This one is too good to pass up. Jack Bogdanski of Portland, Oregon has created The Complete Internal Revenue Code Podcast Project, in which he promises to voice America's entire Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as Amended. He explains that the project may take years, since there are several thousand sections to the code. (To give you some idea, the first section, which he posted, is 36 minutes long, and he does, in fact, recite every last recorded change in the code.)

I am so glad that this guy is joking -- as glad, that is, for him as for us.

Says Bogdanski on his blog: "yesterday, right in the middle of a scintillating lecture I was giving on the wonders of carryover basis, a brilliant idea struck. I'm surprised I didn't have this flash of genius sooner... I've got big plans for the site -- advertising, celebrity readers, on-location recordings, musical backdrops..." One must give credit where credit is due: this is the height of accounting-podcast humor. (Hat tip: TaxProf Blog, via my friend Kate D.)

If, like me, you can't get enough of the XX Olympic Winter Games. Podcasting News has gathered a list of Olympics-related podcasts, including feeds from the AP, New York Times, and the US Olympic Team itself.

The online video coverage from NBC isn't bad -- but it's not portable, either. All of the media available is streamed, and unavailable outside the United States. It may be 2012 or 2014 before we can subscribe to portable video of a given sport, given the licensing restrictions that are in place. There's no doubt that the video is there. After all, nearly every country has cameras in Torino right now. But the IOC bureaucracy isn't very likely to understand the potential of the Long Tail for niche events like curling, equestrian, and distance running. Or for the tournaments (baseball, softball, basketball, hockey, soccer) that are too much to cover well on one network. Which is too bad, really. Especially for people like me.

Today, Apple announced a new 1GB iPod nano, priced at $149. The 512MB and 1GB iPod Shuffles drop to $69 and $99. Engraving is free on all of them at the Apple Store.

Showtime also joins the iTunes video lineup today, with first-season episodes of "Weeds", "Sleeper Cell" and "Fat Actress" available at $1.99 a pop. But be careful: having "Weeds" on your iPod may qualify as possession of drug paraphernalia in some states.

Steve Jobs has a standing engagement with every diehard Mac geek in existence for the second week of January each year. It's one of a handful of dates in which he unveils Apple's new products and strategies. In the past few months, much of the attention has been focused on two areas: the gameplan for Intel-based Macs, and the iPod. The impact of the latter to readers of this blog is hardly worth explaining. But the new Macs may have a lot more to do with podcasting than you think.

The iTunes Music Store continues to tease us with a glimmer of what could be. To Apple's credit, iTunes has singlehandedly jawboned media companies into producing downloadable versions of their products. At the moment, iTMS boasts video content from Disney (ABC/ESPN) and Universal (NBC/USA/SciFi), including shows that are no longer on the air. What they haven't done is provide a subscription model for those shows. If Apple could promise me a season of, say, Arrested Development, delivered straight to my 5G iPod, I'd put my money down in advance. (Well, except for the part where my TiVo already fulfills that same promise.)

In fact, if iTunes had all of the shows I watch regularly, and offered a reasonable subscription price for them, I think the only thing that would hold me back from breaking it off with the cable company would be live news and events. I've already used my iPod with my home TV (not to mention the projector at work) to catch up on my shows -- as well as my vid/vod/videocasts -- whenever the mood strikes. It's a natural fit, when you really think about it:

iPods are cool.

TiVo is cool.

Therefore, an iPod that's as good as a TiVo is wicked cool.

I'll couch a 2006 prediction in here: Apple is going to try like hell to prove to the public that a video-capable iPod is not a gimmick. That means interface improvements, larger drives, higher-quality video, and my guess is a video-capable iPod nano this year. But above all else will be an emphasis on everything working with and/or through the iPod and iTunes.

Which brings us to the new Macs. The rumored Mac mini is a home theater PC: an arena Microsoft has tried in vain for years to conquer. The Front Row app that came with the last batch of iMacs was a warmup for an intuitive TV-based media interface, and the Intel chipset offers instant-on functionality, a must-have for home theater components. There's even the suggestion that the new Mac will have an iPod dock built-in.

All indications are that Apple wants to use the iPod as a Trojan horse with which to take over the home media market. (Hmm. Trojans. That reminds me: if you're in the US and didn't see that USC-Texas game, you can and must buy the highlights on iTunes.) While Bill Gates is crossing his fingers over Xbox 360 and Windows Vista, Jobs may already be moving into his endgame.

I had been figuring it would be somewhere into the next decade at the earliest before the broadcast date of a show became simply a transmission date -- the point at which the embargo on a given episode expires, and it is made available to the public. I think that if Apple keeps moving down this path, it might happen as early as next year.

The avenues that would open to the viewer are amazing to ponder, though I'm sure that network execs get white-knuckled at the very thought of that kind of change. For the first time perhaps since the advent of television, entrenched organizations at every step of the media production chain are at risk of being shaken to their core thanks to a wave of new technology.

It's no exaggeration to state that some corporations are entering 2006 wondering whether they'll still be around in 2010. And from where I sit, for the companies I'm thinking about, it's about goddamn time. Many media companies, particularly content owners, have played defense for far too long. If they didn't see the Internet and portable media coming, economic theory says they deserve what they're gonna get. To boil it down to a few words, Schumpeter's principle of creative destruction is going to make your TV kick ass.

A reference to podcasting in last night's episode of the Fox comedy "Arrested Development" may have been more than just a one-liner.

It happened as Oscar Bluth, the hapless twin brother of family patriarch and criminal mastermind George Sr., was about to be incarcerated once again due to mistaken identity.

Warden: What a treat: the man who cost me my promotion ends up back in my care. And I don't think there's going to be an I'm Oscar Web site this time.

Oscar: I think this time I'll do a podcast.

Think they may be dropping hints? AD is on the way out after two and a half seasons, with Fox planning to replace it early next year, presumably with some show featuring models singing on a desert island surrounded by product placements. But the show's DVD sales are strong, and the fan base is rabid, if a bit small. Steve Safran at Lost Remote has already recommended that AD continue on as a video podcast. If they can keep the troupe together (including Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, David Cross, and the uncredited voice of Ron Howard), they'd have a lot more fun -- and they may still make a lot of money. Could Arrested Development be the first TV show rescued by the Long Tail?

It used to be that headphone manufacturers made their products in black, because they had always made them in black, and it was a big announcement when one would come out with a white set to match the iPod. Well, Etymotic just announced that they will offer a
black version of their ER-6i headphones, which originally came only in white. Because the iPod now comes in black, too.

