Friday, January 21, 2005

Podcast News, Adam Curry Edition

There is an interesting article about Podcasting at mtv.com. Here's some of it:

"Ninety percent of it has an amateurish vibe, which is a big part of the appeal," said former MTV VJ Adam Curry, one of the founders of the phenomenon and mastermind behind podcasting hub iPodder.org. Curry, who hosts the podcasting show "Daily Source Code" from his home in the U.K., said he originally dreamed up podcasting four years ago when he was trying to figure out an easier way to download high-quality streaming video.

"My theory at the time was why not have the computer do things while you're not surfing the Web and have the media trickle in through whatever connection you have," Curry said. "The high-quality stuff could come in overnight, which would let you avoid clicking and waiting to download something, which is irritating."

Nothing came of the idea until two years later, when Curry met software designer Dave Winer at a blogging conference in Boston. The two hit it off and Curry got so addicted to a series of MP3 interviews Winer had posted on his popular blog, scripting.com, that he vowed to find an application that would automatically seek out Winer's latest "audio blog" and download it to his iPod.

Early in 2004, Curry created a crude application that did just that, then launched iPodder.org and asked other geeks to help him refine it. "Then something beautiful happened," he said. "They corrected the script and made it better and better."

Winer calls the rapid evolution of the podcasting software the blogging equivalent of "the first mammal taking a step out of the ocean onto land."
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That might be exaggerating things slightly, but it is pretty cool.

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