I have been checking out the various independent news and talk shows that are available to be downloaded onto an mp3 player. I am just curious if anyone else has checked this out at all? Have you found anything good that you recomend? Seems like a cool concept. If you are not familiar with this, here is an article written last year about this that explains it a bit. However, as this artice is maybe 8 months old, I think the tech and content has likely come a lot farther. You can check out this website....
IPodder.org
Seems like it has a lot of potential to be pretty interesting. Omi?? You must be all over this. What's your take?
Ipodder good fodder for MP3 heads
Adam Curry strikes again
LEAVE IT to ex-MTV VJ and techno-prophet Adam Curry to come up with what might be The Next Big Thing for Apple's iPod. Mr. Curry has done some quick and dirty hacking in AppleScript to create an application to automatically download new MP3 files from any of five different RSS feeds and copy them to playlists in the Mac iTunes application based upon the channel name. Connect an iPod, and the songs/files load onto the device automatically.
This is a creative synthesis of three different technology pieces. MP3, the oldest piece, can be used to record just about any audio source, from music files to radio programs and other audio content. RSS, a "lightweight XML format," has been kicking around for a while as a way to syndicate/distribute headlines and other web content (i.e. like MP3s) between sites, as well as between web sites and end-users. Finally, the iPod is the hip little device that Apple is selling like mad.
Basically, people now have a new way to get things to listen to on their iPods, and more importantly have those things automatically delivered to their desktop computers on a regular basis through RSS. To date, when people want to get new songs or other audio files for their iPod, they have to go hunting for them. The iPodder program allows you regular subscriptions to favorite programming. For example, Mr. Curry is distributing "The Source Code," his daily 15 to 25 minute pontifications on desktop technology in MP3 format via RSS. Anyone with a favorite "voice" or radio show distributed on a regular basis that is packed into MP3 and distributed into RSS can now get those "shows" loaded.
Curry is rallying iPod fans around the globe to get more functionality into the application and is highlighting other applications. Several people have adapted Curry's concept on the Mac iTunes/iPod combo to Windows XP, including Dave Slusher and Pieter Overbeek. Pieter's version can be found here. Now if only I could wangle an invite to CurryCastle.
As usual, Curry's iPodder is about three to five years ahead of the rest of the world. Many people would love to have a way to "time shift" their favourite radio show – record it and then download it onto a portable device to listen to while on the tube, in the car, or on the treadmill. There are some solutions for audio "record and store," but they haven't successfully made it to the shelves like TiVo and ReplayTV. RSS syndication makes daily delivery of audio possible and iPodder automatically puts the audio directly onto an iPod without manual intervention. No fuss, no muss, just plug it in and it works.
However, the broadcast industry barely has its brain around streaming media. MP3 distribution of popular radio shows is something that they just don't want to deal with unless they can see a clear profit out of the whole scheme from day one. It's too bad, because I'd love to listen to a couple of shows more often, but I don't have the time. The iPodder would give me the time through technology. µ
Threaded Mode