We're through the looking glass, people.

Two big consumer devices announced podcasting support this week. Sony's PSP firmware 2.60 supports RSS enclosures. The new feature is only able to stream content found in podcast feeds. With built-in wifi, though, that might not be so bad. It also adds a few million new potential listeners to the audience.

TiVo's announcements made a bigger splash: through its content partnership with Yahoo, TiVo Series 2 devices now offer a section for podcasts, with listings taken from the Yahoo Podcasts site. What's more, TiVo, whose talks with Apple broke off recently, announced it will support the iPod as a TiVo-To-Go device sometime in early 2006. It's sort of a funny juxtaposition, from the podcaster's perspective: first, we get into the set-top box, which was the domain of broadcast and cable; and next, broadcast and cable get onto the iPod. That's a fair trade, I'd say.

There's just one problem. The greatest potential for TiVo's podcast support is in downloading video in RSS enclosures. At the moment, I've been pulling down video feeds and running them through a transcoder so my TiVo's MPEG-2 decoder can handle them. (Sidebar: video transcoders are going to be the fastest-growing software segment in 2006. Write it down.) But the TiVo box itself doesn't have much processing power, and its hardware MPEG-2 decoder can only handle a narrow range of bitrates (2-8Mbit/sec), all of which are pretty big in size. Most video feeds are much smaller, but with MPEG-4 and especially the H.264 format used on the iPod, they take a lot more horsepower to render than the TiVo will be able to muster.

This, like most great opportunities, has a big barrier sitting in front of it. I don't think a lot of videobloggers will want to make their work available at a minimum of 10MB per minute of video. Something will have to be done to get video feeds to work well with the TiVo, even if it involves using the companion TiVo Desktop software to transcode for the time being. There is too much good stuff that would be well-received if only it could jump from the laptop screen to the living room TV.

And that's the big message of both the Sony and TiVo announcements: convergence. Sony's device is the second-hottest electronic device on the market today, and they have responded with an upgrade to support podcasts (and Windows Media) to showcase the PSP as a convergence device. TiVo's announcements have convergence practically written all over them. They and Yahoo are making a play for the coveted "digital hub": the device that brokers media and services to you from your home. Expect more of this kind of announcement over the next six to twelve months, from Microsoft for the Xbox 360, Sony for the PlayStation 3, and probably Apple for a new Mac-mini-based media center. They've all been looking at this space for years.

The Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference is starting to wind down, so I have a few moments to talk about my thoughts on the first 1000-plus-attendee conference built around podcasting.

When I walked into the exposition hall to collect my credentials on Thursday, I turned to the security guard, pointed up at the sign, and said, "See that word? Podcasting? That word didn't exist 16 months ago." Even he was impressed. The Expo was sold out, with an attendance of 2500. A number of podcast directories, iPod accessory makers, hosting services, software vendors and allied tradespeople are exhibiting (not to mention the pathologically gregarious Brother Love, who has been all smiles this weekend as he hangs out with the folks playing his podsafe music).

Some big names, like Yahoo, Audible, Intel, Adobe and MTV Networks, have appeared on the dais. Some others are notable for their absence (hint: two of them make operating systems).

On the expo floor, patterns emerge. Most exhibitors can be filed under:

• Podcaster-oriented services and software (Liberated Syndication, FeedBurner, FeederReader, various audio tools)
• Sound hardware (M-Audio, Sony Pro Audio, Marantz Professional)
• Payment and ad platforms (PayPal, BitPass, Podvertiser, Click & Buy)
• User groups (Association of Music Podcasting, LA and Orange County podcasting groups)
• iPod and other player accessories (too many to count)

I'm still astounded by the scale of this event. It's clear that this is a going concern, and I would imagine that next year, the Expo will attract the attention of those who stayed away this time, along with a whole lot of high-end audio companies. I saw Michael Geoghegan's session in which he described the $25,000 studio he assembled for the Grape Radio podcast, and then could swear I saw thought bubbled pop up around the room: "I can buy that much gear? Really?" Overall, the conference is large, and I'm guessing it will only increase in size.

At the same time, there's been visible reason for reflection on just how big we really are. We've been sharing the Ontario Conference Center with the Portable Sanitation Association, which has an expo hall about the same size as ours. I can't help but guess that if we compared finances between the two rooms, we'd see that the federation of porta-potty purveyors generates maybe 1000 times more revenue than those showing off their wares in the Podcast Expo hall. Though admittedly, we don't traffic in human waste.

Usually.

More soon.

Battle lines are being drawn between podcasters and music rights holders, from news we've received this week. The Register reports that Dutch record labels are rejecting a podcast license proposal, claiming that a flat rate for all podcasters is unreasonable. I think that objection belies a rift between the two camps that is more volatile, far-reaching and indicative of an international showdown than the article suggests. This could be the week that changed music podcasting forever.

In his November 7th Daily Source Code (#275), Adam Curry talks about his discussions with the Dutch record industry and performing rights organization. The message he got from them, he says, is: "They're going to come after podcasters. And they're going to shut them down." That alone caused a lot of music podcasters to sit up and pay attention. Any coordinated offensive by the recording industry to squelch unlicensed content would leave us with a huge fight on our hands, one that would touch Apple, Yahoo, and many of the companies in the nascent podcasting industry.

The outcome of that incident is a conversion for Curry and his show. "We do not want these guys descending on us and making trouble," he says. So from now on, Curry will only be playing music licensed through the Podsafe Music Network, run by his company, Podshow. No longer will the Hit Test, Backtracks, or other uses of non-podsafe music be found on the Daily Source Code. He has also removed old episodes that contained such content.

So the Podfather has been squeezed by the recording industry. Why now? Is it because he now has a wider distribution than many terrestrial DJs? Do they want leverage for future negotiations on a podcasting license? Or are they just a little late in trying to knife the baby? Who will be next to drop non-podsafe music from their show? Are any of the alternate licensing models floating around ready to challenge or supplant the existing industry titans?

The questions come in a steady stream from there: are they emboldened now that they have in Podshow a company worth suing? And what's the role of, say, the RIAA in all this? Are they merely watching with interest to see how this plays out, or will we see them stepping up the rhetoric as well?

On the podcasters Yahoo Group, Dave Jackson assesses the state of things succinctly: "You must be this tall to piss off the RIAA." Well said. Podcasting isn't quite grown up yet, but it's been standing in line at the amusement park, and it's soon to be in for the ride of its life.

