“I heard the bells ring. I watched as the clouds circled the church steeple. The lone gray pigeon, perched on the keystone, seemed to search for its mate–in vain. It gave up after a few rounds of the church. The crisp April air washed my face and I was hit with the full enormity of the event as the words from the pastor’s mouth came out crisply, ‘The pope has died.’ This had been a moment in history, and I felt that I was a part of it,” Kartik Subramanian writes for The Chicago Tribune.

“This surreal moment was rudely interrupted by the roar of a garbage truck belonging to the City of Chicago. Chicago? Yes, indeed. Chicago, not Rome. I was standing in front of Holy Name Cathedral at State and Superior Streets listening to a ‘podcast’ from the CatholicInsider on my iPod. Rome and the Vatican were 3,000 miles away–yet this small, white, diminutive device had transported me to the Sistine Chapel. I had felt for a fleeting moment that I was part of the huge congregation of people who had assembled for days on end to pay homage to their spiritual leader. All thanks to the marvel of technology,” Subramanian writes.

“Audio blogs worldwide can be downloaded onto the iPod by harnessing the power of the Internet. These transmissions, which are referred to as podcasts by the geek community, cover a very diverse range of topics. From the CatholicInsider broadcasts by Rev. Roderick Vonhogen, detailing the melancholy mood at the Vatican, to the venom-spewing Al Franken on Air America Radio, podcasts are the next big application for the iPod,” Subramanian writes. “The iPod does not know any barriers–it is universally known and accepted. The iPod represents the next great step in technology for consumers, after the Internet and the cellular phone. As I mull the future of iPods, the opening bars of ‘My Sharona’ start streaming into my ears. A wry smile creeps across my face as I realize that President Bush and I have at least one song in common on our iPods!”

Full article here.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Podcasting grows to 6 million listeners – April 04, 2005
PlayPod 1.0b RSS podcast client released – March 03, 2005
BBC tests Podcast feed – November 22, 2004
‘Podcasting’ brings personalized audio programs to your iPod – September 30, 2004