Twelve Black Code Monkeys

I haven’t devoted a whole entry to podcasting yet, only referring to it here and there, so I thought I’d do something a little more detailed. For many this will be old news. Podcasting has gotten a lot of mainstream media attention lately even though it’s only been in existence for 6 months, perhaps a bit less. For those who are tech and internet-savvy, if you’re not listening to podcasts yet, then you have probably known about it for a while now.

What is podcasting? Basically, it is a method for downloading various audio files to your computer in an automated way. More specifically, it is kind of a combination of internet radio and blogging. Adam Curry, former MTV VJ and creator of MTV.com before corporate entities like MTV had a clue about the web, created podcasting with the help of some programmers.

To get more detailed, we have to explain a bit about blogs and RSS. Part of the success of blogs in my and many others opinion has a lot to do with a technology that is intimately related to blogging called RSS or Real Simple Syndication. Blogging services and software create RSS files that include the actual content from your blog as well as meta data like when it was written, what category it fits into and so forth. News aggregators check this file either on a scheduled basis or by the blogger “pushing” it to the aggregator. Users employ applications (news readers) which can subscribe to “feeds” via the aggregators. Feeds are basically these RSS files that contain the content from X number of posts by the blogger. Because of the meta data and the intelligence of the news reader software, one can keep up to date, delete old posts, or keep certain posts for future reference, much like you could clip articles or hold onto specific issues of a favorite magazine.

So far, all of this stuff is relating to written text. What Curry wanted to do is to extend this to audio recordings since he had been doing his own internet radio show for a while. And in fact there was no reason that this couldn’t work because RSS has the ability to include file attachments. But news readers didn’t have the ability to really keep track of these recordings, download them, etc. So Curry built iPodder, the first such program. This allowed users to subscribe to specific feeds that contained audio content, and to have these downloaded to a specific directory so that they could be easily listened to on the computer or transferred to a portable device.

As I’m sure you know, the Apple iPod is the most popular digital music (mp3-player) device out there, and so the term “podcast” stuck, however, you can get podcasting applications that work with Windows Media Player and many other MP3 players and even smartphones like the Treo 650.

In addition to iPodder, the main application that I use these days, both because it seems to be well-built, but also because it seems to have the fastest development cycles which result in the most features, is Doppler Radio. The most recent release, version 2.0, has a couple of new features which seem particularly useful for me as an iPod user. One is additional management of podcasts on your iPod. Previously you would have to manually go through and delete old podcasts, but now you can specify a method by which Doppler will decided to remove older ones. The other nice feature added is that Doppler can now convert any audio file, be in an MP3, a WMA, or something else, into Apple’s proprietary m4b file type that allows for “bookmarking.” Normally MP3’s don’t have any bookmarking capability because they were originally meant primarily for music, which is usually only 2-10 minutes long, and which you don’t have to hold in place - you just replay a song if you want. But with spoken word audio (and especially lengthier ones of thirty minutes or even more), you want to be able to keep your place as in a book. The other great thing about m4b for those with the latest iPod models (4th generation or “4G”), is that you can play the files at variable speeds - normal, sped up 20% or slowed 20%. This is particularly useful in order to get through what has become an onslaught of content at at least a slightly faster speed. While these sped-up versions have a few more audio “artifacts,” their pitch doesn’t change as in the old chipmunk voices I could make by changing the recording and playing speeds on those old micro-cassette recorders from back when I was a kid…

The other thing to note, though is that Doppler currently is Win-PC-only, no Mac or Linux versions. It also requires .Net framework to work, which might be incompatible with older versions of Windows.

As I mentioned, there is a growing list of podcasts out there, and these will continue to grow, like blogs. There are millions of blogs out there, and like blogs, it may take a while to figure out which podcasts are your favorites. But because podcasts are a little less immediate then blogs, it may take a little longer. It’s not just a matter of clicking on a link and scanning a couple of posts. Instead, one has to subscribe, download, and then listen to a podcast for at least a few minutes, but probably a lot longer, to figure out whether one is of interest. Because of this, I’ve only been listening to a few select ones so far, but I continue to look for new ones. The few that I listen to are:

Engadget (link to podcast) - I read Engadget’s tech blog religiously, and this is a nice extension of that. However, it is not an audio version of the blog by any means. Rather it is more of a rap (rant?) session by Engadget’s Phillip Torrone often with guest podcaster Lenn Pryor of Microsoft. Whereas the Engadget blog is somewhat matter-of-fact, the podcast is anything but - it is much angrier and “activist” then most of what you see by those at Egadget in written form.

The Dawn and Drew Show (link to podcast) - I’m not really sure what this show is about. It’s not really about anything per se, but just more like listening in on a conversation, one that is just plain goofy sometimes. Dawn Miselli and Drew Domkus are a married couple living in rural Wisconsin and just talk about whatever most of the time. Dawn has this magnetic quality to her voice that just keeps you riveted and in stitches most of the time, but damned if I know why. She continually talks about World Domination, and perhaps her voice is her secret weapon for those plans. Dawn and Drew are one of my few “guilty pleasures” in that I know I’m not getting anything practical out of the show, but I suppose maybe laughter being healthy can be spun to be practical, right?

Morning Stories (link to podcast) - Tony Kahn hosts this NPR show that’s produced at the Boston NPR Afflilate WGBHa show on stories that are produced in a similar way to NPR shows - with care for detail, professionally edited and produced. Consider them a kind of NPR light for podcasting.