There'll be lots more talk about this situation at the Portable Media Expo this Friday. I'll be on a panel along with CC Chapman, Gerd Leonhard, Derrick Oien, and Kelli Richards talking about the future of music licensing. See you there.

Woot, the site that's half the reason I stay up until 10pm most nights in hope of a deal on one of the three techno gadgets I haven't already bought, has a podcast feed detailing the one item they're selling that day. The Woot blog has details.

I know what you're thinking: so what?

Here's the thing: it is hilarious. Seriously. They're producing a song for each item they sell. It's the funniest stuff I've heard in podcast form since the last Jonathan Coulton album. For example, here is a partial transcript from their podcast for today's item, which extols the virtues of the ruggedized Rio Cali MP3 player:

Well, I dropped it on the floor, and I sat on it and kicked it/and I threw it down the stairs, and I spat on it and flicked it/and then I took it waterskiing/and then I tossed it in a local zoo's ape pen, where I briefly lost it/I retrieved it and shaved it and made it wear a skirt/and then I microwaved it and buried it in dirt

These guys make Crazy Eddie look like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Discover the Woot podcast.

The planet of podcast paraphernalia is not apt to be particularly profitable. (No, I really didn't mean to be that alliterative, but thanks for thinking about me.) We're not apt to see big hardware companies pouring millions into R&D, for example, to get us that perfect portable rig, because the market doesn't exist, at least for the time being. But at the same time, I'm seeing signs that perhaps things are moving in our direction, and some people are marketing right at DIY podcast producers.

For one thing, the maker of the de-facto flagship products are showing that adding podcast functionality was not just a throwaway feature. Apple, who from what I see has made quite a few improvements to the iTunes podcasting interface, has also been tweaking the firmware now found in the newest iPod (known variously as "5G", "video iPod", and "white"). On the recording side, the iPod's artificial limitation of 8kHz, 8-bit audio has been raised to a healthy CD-quality stereo (though a microphone that actually enables such recording apparently has yet to exist). And Todd Ogasawara notes the addition of new-podcast indicators in the 5G iPod interface, as well as on the iPod nano. Sounds like they listened to the customer -- or perhaps became podcast listeners themselves, and experienced their own frustrations. Either way, good work.

More interestingly, one of my preferred pushers of electronic crack specifically targeting the casual podcaster. Musician's Friend, online partner to the dangerously-halfway-between-work-and-home Guitar Center, now has a podcasters section, featuring a range of p-popping, knob-twiddling goodness, repackaged just for you.

We're not quite to the point where Best Buy has a podcasting software section, of course, but I have to believe that at least a few marketing departments have the wheels turning, and we could be seeing a shift from podcasting-as-hack to podcasting-as-feature. Just imagine, not far from now, a selection of software for which something like valid RSS or MP3 compression isn't just a selling point, but so common that it's not worth mentioning.

New Corante contributors Roland Tanglao and Nicole Simon join Alex and myself to talk about Yahoo, its new podcast area, how it's doing, and where it's going. We'd talk next week, but it's not like a major corporation just released a new media player, or anything. Maybe we'll just get together and play Texas hold 'em.

Listen (26 minutes)

If there's anything on the Web that's hotter than podcasting, it's sex. In fact, it's pretty safe to assume that if it's a new technology, one of its first applications will be pornography. Since Gutenberg's press, that's become axiomatic.

We talk all the time about the Adam Currys of the podcasting world, but almost never do we hear about the Violet Blues. Violet has been making Open Source Sex, an erotica and sex-ed podcast, since the beginning of the year. And a funny thing happened when the iTunes Music Store launched: Open Source Sex debuted in the top 10 most-subscribed podcasts. Months later, it continues to make frequent appearances on the list.

More recently, with the launch of Loomia, yet another podcast directory service (from now on abbreviated as YAPDS), there was more anecdotal evidence of the underground demand for podcasting in the prurient interest. Each time I've browsed their most popular searches since their launch, "sex" and variants thereof have proudly, and in big type, proclaimed their primacy among searchers. The demand for erotica on the go is bigger than anyone's willing to admit, and that underscores one of our greatest social mores: we won't talk openly with even our closest friends about it, and yet, it's one of the biggest things going.

But just who is listening? I will openly admit to listening to one or two shows that may subject me to some people's scorn (for example, I am known to ride the Bluegrass Express with surprising regularity). Each time I find out about a sex-oriented podcast, though, I'm wondering more and more when I see those white headphones on the bus: just what are they listening to?

Wednesday, Alex and I are at the Podcast Hotel, where we're working out some of the big issues currently in the podcast world. Chief among those is music licensing, and I was on a panel with Rumblefish CEO Paul Anthony, talking about the current state of things, and how to move forward in a way that mutually benefits performers, rightsholders, and the people creating music podcasts.

Paul's approach, named "Podcuts", is a flat-fee licensing system for Rumblefish artists. The terms:

• Rumblefish clears the track for podcasting for a $5 fee;
• No digital rights management (DRM) is attached;
• The licensed file is 75% of the length of the track, then fading out to silence.
• Artist attribution is required.

This is a step forward in terms of licensing compared to the chaos we now have. Podcasters would know that they're covered, wouldn't have to worry about a label or a performing rights organization suing or claiming license fees after the fact.

The problem that I have with this is that it is still tied to an increasingly antiquated model, in which music is the payload radio stations use to attract listeners to the stations' ads. We can prove that we have a better way.

What I said in our session is that every new technology in music has caused a change in how music is licensed. The advent of piano scrolls forced the creation of what is still known as mechanical licensing. Radio and webcasting each spawned royalty schemes for the performances. Certain fair-use constructs, like the American Home Recording Act and the Sony Betamax decision, have also made their presence known.

Now, it's our turn, and we have to make it count. Personally, I think that requirements of DRM or fractional play is unacceptable for a podcast licensing scheme. I also believe that the system has fundamentally shifted, and the old model of pay-to-play is no longer relevant when, unlike the indirect marketing opportunity of radio, podcasters have the ability to directly drive sales through legal means. It's reasonable for podcasters who aren't using music to sell other advertising to ask for a cut of the music sales instead.

Then there's the Long Tail -- the domain of the podcaster. Music podcasts don't sound like hit radio. Most of them don't even sound like each other. To many, that's the entire point of doing a podcast.

