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Actually, I'm a fan of listening to lugradio on my drive to work. If not that I usually just randomly switch through the Podcast Directory.
A couple more to wet your tongue would be to dig through archive and legal torrents.
Alternatively, I know you said you wish to save a bit of dough by doing it the freebie way, but I've gotta tell you Sirius is one hell of an offering.

What retard decided to put binary data in RSS? Or would allow execution of code linked to by an RSS feed? That is truly the most retarded thing Microsoft could have done with regards to security.

That would be Adam Curry and Dave Winer, an MTV DJ and a 'net hacker (the guy behind RSS1 and RSS2, IIRC)

Embedding RSS (and, more importantly, the RSS "enclosure" magic that enables podcasting) is right up there with "let's embed the browser right into the OS", but to be fair to MS it wasn't them who decided to put binary data into RSS. Though I bet they're kicking themself right now - "no patents for us!"

If podcasting exists then it stands to reason that it already had such support.

It was enabled by third-party software. Check out this site for links for some software and the podcasting feeds.

Isn't it just downloading someone's audio and playing it?

Yes, but it's also more than that. The podcast's website typically is set up with an RSS-type feed (coded in XML, I believe) which your podcasting-enabled software automatically checks each day or so, downloads the new and/or updated content, transfers it to iTunes, and then to your iPod. The third-party software does all this for you, once you "subscribe" to a podcasting site. This way you don't have to manually download a podcast, it's done for you, usually in the background.

I haven't downloaded or tried the new iTunes, but I imagine that Apple is building this feature into iTunes so that users won't have to download and run the third-party apps to accomplish all this.

1. I recently had a slightly difficult time getting the webmaster of a popular Country artist site to understand that linking a MP3 to a website doesn't make that MP3 a podcast. He was initially insulted by my suggestion he include an RSS feed to make the file a true podcast. Fortunately, there were plenty of links at http://www.ipodder.org/ to share with him that showed him how RSS is the magic ingredient. It wasn't that he couldn't roll RSS code; he was a competent coder. He, like most of the public out there, was simply misinformed. Let's face it, RSS is wicked geeky and trying to explain it to somebody is often an exercize in futility (See the end of Josh's vlog on the subject - lesson #4). After all, isn't Really Simple Syndication such an obvious sort of technology that you wonder why somebody had to invent it in the first place? ;)

   But if you want to see how completely the public misunderstands just what the heck a podcast is check out Bill Gate's first podcast as an example. The MEDC site refers to it as a "Video Podcast", but on film they just call it a podcast, so if you are new to podcasting then this is what you are going to think a podcast is: a video broadcast via WMV. Obviously there's a slight problem here in that podcasts are audio enclosures via RSS and vlogs are video enclosures via RSS. One could argue that this is a simply an exercize in semantics, or one could argure that Bill & Co. are once again trying to embrace and extend a technology/term for their own purposes. But the main result is that the common guy isn't going to have a clue about any of this. He only knows what he is told.

   So, IMO, iTunes adding podcast support is a really good thing. This will help solidify the meaning of the word "podcast" before more confusion sets in. (Of course, if Steve & Co. are also embracing and extending...)

2. As for podcasts being "Wayne's World for radio", sometimes that is the case. If I have to download another walk to the (backyard shed, park, bigwig meeting, etc) soundseeing tour on Daily Source Code I will scream, or just not subscribe anymore. Vlogs can be just as bad. I've seen some kid animate her Barbies in a sordid romance, a guy video tape his trip home from work, and somebody wash their dirty sink to music. Not winning content by any means. However, like anything out there, there is crap and there is gold. And then there's the whole realm inbetween. YMMV, but podcasts are turning out to be an alternative form of entertainment. Don't write them off before trying out some of the more interesting ones. I wouldn't recommend sampling them at random if you don't have the time or patience to filter out the dross.
   
   I know that tech podcasts get covered here a lot. Maybe some of you might enjoy these music podcasts:
   • http://carmenrasmusen.com/audio/idolupdate.xml - Carmen Rasmusen of American Idol fame gives the inside dope on what happens after the cameras shut off.
   • http://feeds.feedburner.com/BitzOfBrin - a thirteen year old girl talks about getting into the music biz and tracks her progress. She's not bad at all.
   • http://composerplanet.com/speechless/index.xml - Speechless covers instrumental music from rock to electronica. Very fascinating stuff.
   • http://www.coverville.com/index.xml - Coverville is a popular podcast featuring covers of well known music done by obscure and well

Screw that...in the future, everyone will have their own public-access TV show.

Seriously though...

My own opinion is that the technology isn't there yet for anybody to kill "mainstream" TV. But given the sorry state of TV, I'd love to be wrong!

