Podcasting hits mainstream

Ever since Steven P. Jobs returned to Apple Computer in 1997 after a 12-year absence, his company has thrived by executing the same essentia...

Ever since Steven P. Jobs returned to Apple Computer in 1997 after a 12-year absence, his company has thrived by executing the same essential formula over and over: Find an exciting new technology whose complexity and cost keep it out of the average person8217;s life. Streamline it, mainstream it, strip away the geeky options. Take the credit.

So far, Apple has worked this kind of magic on digital video editing, wireless networking, online music selling, RSS feeds a kind of Website subscription and other technologies. Its latest attempt, however, will be music to an awful lot of ears. With its release of the free iTunes 4.9 software for Mac and Windows, Apple has just mainstreamed podcasting.

A podcast, as anyone under 25 can tell you, is an audio recording posted online, much like a short radio show. 8216;8216;Podcasting8217;8217; is a pun on 8216;8216;broadcasting,8217;8217; implying, of course, that you listen to it on your iPod or another music player.

The beauty of a podcast is that it8217;s free and you listen to it whenever you like. And there are more than 7,000 podcasts 8216;8216;on the air8217;8217; right now, on every conceivable topic. Their quantity and variety already dwarf what you can find on regular radio.

What makes podcasting a national dinnertime conversation these days, though, is that anyone can make one. You just need a microphone, a sound-recording programme, and the tutorials that have already appeared at many points on the Web.

Yes, some are corporate broadcasts, repurposed shows from traditional radio shows. But the real fun is finding the homemade ones, the amateur attempts made in somebody8217;s basement with a laptop and a microphone.

These can be unpolished and quirky, with plenty of dead air and 8216;8216;ums8217;8217;, but that8217;s their charm. Podcasts, in other words, are the audio version of blogs 8212; the Web logs, or daily text postings, that made up last year8217;s hot dinnertime conversation.

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Until Apple got its mitts on podcasting, the finding, sampling and managing of podcast audio files was time-consuming and scattered.

8212; NYT