Piracy is a subject that comes up frequently when licensing talk arises, and unfortunately, nobody has stepped up to say that fear is overblown. Compared to the KaZaA and Morpheus users out there, the number of people who are actively downloading podcasts and extracting songs from them is minuscule, if it exists at all. So let's not acquiesce to the Long John Silver treatment. It doesn't make sense here.

The Portland License is as follows.

Content owners:

• Offer royalty-free access to music in their catalog that is not in the Top n sales list for the month. (This number could be 100, 200, 500, we don't know.)


• Full tracks may be used.


• No DRM is required.

Podcasters:

• Report, in a lightweight document, what songs are in their show's playlists.


• Agree not to play more than 2 tracks from a given album per show. This would prevent a full-album spin, which could be disassembled.


• Agree not to play pre-release music without permission.


• Will give full attribution (artist, song title, album title, and label) in the body of the show.


• Will link in the show notes to purchase information. This can be a link to the iTunes Music Store, Rhapsody, Amazon or a new service which tracks podcast-driven sales.


• Attest that they have a legal copy of the music they're playing.


• Will not run third-party advertisement, in exchange for a commission on sales generated.

I believe this is the foundation of a truly reasonable arrangement for podcasters. We can play music we enjoy, would have access to thousands upon thousands of titles, and give an audience to music which is not commercially viable to market, but is still worth buying. This is good for listeners, good for podcasters, and good for artists and labels. I would like to get some feedback from label representatives on what they think about this approach.

It's looking like Canada is creating the perfect storm for podcasting: their public TV and radio network's own locked-out workers could create the biggest podcast network as leverage in their labor dispute.

Tod Maffin reports that the locked out CBC reporters will create their own network, at least while the strike is ongoing. They will produce a daily newscast to be made available for download and in podcast form, and are talking about going local, and even producing video for distribution online. The CBCunplugged site has already been created.

CBC has already been on the leading edge when it comes to podcasting (and in Quebec, baladodiffusion), so they're not exactly pushing the envelope, as I recommended of the NHL. What's happening in this case, however, is even more advanced: these reporters are circumventing their own medium. And what an opportunity to do so: 5,500 producers, technicians, writers, and on-air personalities are on the picket lines.

This could be the first instance we will see of a professional newsgathering network springing up from nothing, using the podcast distribution method. It may also be the biggest move ever in terms of socializing the podcast, as millions of Canadians who choose CBC for news coverage will be looking for something to match the quality to which they are accustomed.

I can't help but wonder what would happen if the lockout goes longer than a month or two. With the Canadian Media Guild counting their volunteer work on this project as part of the labor action, this new entity could be Canada's largest news-gathering operation overnight. In only a couple weeks' time, they could organize their own labor against their current employer (as newspaper workers have done when they are locked out), and produce their own programming as they see fit. They would only get a fraction of the CBC's audience to begin with, but over time, the listeners' loyalty to a given host or show would accrue to this new network, not the CBC. They have an opportunity not only to endure a protracted labor dispute, but to come out on the other side having reprogrammed their former network. CBC management may not notice this now, but once they do, they could realize what kind of trouble they're in.

Within a month or so, North America will regain its fourth major sport. Or will it?

After a year-long work stoppage, the National Hockey League is returning to the sports scene. The league will now be forced to deal with what Major League Baseball faced after its season-ending 1994 strike: an apathetic and in some cases angry fan base. Hockey fans are disgusted with both sides of this labor battle, as baseball fans were when the '94 World Series was canceled (robbing the then-Montreal Expos of their only real chance at a title).

It only gets worse for the NHL: even before the strike, popular interest in hockey within the United States was waning. Relocated teams like Carolina and Phoenix, and expansion clubs like Tampa Bay and Atlanta, were already finding it hard to attract warm-weather crowds to the game, even as many of them were advancing in the Stanley Cup playoffs. (Tampa Bay won the Cup in 2004.)

This week, the NHL suffered its latest indignity: ESPN, which had hosted its regular season along with ABC, refused to pick up NHL coverage for the next several seasons. The league signed with the Outdoor Life Network, which will use hockey to fill in the holes in a schedule which consists of the Tour de France in July and, I believe, every fishing show known to man. NBC had already scooped up broadcast rights for the next two seasons, paying no license fee and offering the NHL a profit-sharing deal similar to its deal with Arena Football. These are desperation deals. One step lower, and soccer will be the number four sport in the US.

That's all great, you say, what does this have to do with podcasting? If the NHL is smart, plenty.

The NHL is going to need a full-court press to get and keep the fans' attention and interest. OLN will also need to increase its exposure, as it treats its NHL content as a draw for its other programming. And Comcast, which owns OLN, is heavily invested in digital cable and broadband Internet. Comcast will be pushing NHL content on its on-demand cable services as well as online.

So, we're most of the way there: a sports league and a television network both with a vested interest in reaching people more people than they currently have access to. This is a great situation for podcasting, and even better for video in RSS enclosures. I don't think we're quite ready for full-game feeds, and we may never need them, given the real-time nature of sporting events. But OLN will be creating hockey-related content around their coverage, and that's no good to them if nobody is watching it at 11pm. They will already be offering it on demand. Why not serve an MPEG for download on their own broadband network?

Even more interesting are the place-shifting opportunities. A large number of fans in the southern and western US hail from colder climes. Many, surprisingly, are even Canadian. I, for one, grew up a Boston Bruins fan, but over the years, I couldn't find any Bruins coverage after I moved away, and so I'm limited to what ESPN gives me in the morning. But what if there were a daily podcast of, say, five to ten minutes, for each home team? Many of these shows could be hosted by Comcast's regional sports network personalities -- who, naturally, would have access to the players themselves via the OLN deal. And finding podcasters to cover each of the Canadian teams would be like trying to find a cat who likes to watch mice. These are low-cost activities that would bring real fans in, wherever they may live. Fans who buy tickets, gear, and Internet access.

While the other major sports in the US are all still swirling their toes in the online water with monthly subscription charges for streaming content, the NHL has a real chance to rebuild by letting more people in. There are millions of monthly impressions to be had. Even OLN and Comcast stand to benefit in this arrangement by increasing their own profile. It would be fascinating for everyone involved to see the league and the network take such a bold step.

Odeo announces an investment round of its own. It features Charles River Ventures and a number of individuals, notably Mitch Kapor and Tim O'Reilly.

Hmm. Does that mean Foo Camp is going to be podcast this year?

