I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject of podcasting lately. I started listening to a few over the holidays, and since then I’ve found the subject consuming a lot of my mental down time. Time to braindump some of it here, I think.

What is podcasting?

Podcasting as a concept is probably a couple of years old, but it’s really only in the last few months that it’s starting to take off. The idea is pretty simple:- you record some audio, post it to a server and then publish an RSS feed notifying the world that your audio is there. RSS has an enclosure element which can be used to give the URL to the audio.

On the client side, the audience can either subscribe to the feed in a regular aggregator (new betas of NetNewsWire now include support for enclosures) or in a special audio-orientated aggregator like iPodder or iPodderX, which will automatically download the file and add it to your iTunes library, ready to sync up with your iPod or whatever. You can then listen to what you’ve downloaded on your daily commute or whatever. That’s pretty much the concept.

So what’s the audio?

This is where it gets interesting. If you draw a comparison to weblogs for a moment and ask “what does someone write on their weblog”, the answer is pretty much the same:- whatever they like.

Most podcasts that I’ve listened to take on a talk-radio kind of feel, except without all the crap you get from polished commercial radio. Subject matters range from technical discussion (the excellent IT Conversations has a lot of great material) to religion, poetry, comedy, film and podcasting itself. There’s a lot content that’s also pretty much what you’d read in someone’s personal blog, but presented personally by the author. The quality of presentation varies too, in much the same way as it does with a blog.

Apart from the aforementioned IT Conversations, I’ve been listening to The Daily Source Code which appears to be the day to day life of former MTV presenter Adam Curry serialised into something akin to a soap opera (nothing at all to do with source code, but still a great listen). Dave Winer, along with Curry, has been one of the key figures in pushing podcasting, and his Morning Coffee Notes give a useful insight into Dave’s complex character.

I think the best of the bunch has to be the Dawn and Drew show which is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You want to look away but you can’t – they’re magnificent (but not workplace safe). However, not having ever really known anyone else called Drew, I found it took a couple of shows before I stopped reacting to my name coming through the earbuds. I can hardly blame them for that, although I can blame them for knocking me down a spot in Google. :)

Video killed the radio star

It’s true that video killed the radio star. There’s one part of that song that I now strongly disagree with though, and it’s this. We’ve not gone too far, we can rewind.

Just as weblogging brought the written word alive again for the MTV generation, I believe podcasting can and is doing the same for a lot of the values of traditional radio. I’m too young to remember when radio was good, when it was used for more than selling bad music and associated products. When it was used to entertain, to educate and to inform. What I do remember is that a hell of a lot of what we now consider great talent originated from radio shows of the past. I also remember the few radio shows I listened to as a child (usually recorded on cassette tape) along with the mental imagery I cooked up to accompany what I was hearing. Of course, my own images were far superior to anything I was watching on TV.

With the very limited exposure I’ve had to podcasting over the last few weeks, I can begin to see glimpses of all the magical qualities of radio, of proper radio. And that’s great.

So I’m thinking about doing a podcast

I can’t help thinking about podcasting without wanting to participate. Part of it is that I’m an old audio hack and I have a mixer and a bunch of outboard gear sat here in a rack crying out to be put to use. Part of it is that I’m enjoying what’s going on and I see it as a great way of expressing a creativity that’s just not possible with the written word. Whether I’d be any good at it remains to be seen – perhaps it’s something I’ll just have to try it out to see.