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

Whoah!!!

[Otter]

NPR, the oration of George W. Bush and knitting!?! Truly, Steve Jobs hath led us into a glorious new existence!

Re:Whoah!!!

[slipnslidemaster]

All Things Considered...that's a breath of Fresh Air!

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.

Great!

[SoCalChris]

Now I'll get to listen to even more poorly produced podcasts put on by people who have no business behind a microphone.

Some of the podcasts are pretty good (The ones produced by NPR are generally good), but almost all of the other's I've heard I can't stand to listen to for more than a minute or two.

I wish Apple or Yahoo would come up with a way to rate the podcasts, so I know right off which ones to not even bother wasting my time with.

Re:Great!

[SoCalChris]

I should have clarified what I meant...

Something beyond 1-5 stars and some reviews would be nice. Something along the lines of rating the audio quality, how often there are new episodes, how long people stay subscribed on average, etc...

Re:Great!

[generic-man]

Click the name of a podcast on Yahoo! Podcasts. There is a link called "User Reviews" where people can leave blurbs about (among other things) the audio quality, new episode frequency, etc. It's not entirely what you wanted, but it's something.

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.

Re:Rating..

[Quiet_Desperation]

and I don't like much of the new music these days

I'm always puzzled by this. There's probably a wider variety of music available today than at any time in history. Just last week I ran across some really great new progressive stuff out of Holland. You just need to look beyond the top 40 lists. Most of the new stuff I listen to will probably never be played by any radio station anywhere. You just have to look for it. Gosh, if only there were some sort of tool for that. Like some sort of international network or something. ;-)

Re:Rating..

[hazem]

i-podder http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php

Is a nice OSS program for downloading podcasts too. No need for spyware/bloatware/crapware from the big guys.

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.

False...

[Anonymous Coward]

The rumor has been discredited. The iPod was created by terrorist music pirates who are bent on destroy the recording industry.

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

[Tsiangkun]

Technically, sure, it's just downloading mp3s.

But, when it's done through iTunes, using RSS to autmatically grab new content from sites, it's starts to become something different. When the player keeps track of how much of the podcast has been played, and automatically manages the downloaded content according to user criteria, it becomes a podcast.

Yes, you can just download the mp3, but it's the iTunes experience that makes the system complete.
I used to think it was dumb too, but now I'm hooked.

I like knowing which shows I've heard, and which I still need to have a listen, and being able to pick up where I left off when I get interupted. iTunes, presents this information in a very intuitive way, and just downloading the mp3 doesn't, using RSS or not.

quote

[unk1911]

The following quote seems very appropriate for this newsstory:

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
- Robert Wilensky

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else see the irony in the above post being signed with a blog address?

Podcasting to a simplified existence

[digitaldc]

The next big thing is going to be listening to a podcast of a guy telling you how you should simplify your life into a state of analog nirvana. The podcast will tell you the joys of reconnecting to your friends and family by ditching the mp3 player and getting off of the computer.

Nothing too special

[Transcendent]

NPR already allows you to download a "podcast" from their website. Yahoo just collects it and gives you another link to it.

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?

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.