By the way, Odeo is hiring. If my memory of this time in a company's corporate finances holds, you should totally demand the maxed-out PowerBook when you get the job.

The stakes have been raised. Podshow, Adam Curry's new-new-media startup, has reportedly secured $8.85 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. (Hat tip: Podcasting News) The proceeds will give Adam more than enough money to pay his bandwidth bill for the year.

It's not terribly reasonable to believe that this will spawn a long series of podcasting companies entering the pipeline. If you look around, there are only a few folks who aren't already publicly traded, are lashed to the podcasting sail, and may be shopping for VCs: namely, Odeo, Audioblog.com, and the podcast directories. But it is a significant step forward for the business end of podcasting.

If the facts on this are straight, this means that Podshow wants to go public. That's what KPCB does. If they paid in almost $9 million in an early phase, they're probably valuing Podshow in the hundreds of millions, either now or in the near term. Time will tell whether another big investor agrees. If you see a name like Softbank, Benchmark Capital, or Hummer Winblad jumping in with Podshow, then a lot of Silicon Valley dollars are betting that podcasting is ready for the stock market, and that will open up a lot more room at the trough.

The latest rumor on the Web is that podcasts could be a virus vector, installing Trojan horses and turning your computer into a zombie.

Now, this is hardly news. All transfers of binary data have the potential to be exploited in some fashion. It's a safe bet that someone will figure out how to exploit RSS attachments to their advantage in the future (and thankfully, most of what I've read so far about podcasting viruses is really just a gentle nudge to aggregator and media player developers to put this on the to-do list). But let's be clear about this before it gets blown out of proportion: at the moment, this is only a prediction. There are no known exploits along these lines. I'd hate to see listeners frightened away by the big bogeyman of computer viruses while today's podcasts are as safe or safer than a lot of the other activities they engage in online.

Listen (32 minutes, 9.5MB)

In today's podcast, Alex and Matt talk about the iTunes release, and Matt's controversial reactions to it; more on the upcoming Senate debate over online music licensing; Microsoft's fear of the p-word; and, of course, Philip Torrone.

We're desperately hoping that this will get played on terrestrial radio, since Mark Ramsey says that's the best we can hope for, but in the meantime, please listen to this podcast at a time and place of your choosing, and pretend instead that we're interrupted periodically by ads for car dealerships or monster truck rallies.

Sunday. Sunday. Sunday. At the county fairgrounds. You'll pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge.

In 1993, America Online jumped into the Internet with both feet, and the waves took an awful long time to subside. A huge influx of new users discovered Usenet, and thanks to AOL's poor stewardship of the situation, the newsgroups were overrun with newbies who thought they were merely an extension of AOL. The phenomenon came to be known as "Eternal September," since it came in like the newbie college freshmen, who were suitably chastened by October -- only the freshmen kept coming, month after month, year after year.

Eternal September is a valuable lesson in corporate responsibility. AOL didn't pay the least bit of attention to the existing community on Usenet, who had built its value steadily over the years. As a result, the community was altered forever, with long-time users disappearing, and a flood of bad feelings toward AOL for letting the horse out of the barn. Some of that bad blood continues to this day.

The lesson that every corporation should take away from Eternal September is this: beware the unintended consequences of introducing dramatic changes in existing communities. Podcasting is not just TiVo for radio. It's an independent medium consisting of thousands of producers who, rather than spending their energies to compete with one another, have instead pushed each other along. It's the social aspect of rough consensus and running mouths that make it what it is.

Apple has had its blockbuster hits over the years, with the iPod itself likely to go down as its biggest. I'm a huge Apple partisan, myself, having seen them time and time again make it easier for any old user to do what they couldn't before, like make DVDs, arrange music, or buy shape-shifting blue-and-white polka-dotted computers. And Apple absolutely deserves credit for integrating podcasting into iTunes a scant 10 months after it started rolling. Podcast producers will benefit greatly, over time, by having one fewer application that users need to download.

Maybe Apple is losing out in my view because I grade them at the top of the usability curve among software vendors, but the part that pains me about the iTunes 4.9 release is knowing how much better it could have been. As the first exposure to podcasting for many, I think they could have made things a lot cleaner and more comfortable for those users. For example, the Podcasts section could be much more effective if it were an integrated aggregator and marketing tool. It doesn't make sense to shop the iTunes Music Store for free podcasts, leaving users with two disjointed interfaces to navigate.

As I said in an earlier post, there's time to fix all of this, but the iTunes developers have to break themselves of their innately secretive nature and actively engage those folks who have been doing it. Take the built-in RSS aggregator. Its performance, according to people who know, is, shall we say, suboptimal. Sam Ruby, who does know, has been gathering detailed research on iTunes' RSS parser, outlining its limitations based on black-box testing. These limitations hurt end users by degrading their experience. But because Apple is not communicating, Sam has had to beg for links to try to make sure someone gets the message through to them. Again, this would have been a lot easier if Apple had come out to the syndication community a week or two before hand and let them mess around with the parser. We'd have known a lot more about what we needed to do, and they'd have had a chance to fix what is now, after the fact, seen to be broken.

AOL erroneously believed that paying for the connection to the Internet gave them some sense of ownership over the community that was already there. It's a lesson that Apple can take to heart when trying to parlay ownership of the iPod and iTunes into ownership of the content community. Right now, many of the people adding value in this community aren't happy.

A few readers have ascribed my criticism of iTunes to sour grapes for not having been included in their directory. That doesn't bother me: I don't deserve any special privileges simply because I have a mic and a mixer. Really, the only thing that bugs me is that I don't know why I'm not listed. There are dozens of podcast directories out there, and my show usually appears in them from day one, by virtue of its presence in the iPodder directory, and some number of listeners who submit me where they can. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to hear that someone at Apple listened to one of my shows and didn't like it; that information alone would be enough to keep me from having to check the directory every so often to see if I've been added.

It's not hard to put out one sentence explaining how shows are added to the directory. Here, Apple, pick one of these and add it to your submission page:

"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that its content is appropriate for our audience."

"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that it is of suitable quality to our audience."

"Apple manually reviews each submitted podcast to ensure that it is not using unauthorized copyrighted content."

"Apple updates its directory with podcast submissions every (n days|x weeks|y months)."

"Apple will notify the owner of the submitted feed when it has been processed."

