Voxmedia Wire

Podcasting may be new, but it doesn’t look to be short-lived - the number of households downloading the audio programs onto their iPods or another MP3 player is expected to double next year, says Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. Because the process is so simple, local people are setting up tiny radio shows that are being heard around the world. Content is very niche and ranges from chats about bikes in Davis to music from the video game “Dance Dance Revolution.”

The Web’s next wave (The Sacramento Bee)

Michael Oster, a New Tampa podcaster who’s worked in audio mixing and engineering for years, has posted plenty of field recordings on his Web site. A couple of months ago, he started calling them podcasts. Almost overnight, his site traffic doubled. “There was now a name for this kind of thing,” Oster, 37, said. “I thought, well, since I’m already doing it, I just need to modify it a little bit to fit into the podcasting realm, and push it as that.”

Podcasting: The radio-free radio experience (St. Petersburg Times)

Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who helped ignite the dot-com boom in the late ’90s have launched a startup that aims to let independent film makers, public television broadcasters and anyone else distribute video over the Internet. Open Media Network is meant to help broaden the audience for any amateur or professional producer of video or audio clips.

Netscape veterans launch video startup (Associated Press)

Podcasting will soon break out of the “pod” and onto the public airwaves. The world’s first all-podcast radio station will be launched on May 16 by Infinity Broadcasting, the radio division of Viacom. Infinity plans to convert San Francisco’s 1550 KYCY, an AM station, to listener-submitted content. The station, previously devoted to a talk-radio format, will be renamed KYOURadio.

Podcasting Killed the Radio Star (Wired)

Following what-you-want-when-you-want-it pioneers such as TiVo and On-Demand television, podcasting lets listeners access anything from one-man shows such as O’Brien’s, to industry giants like NPR, to promotional releases such as Paris Hilton’s upcoming podcast, which apparently will allow her audience to “listen to her pose…” Podcasting also can accommodate all sorts of unusual interests, without having to compete with more mainstream programs.

Easy listening via ‘podcasts’ (Newsday)

“Are they professional broadcasters? No that’s what makes it’s so beautiful,” [Adam] Curry said. Beautiful to everyone, except perhaps, the “professional.” Podcasting threatens to turn traditional radio on its ear. “You can wring your hands out about what’s going to happen or you can get on board for the wild ride,” said Bob Garfield, radio host of On The Media.

Podcasts Alarm Traditional Radio (CBS News)

For some it is the end of the blog. For others, it is proof that blogging has earned its place in the media. Blogs, or online weblogs, in which opinions and reports are posted on the internet for everyone to read, are to get a dose of celebrity. Arianna Huffington, commentator, one-time Republican and candidate for governor of California, has recruited a bevy of close friends to create an über-blog that will offer a round-the-clock commentary on our life and times.

Uber-blog raises a celebrity voice (The Guardian)

What are they podcasting in cyberspace? People are programming their own music programs, hosting their own talk shows, and creating audio Web logs, or blogs. Many podcasts are devoted to different genres of music and Internet/technology topics. Others are geared to specialized interests like wine making and home brewing.

From blogs to music, podcasting brings Internet audio to mp3 players (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Already there’s disruption within the podcasting community itself. Most podcasting pioneers deplore commercialization–just as the dot-edu and dot-org communities bad-mouthed dot-com Web sites a decade ago. Podcast populists, for example, promote obscure musicians by playing independent music not licensed by the Recording Industry Association of America. Others, such as me, use copyrighted music. Is this legal?

Podcasting: Making Waves (Forbes)

“So far, it’s really been a bigger success than I thought it would be,” said Eric Pierce, the program’s chief developer and administrator. “We didn’t have a whole lot of people doing Web pages unless they were in a Web design class, and we just wanted students to take advantage of the system we had available for them. This gives them a chance to put stuff up really quickly.” Using WordPress and Gallery software, blog@USF allows students to post text and photos as they see fit, just like LiveJournal or Blogger. Students receive 100 megabytes of storage space, meaning they can also post audio and video files.

USF students go into the blogosphere (St. Petersburg Times)