Yahoo Launches New Podcasting Service

sdirrim writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that Yahoo! has just released a test version of its new podcasting service From the (short) article: "Yahoo's new service will allow users to download shows from National Public Radio, the weekly presidential address, and independent shows with subjects ranging from sports to knitting." Additionally Yahoo! Podcast users have the ability to rate shows.

Comments

Re:Great!

[sdirrim]

If you RTFA, you see that you can rate podcasts for other users. I'm signing up now... once I get an iPod :P

Rating..

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

Now, I'm starting to see some reason to get one of those pods. I'm a really cheap guy and I don't like much of the new music these days so I never had a reason to get one. But, I have a hard time catching The Infinite Mind and other PBS/NPR shows I love and I can't always listen to it over the net when I'm at my computer - it does suck up a lot of badwidth.

I like user ratings

[Safe Sex Goddess]

I wish there were some way to give a revenue split from advertisers to the best rated podcasts.

Uploading Shows

[superpulpsicle]

If someone wants their podcast show to succeed, they would have to put it on iTunes, Yahoo, and at least a couple other podcast sites. How about a single site that uploads to the multiple destinations for you. Maybe that's what people need instead.

Re:Ya Don't Say?

[Chyeld]

They may have been behind the iPod, but they were late to the podcast party. It existed (and evolved) for quite a while before they even gave it a nod. Even now their current implementation is about a generation behind, having no builtin support for things such as bittorent downloads, different feed types, prebuilt OPML lists of feeds, or even feed:// links.

Oh for the love of God podcast is a stupid name

[netsavior]

it is "Diary" not blog it is an audio file not a podcast I got a revolution for ya, lets put an audio file for download on the internet (yeah nobody has ever done that before), but give it a hip new name: "Podcast" cause you need a $400 piece of electronics to duplicate 20 year old technology. Next you will see "Podcast Novels" at barnes and noble, cause "books on tape" is just not a shiney. Get off my lawn :))

Re:Oh for the love of God podcast is a stupid name

[Anonymous Coward]

This time around, there are some very positive differences. This time, non-proprietary wrappers (XML RSS) and common formats (mostly MP3) allow for great portability and multi-platform access. Unlike the RealPlayer news streams of 1998, I can use GPL programs such as amaroK to manage the new content. Because most content is available in the MP3 format, I can save the audio and listen to it when I want on my MP3 player. (This creates a portable Tivo-like way to access content available in an RSS wrapper, aka podcast wrapper.)

Is this different from offering the files via a web page? Yes. I don't have to maintain a different perl script to scrape each page.

Will the benefits of portability and multi-platform access last forever (esp. with currently available content produced by entities such as ABC or NPR)? I see DRM being used to wrap the audio files and dictating if you can use the file on your portable MP3 player. I see DRM being used to wrap the audio files and dictating which programs can play the files (or if the files are stream-only). When that time comes, most people claiming podcasts as something not new will be correct because, then, the DRM will have turned the podcasts into an iTunes edition of the long-available RealPlayer and Windows Media cotent streams.

Re:Whoah!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Initial list of offerings appears to be Public Domain and/or those with easily obtainable permission to deliver copyrighted works. Apparently no contracts in hand to deliver "popular" copyrighted works that might have elicited more excitement in you. If Yahoo promises to deliver content not under contract it puts them at a disadvantage in negotiating the contracts. If the service becomes popular before Yahoo approaches major content providers then the major content providers might approach Yahoo with deals to get their content into this medium and consequently giving Yahoo the edge in negotiations. Purely supposition on my part of course.

Works with iTunes

[freaktheclown]

It works with iTunes, too. When you click Subscribe, it opens up iTunes and downloads it automatically.

No NPR shows, just the crappy podcasts

[_flan]

Yahoo! just seems to be agregating shows that already exist. They do not have whole NPR shows, just the crappy podcasts that are already available from the NPR site.

I'm still pissed that NPR abandonded Audible.com with no backup plan. I mean, what the hell? Who had the brilliant idea?

"I know, let's turn of this service that is generating a revenue stream and replace it with ... ground seashells and sand! I wonder if anyone will notice."

Feh.

Rate shows? Karma? Cool!

[davidwr]

Imagine if NPR shows could get rated and get karma like /.:

Postitive: Interesting, Insightful, Informative, Underrated, Funny, and just for radio: timely
Negative: Offtopic, Troll, Flamebait, Redundant, Overrated, and just for radio: yesterday's news

What I want to know is: Do high-karma contributors start out at +2?

Re:Free podcasts?

[ForumTroll]

I know you're being sarcastic however it's really quite funny how many people actually think that blogs and podcasts will revolutionize the way we get news. Blogging has had a very little effect on changing global media. The vast majority of people don't read blogs nor do they care what some random person has to say over the Internet. Most blogs are incredibly poorly written and it shows almost immediately. Podcasts generally are incredibly poorly produced and often have little to no content. Most of the people that are creating podcasts are very young and frankly they offer nothing of value to their listeners. I have yet to find any podcasts that I would regularly enjoy listening to.

I think the one thing that blogs and podcasts have shown very clearly is that people who want to write stories or produce their own shows really need to be educated to do so; otherwise they're more than likely to end up creating more trash.

Yahoo! Music Podcasts?

[ObligatoryUserName]

I've looked at the Yahoo! Music Engine (they emailed me about a job, but never got back to me) - and the one thing I don't understand is why they don't have special Yahoo! only Podcasts - YahooCasts or something -- something they aren't doing with this initiative. If you're sane you're asking "Why would they make Yahoo only podcasts?" - because their Music service is on a subscription model. People could make music show "podcast" (obviously in some sort of format specific to this service) with all the commercial music they want, and all the subscribers could listen to it without copyright concerns. It's something that might actually make their service appealing.

I'm an iTunes/iPod user and shuffle always gets annoying, and I don't have the time to keep making new playlists (which don't duplicate the "surprise factor" of radio anyway). If there was a subscription service where I could listen to podcasts with Music on my portable device I would be quite interested. Of course, Yahoo! would still have to deal with the iPod lock-in - their service currently requires WMA music players, which I'm not likely to buy in the first place.

Re:Free podcasts?

[fupeg]

Blogging has had a very little effect on changing global media.

Whoa, where have you been? Perhaps you were not around a year ago when it was blogs reacting to exit poll data that were first claiming that Kerry was going to dethrone Bush. News outlets turned around and reported much the same thing, but only after the blogs focussed attention on it. Mainstream media didn't want such hasty conclusions, not because they were wrong, but because they wanted people to stay tuned all night long.

Even more recently, it was bloggers that started the cries of outrage over the US government's handling of Hurricane Katrina. Again, mainstream media is very reluctant to openly criticize politicians for fear of being accused of lacking impartiality and (more importantly) because they must rely on these same politicians and don't want to burn bridges. Look at 9/11. It tooks months before criticism grew and it had to have its roots with the victims' families. This time things were much, much quicker because of bloggers. Bloggers don't care about being impartial and don't care if they upset politicians.

In both cases, "the news" changed because of bloggers. That's where the power of blogging comes from. It allows a broader range of people to define what is news.