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: communication. Not hand-holding, not operators standing by, and not handwritten letters from Steve. All I'm asking for is some participation in the community, at ground level. Podcasting is not something that can be "owned". Podcasting is an organic, collaborative medium, where a large number of players share largely common goals. It's social media. And those players will not respond well to what is perceived as pressure from an external force. Smart people work in Cupertino. Let us talk with some of them.

FMQB reports that this week, online music licensing will be a topic of discussion in a US Senate subcommittee on copyright. Subscription services and blanket licensing mechanisms will be up for debate. The subscription sites are asking for a blanket license because of the complexity of seeking rights from all of the content owners, while the owners themselves appear concerned that they can't capitalize to the greatest extent possible on their hits.

Naturally, podcasters have a dog in this race, though I'm not confident that we will be represented in any sense in the debate. Some sense will need to be made of how to license music distributed in podcast form. Clearly, the volume of material being made available and its relatively short lifespan on the devices of downloaders should add up to a lot less than the rates charged for duplication, which can be north of a dollar per track per download. Will content owners and performing rights organizations continue to ignore a content marketing and revenue stream that's begging to do business with it, or will podcasts be added to an expanded definition of streaming, for the purposes of licensing? Now may be the time to call your senator.

It's been 9 days since the release of iTunes 4.9, the first version of the media player to integrate podcasting. Reviews have been largely positive, with users praising the aggregation features and integration with the iPod, and noting some hidden items such as videoblog support.

At the same time, though, a growing number of flaws have emerged in both the design of the software and how Apple has communicated -- or failed to communicate -- with the content providers they're now leveraging. Here's an overview of where iTunes has gone astray.

Bandwidth-blowout defaults

The typical RSS feed contains 10 to 15 entries. It's reasonable in an RSS aggregator to display all of them to the user. What is not reasonable, however, is for an aggregator to default to downloading all enclosures for a new feed.

The contents of my music podcast's feed is over a half-gigabyte of data. Now, ordinarily, I'd be happy for anyone to download the last 12 hours of my show -- if only they were going to listen to it. The reason for much of the traffic in the days since the iTunes launch is not new listeners, but existing listeners switching over. It's a duplication and a massive waste of bandwidth, for which a lot of podcasters are paying with real dollars. My site traffic has more than doubled in the last week and a half. I'm fortunate to have enough bandwidth to be able to survive that first wave of iTunes users. And yet, my show wasn't one that was listed.

The earlobe lottery

Podcasters had been told that Apple was sourcing the iPodder directory to generate its own. This was good news: we all wanted to be there on launch. I knew that I was in that directory, so I figured I was in good shape. Then, on the morning of the launch, I searched the database for my show. No results found.

So I went to submit my RSS feed, and found that someone had already submitted it. Now, my show is as podsafe as it gets, so I'm unconcerned about whether it's got copyright issues that would concern Apple. Maybe they're manually listening to shows to quality-check them. Maybe they've determined that they can't accept items licensed "non-commercial" under the Creative Commons license (though that's not what the license says). I can only guess, as I wait through week 2, what the problem could be. One thing is for sure: Apple's not talking.

Lack of communication

Almost everything we knew about iTunes, we heard second-hand from people like Adam Curry and Dave Winer. We heard that it was going great, that there'd be some new elements to add to our feeds, and that it was coming really soon. We got 24 hours' notice of its impending release -- and still we got none of the information we needed to prepare our podcasts.

Nobody knows when they're going to update. Nobody knows how they decide which podcasts they host and which they don't. Nobody even knows what the procedure is. All any podcaster can do at this point is to hope that those who do have access to Apple will let some detail slip. This is no way to communicate with independents. The lack of communication on the part of Apple has spawned a rumor mill which serves no one.

Secret schema

Apple published a new namespace, "itunes:", for podcast feeds. The value of much of it is still in question, with parts of it duplicating existing RSS elements or providing value only to iTunes users.

But worse, if you go to the provided document type definition, where you should see a listing of available elements, you instead get redirected to the iTunes homepage. This behavior is, in a word, dumb. In three words, really, really dumb. A number of podcasters have taken it upon themselves to figure out the itunes: namespace (and where it diverges from Apple's published documentation). Their work is impressive in its speed and efficiency, but all that wouldn't be necessary if only Apple would talk to us.

Apple has time to fix all of these problems and regain the goodwill of podcasters. But they will need to deal with us directly, not through some self-appointed ambassadors. They need to get onto the mailing lists, address the concerns, and be responsive. It's not something they are known for doing, to be sure, but they didn't invent this community. We did. And we're going to demand some amount of cooperation from those who are going to benefit from our work.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the month of July, during which a small number of Americans explain calmly to those hundred million wearing yellow bracelets exactly why they should care about a yellow jersey. Yes, it's the Tour de France, where Lance Armstrong goes for a record seventh consecutive title, the Outdoor Life Network dedicates itself nearly full-time to obscure mountainous regions of France, and Sirius is hosting a podcast with the Texan himself.

Starting July 2nd, you'll hear daily stage-by-stage coverage of the Tour on "Lance in France: Off the Bike and On the Mic". This beats live coverage for most Americans, since the French daytime is silly enough to take place while we're still sleeping.

While everyone was busy checking to see that their podcast is in the iTunes directory (mine's not. All that bribery for nothing. hmph.), Apple had more news that speaks to the pod in podcasting.

All new large-capacity iPods are now iPod Photos. A 20GB iPod Photo is now available for $299, with the 60GB down to $399. (If you follow Apple's RSS instructions properly, you may even get your logo to come up on those cute little displays.) The 1GB iPod Shuffle has also dropped to $129, which leads one to wonder if a price drop on the iPod mini is in the near future.

In addition, college students who buy an iMac, iBook or PowerBook will get an iPod mini for free in the bundle. I am so ignoring this, having bought a new PowerBook yesterday when I could have bought one with my wife's college ID today...

I had the chance to interview Chris Pirillo just after the close of Gnomedex 5. It's a 15-minute chat about the show itself, memorable moments, and how conferences have changed since COMDEX.

On today's Daily Source Code, Adam Curry hints that iTunes 4.9, with podcast functionality, will arrive "within the next two weeks, probably. Maybe even less than that." He notes that 38 million desktops have iTunes today, and they'll all get nudged to upgrade. (I think that means more listeners. Don't you?)

In addition, Curry adds that Apple is introducing a new XML namespace ("pod:") into the RSS 2.0 mix, allowing some more advanced tagging than what is available now. They will allow podcasters to opt out of the iTunes Music Store, an "explicit" tag, and a few others.

