Sunday, February 20, 2005
Selling the Ipod Image: Podcasting
New York Times finally covers the advent of audio blogs, better known as podcasts.
Podcasts are recordings, easily made with a microphone and a computer (or sometimes just a phone), and thanks to a technology barely six months old, can be downloaded to an iPod or any MP3 player to be played at the listener's leisure.
Having been involved with radio for over 5 years, I am excited to see how podcasts are already forcing program directors to think differently about radio. Only the legal hassle of using music remains.
While I hope ZS can use audio posts in the future, I also wish the whole phenomenon wasn't termed Podcast. To me, the term does not sound particularly pleasant and more importantly, gives the IPod more, and unfair, exposure. 'Podcasting' might just turn out to be as big a phenomenon as blogs and while it might be too late to change the use of the term, it might not be a bad idea to look for alternatives - anyone?
Podcasts are recordings, easily made with a microphone and a computer (or sometimes just a phone), and thanks to a technology barely six months old, can be downloaded to an iPod or any MP3 player to be played at the listener's leisure.
Having been involved with radio for over 5 years, I am excited to see how podcasts are already forcing program directors to think differently about radio. Only the legal hassle of using music remains.
While I hope ZS can use audio posts in the future, I also wish the whole phenomenon wasn't termed Podcast. To me, the term does not sound particularly pleasant and more importantly, gives the IPod more, and unfair, exposure. 'Podcasting' might just turn out to be as big a phenomenon as blogs and while it might be too late to change the use of the term, it might not be a bad idea to look for alternatives - anyone?