Leo Laporte (link to podcast) - Leo Laporte used to be one of the main hosts on TechTV (and ZDTV before that), which was a cable channel that eventually got bought out by a rival computer gaming network which subsequently killed most of its content. He now hosts a local show in Califonia called The Tech Guy where he talks about current news in computers and helps mostly less experienced users get better acquainted with the latest technologies and issues. But Leo’s demeanor is so friendly and informative, that he’s always fun to listen to, and even those of us who consider ourselves tech-savvy can get some useful information out of the show.

Finally, one of the features that might be new in version 2.0 of Doppler Radio (but maybe I just didn’t notice it in my earlier version?) is the ability to search for a podcast. I believe it not only searches the title field, but the description as well. As a lark, I decided to type in ‘NPR’ and I came up with a podcast titled “All Things Considered.” Doing a bit more research, it seems like NPR is experimenting a bit with this new media form. Not only is All Things Considered (link to podcast) being made available, but so is American Public Media’s Future Tense (link to podcast) and New York Public Radio’s (WNYC’s) On the Media (link to podcast)!

I’m glad that NPR is making their content available in this way, but I wonder where it’s going. Up until now, the only way to get NPR content as an archiveable file was to either record it yourself, or to order a recording either from NPR itself or through Audible.com. When I first got XM Satellite Radio, I asked them why they didn’t have any NPR and they said NPR didn’t want to provide its content outside of affiliate stations because these stations would then not have a commodity that they could then fairly request donations for. They do have a point. If you are paying for satellite radio on a monthly basis and getting your NPR fix through it, why would you donate to keep a local affiliate alive? In essence you are paying NPR directly instead of the affiliate. In the same way, if you are retrieving your NPR shows off the internet in order to listen to them whenever you want and wherever you want (via your portable device), then why would you pay your local affiliate? Again, you are paying NPR directly. I don’t know a lot about how the whole affiliate structure works for NPR, but I wonder if all these new media formats including internet radio, satellite radio, and podcasting will eventually spell the death of radio as we know it, including NPR? Most affiliate stations, I think, still produce some of their own content. For example here in the DC area, WAMU produces the nationally syndicated Diane Rehm Show. So I wonder if they can somehow get compensation from NPR for producing conent? What really seems strange to me is that these affiliates have to purchase shows from NPR proper, and yet as more people become more tech-savvy and as average internet speeds and access continues to grow, more and more of their listenership can simply avoid them entirely and go right to NPR. The other really odd thing surrounding all of this is that NPR is publicly funded. Does this mean that it is legally obligated to provide its programming to anyone who wants it for free? If not, is it ethically obligated? I don’t know the answer, but as someone who listens to it, donates to local affiliates, I sometimes wonder about how the mix of public funding, member funding, and large donations by corporations and philanthropists collide and create competing interests. As a fan, I want to see NPR continue. I’m a little less sure about individual affiliate stations, except that I do enjoy the content that was created at these various affiliates. I wonder then, whether NPR should just centralize all the funding stuff and not require it’s affiliates to pay for content. Instead, affiliates could use the money donated to them only on their own home-grown content which could then be offered to other stations in trade deals or for free. Of course I’m talking out of my ass here, but it just seems unlikely that the current structure will make sense in a few years - if it even does now.

At just around 6 months podcasting in general has quite a way to go to become a “mature” media format, but its fast rise in a relatively short period has obviously made some big waves in traditional media. Perhaps print and broadcasting taking the blogging phenomenon for granted for so long and because of it suffering the consequences have motivated a much fast reaction and even adoption of podcasting by these same dinosaurs in an effort to avoid extinction. Traditional media is far from extinct, of course, but there’s a big danger. Even now podcasters are beginning to get small sponsorship deals akin to NPR. They are not commercials in the modern sense, but just paid little blurbs describing a product or site. As convenient as Doppler has become, it can’t get around the problem of the source material. What I mean is that I’ve had the problem that with a bunch of podcasts, only the last episode or the last few are referenced and thus retrievable by the application. Obviously one could easily become overrun with archived podcasts, but it seems like a good option to give people who might want to and have the time to “catch up.” Even now there are some who are not just using audio but actually doing video podcasting. I haven’t tried any of these out partially because my portable device being an iPod, I can’t view video on it. And of course video is much more costly in terms of storage space and bandwidth than audio. Eventually, though, we may see the Internet providing a place for ordinary people to create their own equivalent to TV programming just as podcasting has become an alternative to radio. The broadcasts are in enough trouble as it is, and young people today are apparently turning away from the TV more and more and opting for spending at least some of this time online. I’m hopeful that what blogging has done to smash the traditional media’s hold on what information we receive will be mirrored in a similar way by audio and eventually video podcasting. Such democratization of media can only be a good thing. Traditional journalism has its strengths in professionalism, editing, and financial resources, but many of these are double-edged swords. I don’t think we will see less “professionalism” in these new forms of media. After all, many blogs out there produce such reliable, professional, and thought-provoking material, that they make most of what “professional” media produce look like a joke! Yes many podcasts are generally not quite as streamlined, but this will come with time, especially as former pro journalists become podcasters themselves, and as journalists to be start considering podcasting as a viable career path in addition to traditional journalism.