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How Podcasting and Satellite Changed Radio
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine discusses how podcasting changes the radio industry: "Consider the basics: With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They're bypassing an entire industry."
The article notes about some advertising deals that podcasters managed to procure, but it also notes that another industry, satellite radio, represented by Sirius and XM Satellite radio, is already changing the radio landscape."
The difference is, Shout/Icecasting is just that... Radio. Podcasting is something different:
1. It is different in that the low-speed delayed delivery makes publishing (read: bandwidth) costs much cheaper, and it stacks with BitTorrent.
2. It is different in that the listener doesn't have to schedule their listening around a broadcaster. The TiVo metaphor is apt.
3. It is different in that it is built around mobile. Shoutcast is great, unless you are in your car on an hour and a half commute on 285.
Personally, I think Satellite radio is doomed business. Once 3G-ish technologies roll out widely enough, shout/icecast will kill satellite radio dead. I mean, why have this extra box and another subscription service when you already have a cell phone and an iPod?
While it may just be a fad, I don't "spend" any time downloading Podcast content. When I wake up in the morning my Powerbook has already done the work during the night. Schedules and RSS feeds are a beautiful thing. As for "just to play later", isn't that what gets people so excited about PVR's? I love being able to find a favorite show and always have it available on my iPod for when I'm in the car or at the gym. Okay, okay. So just in the car, but my point still stands.