What I would really love is for that namespace to allow bookmarking. It'd be nice to have a music podcast with track markings, all within a single MP3. (And maybe links to purchase the track? Just a thought, Apple.)

Listen (30 minutes, 8.9MB)

This is Dante. He's my cat. On this special podcast, Dante becomes the first feline podcasting commentator. Don't miss it.

Alex and I can both be heard, as well. We're talking about possible progress on the music licensing front, and issues of decency in podcast shows.

When a big new phenomenon comes around, the idea and the implementations naturally diverge. New ideas attach around the core, attempting to extend or in some cases co-opt the original idea's meaning. Some, like "nanocasting," don't stick. But others may, and after a fashion, people need to step back and arrive at the gestalt of the situation: a complete definition of the landscape evoked by a term.

And so, we come to that moment of collective introspection. Podcasting has to mean something. But what?

In addition to being a topic of discussion within several podcasting hangouts, now comes Microsoft ur-blogger Robert Scoble. He and a colleague are debating what, exactly, can be called a podcast. Can it be video? If not, what if the iPod supports video in the future? Would that change the definition down the road?

Here's my attempt at the unified theory: use "podcast" as an adjective.

If you listen to Staccato, my music show, you'll find that I never refer to it as a podcast, full stop. It's always a show. "Podcast" to me refers to a specific mechanism for transferring the data: namely, the RSS 2.0 <enclosure> element. (The Atom <link> element is also acceptable -- and more flexible.) As long as it's pointed to in an RSS or Atom feed, "podcast" is good enough for me.

Well, almost. You still have to know what the payload is. Is it a podcast talk show? A podcast soundseeing tour? A podcast videoblog? All of the nouns here function without "podcast" as a modifier. It's only when podcast is used by itself that confusion results.

To resolve that confusion, here's what I suggest as the minimum criteria for using "podcast" as a noun:

• Content is delivered via RSS or Atom feed.
• Content is in MP3 format.

In other words, when Rush Limbaugh calls himself "the hottest thing in podcasting," he's wrong. Rush, like the other Premiere Radio hosts, do release MP3s -- but using a proprietary interface. Allowing this kind of thing to be called a "podcast" weakens the brand, because it takes control away from the user. Imagine having to download a different program for each podcast show you subscribe to. It's a nightmare scenario for users. If they get away with co-opting our term of art, we're looking at a vastly different landscape -- one that independent podcasters will easily be shut out of.

What if the document is in another format? That is, what if Microsoft wants to release WMA files rather than MP3s? Well, I would make that clear right on the link: "WMA Podcast". It's a given that MP3 Just Works in all existing podcatching systems. Other formats lead to complexity, and that leads to user confusion, which leads to dissatisfaction, depression, Prozac and death. (Okay, just dissatisfaction. But that's bad enough.) If it's not a given that users will be able to do what they desire with the file, including playing it on the device they have, that should be expressed beforehand.

It seems like a petty thing to be bringing up at this stage, but we have to be clear what we're talking about here, because everyone who learns what a podcast is becomes a potential listener. If they can't trust the term, they'll be turned off before they even turn on. Let's see some consistency in our terms before we lose all control.

Tod Maffin of CBC and I Love Radio reports that music licensing will be based on where you're hosted. That is, if you're Canadian, and you're hosted in the United States, you'll have to license from ASCAP and BMI rather than Canada's SOCAN agency. The coverage will be Web-wide.

What Todd says here is evidence that someone, somewhere is not just thinking about this stuff at the performing rights organizations, but coordinating with others. This is a good thing, to be sure. However, unless I've missed something, nobody from the record labels or Harry Fox has signed off as yet, so we're still looking at around $600 (US or Canadian) per year to license the performances, and what's behind Door Number Three for the master and reproduction rights on each track. And so it goes.

Right now, I'm wondering who will be the first offshore podcaster. That kind of thing has quite a history in the analog world.

Infinity and Clear Channel have both announced this week that they are adding to their existing offerings. Infinity, of KYOUradio fame, is planning to offer free news podcasts from its stations in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, and two outlets each in New York and Los Angeles. WINS in New York will be first, in mid-July.

Meanwhile, Clear Channel starts repurposing segments of Phone Tap from its Morning Zoo show in New York, along with 15-second spots. CC's Premiere Radio Networks subsidiary has also added Dr. Laura, Jim Rome, and four other talk shows to the pay-podcast genre, alongside Rush Limbaugh, whose podcast feed went live today.

Note that all of these offerings are the networks' original content. The big guns here, like the little podcasters, seem to be waiting with bated breath for a legal means of playing music on podcasts. The question that follows is: what's taking the various licensing agencies so long to come up with an answer?

...some of it, anyway.

Today, my fellow flannel-wearing, soy-latte-sipping Seattleites have published an RSS feed of Sub Pop music, the contents of which are available, at least for now, for podcasting:

While we're unable to give you blanket permission to use any ole song you want from our catalog, you may incorporate any of the songs that are freely available as MP3s in the multimedia section of this website http://www.subpop.com/scripts/main/multimedia.php into your podcasts. HOWEVER, we do reserve the right to change our mind about the availability of any song for any reason at any time. Fickle, no?

Cheeky. But this looks like good news to me: a well-known label offering their promotional tracks as podsafe. Dean Hudson, Sub Pop's new media guy, had already gotten the religion when we talked at the SXSW podcasting session. Kudos to him and the label for diving in.

This week, Alex and Matt go over the latest announcements by Apple and GarageBand, as well as the ongoing Winer-Curry drama.

Listen to the May 26th podcast

Music site Garageband.com is now fully on board with podcasting as a mechanism for promoting performing artists. I've been chatting with them for a while, as they experimented with a Creative Commons-licensed promo for American Idol finalist Bo Bice. Now, they appear to be revamping their site to be among the most podcast-friendly around.

Today, the company announced the release of GarageBand Podcast Studio, a Flash-based tool that allows anyone to select tracks from GarageBand artists and mix them with uploaded voiced segments as desired. The service is now free, with a dual revenue model (free podcasts with ads, paid ones without) in the cards. Future plans include a phone number to let... uh, podcast DJs, phone it in. (We gotta come up with some kind of a name for people like this. PJs is just a non-starter.)

In addition, each band now has its own podcast feed. At 40,000 strong, that's a bit of a jump in the amount of available podcast content. Subscribers will get new music from their chosen artists as it's uploaded.

