If you have been paying even a little bit of attention to the blogging space lately, you might have heard about podcasting. Essentially, this is a mechanism that allows you to subscribe to an RSS feed that supports enclosures – audio files embedded as links that your aggregator can automagically download. Basically the main way to do this now is via Adam Curry’s iPodder.
I guess what we are doing with BlogosphereRadio.com is podcasting. We create audio shows, and publish via our RSS 2.0 feed so that people can download them. And while I like the idea, I think it suffers from one major problem – time. (I also don’t like that it is called podcasting and thus seems limited to iPods when it really isn’t)
With simple RSS feeds, your aggregator can display thousands in a manner that allows you to scan very easily and efficiently. The problem with audio and podcasting right now, is that there is no mechanism to scan. Either you listen to an entire show, or you don’t. And because of that, you are greatly limited in the number of shows you can listen to. I listened to the newest Trade Secrets and Evil Genius Chronicles on the bus this morning, but I didn’t have time to listen to anything else. In that same amount of time, I could have browsed through almost all of the feeds I subscribe to in NewsGator and read the ones that really caught my attention.
Don’t get me wrong, I think podcasting has a ton of potential, and I am happy to be providing some good content right at the beginning of this phenomenon. Yet at the same time, I think there are definitely some larger obstacles to overcome than what blogging faced.
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