Hoping to cash in on the latest digital media craze and to stay ahead of the podcast curve, Yahoo Inc. is introducing tools for searching, organizing, and rating podcasts. Just this past Monday, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, which operates the world’s most trafficked website, began testing its new podcast service on its website.
For those unfamiliar with podcasts or podcasting, allow me to introduce you to this latest form of online media. Podcasting is a method of publishing audio and video programs over the Internet that became popular late last year, thanks in large part to automatic downloading of audio onto portable players or personal computers.
Podcasting remains unique to other forms of online media delivery because of its subscription model, which allows users to subscribe to feeds by the use of “podcatching” software programs. Such software periodically looks for new content and proceeds to download it automatically to a portable music player, personal computer, or any piece of technology with audio-playing software. While convenient for users alike, podcasting also enables independent producers to concoct self-published, syndicated “radio shows,” at the same time, providing broadcast radio programs with an alternative, more up-to-date distribution method. While podcasts are mostly associated with audio, more and more feeds are being used to deliver video files, in addition to audio.
Besides Yahoo Inc., some of the media industry’s biggest names have embraced podcasts with open arms, in their communal quest to further monetize their properties and to keep pace with current technology. Clear Channel Communications, which owns Rush Limbaugh’s popular radio show via Premier Radio Networks, has made podcasts of his show available with a purchase of membership to the "Rush 24/7" club. The media behemoth has also begun experimenting with a subscription service, which for $7 per month gives members access to podcasts from Rush Limbaugh, Phil Hendrie, Art Bell, and others.
Disney, along with its ABC and ESPN programs, has numerous podcasts freely available from places like Apple's iTunes and Yahoo's new Podcasts service. Viacom-owned Nickeolodeon, Fox, and Showtime are just a handful of media companies that have also followed suite, offering digital audio episodes of their new and/or popular television programs. Slate Magazine, the online publication owned by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC, also has podcasts accessible to all via Apple’s iTunes.
America Online has also caught on with podcast mania, the self-described leader in interactive services, hopes to have a podcast search application made available on its website by late this fall. As part of an agreement with audio and video search engine developer TVEyes, AOL is to offer TVEyes' Podscope, a dedicated podcast search engine that will offer access to every known podcaster's most current files and thousands of archived files.
Like AOL / TVEyes’ Podscope, Yahoo’s free podcast service, also promises to streamline the search for podcasts and enable users to find programming best suited to their personal interests. "We intend to be the most comprehensive source for podcast content," said Geoff Ralston, Yahoo's chief product officer. While specialty websites such as Podcast.net and Odeo.com have already established significant footholds in the space, Yahoo is the first Internet heavyweight to come out of the starting gate to meet the task head on.
While there are those skeptical of how big podcasting may become, the future of search may very well be in audio and video. Searching by means of text just might become a thing of the past, an obsolete model used in the old days, while searching through podcasts will be nothing short of the norm. With even the remote possibility of this ever being the case and with Yahoo’s recent arrival onto the podcast scene, you know it's only a matter of time before Yahoo's rivals, such as Google and Microsoft jump on the podcasting bandwagon.
Sources:
http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=26850
http://news.techwhack.com/2061/150902-america-online-testing-podcasts-
searching/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20051010ListenToThisYahooPodcastsInBeta.html
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