Oceanside, Nevada

Lots to blog tonight and not much time, so we’re gonna move quickly. First up, Apple has officially added support for podcasts from within iTunes. There’s a new sidebar item where you can track your subscribed podcasts and download them into iTunes and your iPod. There’s also an entire section of the iTMS devoted to podcasts, a directory if you will.

Overall the presentation is slick and I think this will open up podcasting to lots of folks who haven’t yet had a chance to experience this new media. The fact that you don’t need to fiddle with a podcatching client or an RSS reader by itself will be a significant obstacle removed.

I do have some concerns, however. My own podcast, the on-temporary-permanent-hiatus Service Industry Night is already listed (hooray, me! Okay, Freak helped) but it doesn’t point to the feedburner feed. It works, but not as I intended. When I tried to publish the feedburner feed to the iTMS, I got a message that “This feed has already been submitted.” Oh really? Because it weren’t me that submitted it. I’m guessing that Apple worked a deal with iPodder.org to use their directory as a starting point, though I have nothing to confirm this.

Next concern: no automatic way to convert podcasts to bookmarkable AAC. For shame, Apple! Though I did run across a brief note that suggested that some sort of bookmarking for podcasts may have been added to the iPod in the latest iPod Update. I have not yet played with my iPod to confirm this, however.

Last concern: I can find no way to easily communicate with Apple about problems with a podcast that don’t fit the limited list of concerns Apple figures you might have. None of them fit my problem. Would it have been too much to add a menu item that says “Other…”?

If you use iTunes, you officially have no excuse now to not check out the exploding world of podcasting. Go do it now. That’s an order.

Technorati Tags: geek, Internet, iPod, Mac, personal, podcast, podcasting, technology

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