Podcasting...

So I'm listening to "the father of podcasting" Adam Curry's podcast called Daily Source Code. I hate to admit it, but I'm impressed.

Yes, this is the same Adam Curry from MTV who hosted Headbanger's Ball for several years. He's gotten a little older and his hair has gotten a lot less poofy, but he's started a revolution, literally.

Basically, what he does is produce a radio show from his home with his computer and he saves this show in the beloved MP3 format and uploads it to his website for everyone to download and listen to. The particular show that I'm presently listening to is from last week and he just said that his podcast is downloaded over 100,000 times per day.

I'm sure that most podcasts don't offer nearly the high production value that Curry's Daily Source Code does, but Curry has a radio background if I'm not mistaken. Curry's podcast is basically like any other talk show in that he talks about whatever he wants to talk about. Until things change he talks mostly about his podcast and other podcasts since everyone bows to him when it comes to podcasting. He has also parlayed this into a deal with Sirius Satellite radio as well. I can say I would listen on XM if he would join up, but I doubt it will happen since Sirius has their grubby mitts on him, but then again I can still download it.

This is something that intrigues me. Curry sits up in his cottage in the UK or somewhere in Europe and makes a solid show using only his computer. He refers to it as a studio and I'm sure that it is, but I have a mic that costs 5 bucks and a Mac mini and I could be set up to record in about 5 minutes and it wouldn't sound bad.

Piccu and I have a bit of a background in radio which makes this even more interesting to us and the radio station we work/worked for is only 3,000 watts. It mainly broadcasts the local high school sporting events, but it's a blast to do. It's fun to try and act like you are getting paid well even though $25 per game is all you are getting for sometimes 3 hours of work.

Pretty soon advertisers will be jumping on the podcasting ship even though no one can guarantee that people will listen. I've had the show I'm listening to downloaded for a week and just decided to check it out today. And if advertisers did put a commercial on the broadcast, iTunes has a skip button that will jump ahead 5 or 10 seconds at a time. So even then there is no guarantee that a commercial will be heard even if the person actually listens to the podcast.

What will they think of next. I thought that Live365.com was cool, but this is even better in that you don't have to keep broadcasting. Live365.com was a website that offered free software for you to broadcast your own internet radio station. The problem with it was that you had to either broadcast something continuously or specifically tell folks when you were going to actually broadcast.

With podcasting you can simply record the show at any point during the day or in advance and people can just check your website or blog and download it when it comes available. Too cool.

Merlin, I'll bet you didn't count on Piccu and I to write this much. You are going to have to catch up after you are finished traveling the country.