“One of my first illicit thrills was staying up past bedtime and tuning the AM radio to a station broadcasting only at night from hundreds of miles away across the Mexican frontier, one that played daring music—unsanitized rock & roll and rhythm and blues—that was never heard on my local stations. Midnight border radio had dangerous and exotic deejays, like Wolfman Jack, while my local station had a clean-cut guy named Sandy who played Top 20 hits straight from the Battle of the Blands,” Peter Lewis writes for Fortune.
“Now, decades later, border radio is back, only this time without borders. And thanks to digital recording technology, you don’t have to stay up past midnight to listen to it. It’s called podcasting—the word is mashed together from Apple’s “iPod” digital music player and “broadcasting”—and it is simultaneously a rebellion against the blandness of commercial radio, a demonstration of time shifting for radio, just as TiVo allows time shifting for television, and a celebration of the Internet’s power to let individuals offer their own voices to a global audience,” Lewis writes.
“Podcasting, which is basically blogging with the added dimension of audio, is the next logical progression in grass-roots media, just as radio emerged from print, and television emerged from radio. There are an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 regular podcasters today, publishing audio programs on the Internet for fun and perhaps someday for fame and profit,” Lewis writes. “Now, 7,000 podcasters may seem insignificant compared with the millions of bloggers out there, but looked at another way, there are twice as many podcasters today as there are commercial radio stations in the U.S… [and] finding and listening to podcasts just got a lot easier with the release of Apple’s iTunes 4.9, a free download from apple.com.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft employees squeamish about ‘podcast’ term, try using ‘blogcast’ instead – July 11, 2005
The Economist: Apple’s embrace of podcasting ‘could have significant consequences’ – July 08, 2005
Research group: U.S. podcast audience will grow to 56 million by 2010 – July 06, 2005
Apple iTunes 4.9 dramatically increases KCRW podcast downloads – July 02, 2005
Apple iTunes leaves Microsoft Media Player in the dust – July 01, 2005
Apple iTunes podcast subscriptions top one million in first two days – June 30, 2005
Analyst: iTunes 4.9 helps Apple by bringing podcasting to the masses – June 28, 2005
Apple releases iTunes 4.9 for Mac and Windows with podcasting features – June 28, 2005
Podcasting is cool. Although, there are only have been like 2 podcasts that I like to listen to. The potential is definitely there.
Oh, and when are we going to change the name of the term to blogcasting? (Just kidding.)
Wow! it looks like blogcasting has lots of potential here.
Blogcasting! Come onnnnn . . .
This crap’s for losers and geeks who can’t get laid. You know de type — always afraid to get undressed after gym class to use the showers. Yeh-heh-hesssss. Sounds like Gates, actually. I mean, come on — do you really think that guy’d be gettin’ any if he weren’t stinkin’ RICH?!?
It’s kind of de same situation with Conan . . .
Hey, I keed the uber-geeks.
You know…I betcha there’s room in the source list for one more icon for a “Subscriptions” link to the Music store; then all those that want a subscription model will be happy and that will pretty much wrap up the universe.
Somehow I figure there’s this programer that comes into Apple everyday, and his job is to examine the subscriptions code, refine it, add features, and test it, just waiting for Steve to say “Put it on-line”; just like they did it Mactel. Wonder what the critical threshold is for him to say “Go”.
ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE ITS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE THE WAVE OF The FUTURE….RSS AND PODcASTING IS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE……Dear Apple–please dont ever censor the podcasts or refrain from listing a particular podcaster because of his or her political opinions, race, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender orientation, sexual orientation, or based upon the notion that a particular podcast is disseminating thoughts believed to be dangerous to authorities or to the powerful. Remember the Apple Superbowl ad???? its the wave of the future and there is a reason its called PODcasting.
Hey, Lisa:
Get a life. A little censorship (on non-political grounds) is a healthy thing. If you don’t get that, grow up.
Triumph! You’re back!!!!
Where the hell have you been? Humpin some poodles, I’m sure!
Miss ya, dawg…
do you really think that guy’d be gettin’ any if he weren’t stinkin’ RICH?!?
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Yeah, cuz that’s the type of chick every Billionaire-to-be dreams about..
You know I just realized that since the podcasts are not Fairplay protected this could result in a lot of the people who have non-iPod mp3 players downloading iTunes just to get the podcasts. And we all know where the resulting small sips of the Kool-Aid could lead.
Apple – they are insidious in their underhanded sneaky ways of instilling a thirst for quality.
I hereby nominate “lisa” (a.k.a “Intel killed my Dad”) for the title of “MDN’s Poopiest Mac User”.