I'll just dump all these lusers and check out a podcast that interests me. It's free as in both beer and speech. I'll be supporting the community and not these fatcat corporations.

yes, and this has been happening for a while with user created "podcasts" which are basically home recorded radio shows that are distributed for download via websites like ipodder

I have the same basic question (Say, do any of these not suck?!), but I've found a few of interest to me by sampling from the many programs listed at ipodder.org.

The vast majority, as you have found ... follow Sturgeon's Law. However, if you don't run into any you like of the home-grown, awkward-talkin' variety, there are a lot of radio shows that are using the same system, which turns your portable player (with some large limitations, don't get me wrong) into a pretty flexible delayed-access radio :)

Now, since you can only get *new* shows while you're tethered, it lacks some of the portability / immediacy of actual broadcasts; them's the breaks.

timothy

I have the same basic question (Say, do any of these not suck?!), but I've found a few of interest to me by sampling from the many programs listed at ipodder.org.

The vast majority, as you have found ... follow Sturgeon's Law. However, if you don't run into any you like of the home-grown, awkward-talkin' variety, there are a lot of radio shows that are using the same system, which turns your portable player (with some large limitations, don't get me wrong) into a pretty flexible delayed-access radio :)

Now, since you can only get *new* shows while you're tethered, it lacks some of the portability / immediacy of actual broadcasts; them's the breaks.

timothy

Check out the content available from IT Conversations. Lots of geeky stuff from lots of geeky people (People like Cory Doctorow, Steve Wozniak, Bruce Schneier, etc.).

You may also want to try listening to podcasts. Check out ipodder.org to see a directory of them. There is more than enough content there to keep you occupied on a daily basis. Oh, I guess I'm also assuming you can listen to MP3 in your car...

Here's a good source of podcasts

If you look around, you'll find plenty of what interests you available as a podcast. Should you not find what you're looking for, with any luck we'll see YOUR podcast up there soon too.

Nothing is free. If you want free music, the closest you can get is music that you don't have to pay a fee to download. But because you don't have a record label filtering out crappy content for you, you have to spend time and effort either (1) lucking into quality content or (2) finding a free filter. On the other hand, it doesn't take too much time to find a handfull of quality podcasts. It's probably pretty cheap to invest a couple of hours finding good free content filters for yourself. If you can entertain yourself with free content, go for it. I recommend starting here or here. Cheers.

It's a term coined by Adam Curry of iPodder. He developed the technique for downloading webcasts/interenet radio shows into iTunes and subsequently onto his iPod for later listening. Of course, the casts are not limited to iPods.

See Wired's article.

Podcasting is basically the combination of RSS, mp3, and in some cases, BitTorrent to create a free (as in freedom *and* beer) subscription based, music, or talk-radio type experience. Check it out. There's some really cool tech talk shows I subscribe to. I highly recommend the "Linux Link Tech Show" -- funny commentary on all sorts of tech issues.

Here's the RSS Module for adding bittorrent to RSS 2.0.

ipodder.org

www.epitomic.com
www.garageband.com
www.iuma.com
Podcasts at iPodder.org

Just because YOUR concept of music doesn't go beyond your little RIAA world, doesn't mean that nobody else's does. And just because you can't figure out how to use the MP3 format for anything other than pirating music, doesn't mean that no one else can.

Podcasting! Seriously. Audio blogs fetched automatically.

Go here and here.

Does not require an iPod. Really simple syndication (RSS) with encosures.

I'm using a 76 line Bash script.

Current favorite feeds (RSS - not browseable web pages!);

http://www.itconversations.com/rss/recentWithEnclo sures.php
http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/cgi -bin/blosxom.cgi/index.rss20
http://secrets.scrip ting.com/xml/rss.xml

Some really interesting things out there...as well as garbage. I'd tell you my favorite -- hint smart show 4 on 'scene' -- though I don't want to swamp the server! For other non-tech, listen to Atomic City Fitness (health) or get angry along with Al Franken on AirAmerica (politics) (even interesting for a few hours to this libertarian).

If video blogging becomes popular, it will be on the coattails of something like Podcasting.

It is hard for me to imagine choosing to sit at a computer and watch someone talk, compared to being able to listen to them talk, anywhere, anytime, on my iPod.

Unless they are doing something interesting... well that leaves out the realms of home-reno, reality-tv, & porno, I guess (-:

Pixie

As for the conference its the most open and accessible I know of with live audio, active IRC rooms, a wiki, audio available afterwords and no vendor advertising. They even put the IRC window up on screen at times. And its held on the weekends so I can attend virtually.

Anyhow I just wanted to represent - oh and try podcasting if you haven't it's the shiznat. Peace out.

What about podcasting? I know a lot of podcasters just use plain old references to mp3/ogg files, but have seen several (those with less available bandwidth, for example) using it as a means to distribute torrent files.

Why is this an apple story?

Podcasting doesn't have anything to do with macs, ipods or apple directly. Its multiplatform in both nature and implementation [software here for mac, win, linux, more] and is simply a way of automating content transfers based on RSS enclosures.