay up to date on your research topics!
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