Over in the comment sections of the Personal Democracy Forum podcasting page, etherson points out that MP3's posted to a website without an RSS feed are not really "podcasts." Podcasting could be better described as catching MP3's on your iPod by subscribing to a RSS syndication feed -- rather than casting MP3's out. The "casting" is really describing the RSS syndication aspect of the MP3 file, and the iPod is there just receiving the file -- you don't even have to have an iPod to receive or listen to podcasts.
As ZDnet's David Berlind says:
The incredibly ironic thing about the term podcasting is that the iPod pretty much stinks as a device that you’d "cast" your audio from. In no way does it come ready to record audio. For that, you need to add third party products to it and even after you do that at some reasonable cost, you’ll end up with limitations in the quality of audio you can record.
So even though there are lots of cool things you can do with an iPod, the fact that the iPod is associated with being able to easily record and "cast" out audio is a bit of a misnomer. It's a bit of a marketing coup for Apple that putting MP3's in RSS feeds is being widely described as "podcasting."
The podcasting revolution really has more to do with other technological innovation that has brought the barrier to entry for broadcasting audio completely down. Doc Searls told me in an intervew at PDF that people now how the power to produce their own culture, and that the centralized points of mass media-produced culture are going away.
That is all.
'Podcasting' is a really bad term.
Aside from all the problems you mention, the connotation that an iPod (a proprietary device I might add) is required in order to participate in this phenomenon is truly disturbing. Why this term was coined I will never understand, but it only adds to my dislike of the technology. I understand advantages of time-shifting audio content, but I don't really know if this is going to appeal to a larger audience. The last thing I want to do with my free time is listen to time shifted audio feeds. Hell, I know people who have hours of backlogged time-shifted television programming to constantly watch in order to keep their disks from filling up...It is lunacy.
Additionally, I would argue that no real barriers have been brought down with this technology yet. Accessibility is low since the costs associated with these audio feeds are non-trivial. A hard disk based audio device (such as the uber expensive fashion accessory the iPod) and a computer are required for an audience member to have in order to catch the files.
What I like about text based on-line publishing is that I decide what, when, where, and how I take in the information, with audio that is not possible due to the linear streaming nature, and proprietary audio codecs.
I like over the air public radio, but I would like to see more people pushing for more public access to the radio section of the electromagnetic spectrum, only then will anyone really have freedom.
Branding of Common Items
Optimistic about future of online audio
I had my doubts at first as well, but I have a lot more optimism for what this type of personal publishing could mean for developing micro communities around similar interests.
It may be a micro-community of 15 people, but these types of microcommunities will form that transcend the limits of space and time.
The last thing I want to do with my free time is listen to time shifted audio feeds.
I'm assuming that you haven't listened to any RSS-enabled MP3's yet.
Or if you have, then you haven't found any worthwhile yet.
I've discovered that I can virtually attend conferences & lectures by visiting IT Conversations.
I've also found that one individual ranting about something is not as interesting as two people engaged in a deep dialogue.
Sound is also able to convey the emotion of voice much better than writing, and I do think it's going to be a lot more popular once more people are doing it. I think that people will start to develop emotional connections and attachments virtually online.
There are potential tech solutions for being able to "decide what, when, where, and how I take in" audio information as well -- there is a desire for this and I think it'll come. Software to automatically transcribe audio to text I think is one missing link.
As a filmmaker, I'll also be able to share the audio of my interviews so that people can listen to them and provide feedback for editing my projects. I hope to do this through tags and Drupal -- But the fact that I'm now able to interview an expert in something and share it with the world at a very little cost is going to have big implications down the road.
It will be interesting to watch evolve.
The only radio station I currently really listen to, [WNYC public Radio](http://wnyc.org) has [jumped on the podcasting bandwagon](http://www.wnyc.org/about/podcasting.html). They have a feed for [The Brian Lehrer Show](http://www.wnyc.org/rss/show.py?show=bl), which is a nice since I can't always listen to at 10am.
My real gripe, and the reason for my pessimism, is that all of this technology that purports to be liberating us, is not so Free [(as in Freedom)](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html) in some very real ways. MP3, as I [mentioned to WNYC a long time ago in an email](/node/205) is not really a Free technology, it is patent-encumbered, for both encoding and decoding, and these patents are being actively enforced. It is my opinion that these types of technology should not be used by a entity like NPR when truly Free alternatives exist, like [Ogg Vorbis](http://www.vorbis.com/).
For instance, for my girlfriend to listen to an MP3 podcast on her Dell laptop running [Ubuntu](http://www.ubuntulinux.org/), she would have to add the [copyright restricted software repositories](http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RestrictedFormats) to her machine. This repository also includes AAC, Flash, and Java, among other proprietary formats. She is a WNYC member in good standing, but in order to access the stations programming online, she is required to accept the terms and conditions of third party software vendors.
So yes, Podcasting is very real and is on the march. While I do recognize the potential for it to help reach more people, I also see that its popularity is not such a great thing for people like me seeking to use strictly non-proprietary software.