GarageBand, which now touts itself as "the world's largest catalog of podcast-ready music," also considers podcasters to be part of their broadcast network, and waives royalties from its end for podcasters who sign up with them.

Time will tell how many podcasters are drawn in by these tools. But I'd sure like to see recording labels come anywhere near this. There's a big announcement on that front expected sometime this week, from another group of folks I've been talking with.

The latest Corante podcast is now available. Almost too much to cover this week, but Alex and I discuss the Podshow strategy session (and why turning off the mobile is a good idea when podcasting), KYOUradio, and Public Radio International taking a dip in the podcasting pool.

There's no Corante podcast this week, but due to a fortuitous turn of events, the podcasting session from SXSW 2005, in which I was a participant, is now available at IT Conversations, in case you were running out of podcasts in which people talk exclusively about podcasting.

We'll be back next week.

This one seems to have come out of left field: Infinity, one of the major American radio networks, has reformatted an "underperforming" station in San Francisco... to play podcasts. KYOURADIO will launch on May 16th.

So much to say. I have to give credit to Infinity for experimenting with a format that not only can't be controlled by them, but didn't exist a year ago. The AP article admits they have little to lose by tapping a money-losing station for this, but it's still more newsworthy than the daily story about another local station's conversion to the Jack format ("It's like your iPod, on shuffle"). The article does note that Infinity itself is not in the best of shape, being the source of a nearly $11 billion chargeoff by its parent company, Viacom, so it's probably an auspicious occasion to start shaking things up.

There's been talk about selling satellite radio on the idea of an all-podcast channel, but in my opinion this is actually bigger news: a big, entrenched radio network, the kind most music podcasters started their shows to get away from, just took the bait. Let's just see if we can boat this bass. The implications of podcasts on the open airwaves, with the potential for lots of local flavor, is more empowering for more podcasters than having a handful of folks getting smashed somewhere between the French Chansons and Schnauzer Talk channels on satellite.

I wonder what radio DJs are thinking as they read this news. Is it realistic to lock unpaid podcasters with non-broadcast-quality equipment into regular shows, challenging the paradigm of the live studio jock and/or news room? Are we going to be held up as a bogeyman used to further limit the role of on-air talent at the station? Or are we seeing the beginnings of a hybridization, where the talent is a free agent, and the line between who is a podcaster and who is a DJ is blurred, or obliterated?

Days like this, it's fun to prognosticate. I thought I'd see news like this in two or three years, but not nearly so soon as this.

Radio elder statesmen Bob and Tom announced that they will be podcasting as of May 9th. Their comedy show, all four hours of every weekday, will be available to their "VIP" members, who pay $55 a year for outtakes and archives of their show.

Two notes on this announcement: first, being a comedy-based show, they'll get to dodge a lot of the gray areas of podcast licensing, because they'll be dealing mostly in their own original content. That makes it a smart move. Second, they have another advantage most commercial radio shows don't have, which is an existing revenue model and distribution system. With five million listeners, they won't need to convert many to make this a profitable move. And while $50 to $60 a year is a bit hard to swallow for an hour or two a week of this or that, it's pretty reasonable for twenty hours a week of original content. Smart move.

The second Corante podcast is now available. Alex Williams and I talk in more detail about music licensing, listening to podcasts in the car, and how in the future, we may each have our own broadcast radio station.

This one is posted quite a bit late, so listen quickly, because Corante Podcast #3 is coming Thursday evening.

Three former British radio personalities are taking their acts online, according to a Guardian article. The jocks will be podcasting top-40, jazz and classical charts, along with a morning show, to be distributed on PodShows.com (not to be confused with Adam Curry's PodShow.com, mind).

Just don't expect the extended dance remix. In a sop to the record labels, no more than 60% of any given song will be played. Instead, links will be provided to purchase and download complete tracks.

This deal highlights a big question mark when it comes to music podcasts: just who, if anyone, does the customer think is providing value worth spending a dollar or so per show? Being well-known DJs gives them an advantage over the average bedroom podcaster offering shows for free. But is it worth a buck or two every day to listen to your old morning show guy play three-fifths of a few songs? Trailblazers of the broadcast-as-download model will need to do some deep thinking on that one: people are neither used to paying the DJ nor listening to their music in fractions.

• Licensing
  • Major League Baseball: is it safe to call balls and strikes?
  • Music: is it safe to play ball with the labels?
• BlogMatrix Sparks! review

There are a few subjects in podcasting that will always invite discussion. Chief among them, at this point in time, is licensing of music for use in a podcast. Usually, that topic is enough to create a lot of heat, but not a lot of light. The first thing that people need to know is that you do need a license (or licenses) to play almost all of the music found in your CD collections in a podcast.

What we don't know, because of the misfit nature of the podcast medium, is how much we owe, and to whom. There are various scenarios under which pretty much everyone involved in creating music has a claim to a royalty payment in connection with a podcast. What follows is an explanation of each of those royalty schemes.

Here come the corporations. In recent weeks, podcasting as a story has evolved from basement hobby and curiosity to untapped market, and it's no surprise what comes after that. Virgin Radio, following the lead of a number of public radio outlets, has started a podcast of its morning show. Warner Bros. is not only sponsoring Eric Rice's podcast, but has cleared music for the show as well.

Now the 800-pound gorilla of American radio, Clear Channel, has jumped into the fray. Yes, folks, in a Reuters article, a bigwig at the radio conglomerate has said the P word. (Hat tip: Dave Hodson)

Clear Channel announced its online strategy yesterday. Starting next week, the company will be offering original video programming on 200 of its 1200 outlets. As early as July, says the Reuters article, the company plans to sell subscription services, digital tracks, CDs and ringtones.

Oh, and make podcasts. Did we mention podcasting? Still no hint on what they consider to be a "podcast", however. Will they charge a fee? Will the product be a standard MP3 file? Will they use RSS enclosures? Sources hazy. This could be a sign of big media starting to get the concept of the distribution model, or it could be another exercise in buzzword-compliance.

"Online is radio's for the taking," says Clear Channel executive VP Evan Harrison. Such big talk. I wonder if they realize just what they're getting into. A radio-sized market for podcasting is certain to benefit independent podcasters. Those listeners who are already bemoaning the cookie-cutter uniformity of terrestrial radio will soon discover podcasts that offer compelling alternatives to Mitch and Marty's Wacky Morning Drive. The question isn't whether moving online will slow radio's downward slide. The question is whether it will accelerate it.