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Podcast Subscriptions Top One Million

itsa said:
I just don't get it... Does anyone really listen to the radio any more?
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I still do. It's called kexp and cbcradio3

dontmatter said:
KEXP needs to podcast their shows, as with more NPR. Just in case anyone's listening.
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I think that it would be great if they podcasted thier live, in studio events/shows such as Schoolyard Heroes, The Decemberists and others.
 
What am I missing?

Lacero said:
Spoken like a true ignoramus. Firstly, most amateurish podcasts serve a small, but loyal niche of listeners that mainstream radio simply will not cover. You could have an hour-long podcast about moccasins and there will be an audience for that and other obscure topics.

Secondly, iTunes can be set up to download the latest podcast only or you can keep a number of episodes before they get deleted, so managing them is easy. You can archive podcasts as well, if want. Apple makes that easy as well.
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That's all well and good on iTunes, but what about the iPod? Am I missing something here? How does iTunes keep track of what I listen too on the iPod? Most of my listening happens in a car with the iPod, not iTunes. How do you sync between the two? If you can't do this then the settings in iTunes are basically meaningless.
 
Chaszmyr said:
This is a shock to me. The only people I know interested in podcasting want NPR broadcasts, and iTunes doesn't currently offer those.
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Not quite - but I agree that the day NPR gets its act together and Podcast's Terry Gross, Car Talk and the Splendid Table, you'll see a 2-3 fold increase in Podcasting traffic.

At least I and most everyone else I know will subscribe to them all - and a few more besides. Come on NPR get it together!

:)
 
Object-X said:
That's all well and good on iTunes, but what about the iPod? Am I missing something here? How does iTunes keep track of what I listen too on the iPod? Most of my listening happens in a car with the iPod, not iTunes. How do you sync between the two? If you can't do this then the settings in iTunes are basically meaningless.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this one of the main features of the iPod, the fact that it sync with itunes the data is transferred between them such as play counts etc?!?! :)
 
I think it's definitely a good thing to have podcasts on iTunes in that it presents this medium to a much wider audience. I wouldn't exactly call it (the iTunes adoption of podcasts) revolutionary or anything, though; I didn't find iPodderX to be a difficult program to run. However, getting rid of that extra step and having the audiobook-like functionality is nice.

A couple of my favorite podcasts are from CBC: Quirks and Quarks and Tod Maffin's Radio Tech Program. (On a side note, Apple actually photoshopped an extra 'd' onto his name on the cover page. Tod says, "I mean, it's still my same logo they used but I guess they thought my name looked better with two d's?")

With respect to the GarageBand content comment, it's possible but Steve has already slammed another download service (forget which one) for allowing any joker to post his/her music. He was talking about the library of "quality" tunes in the iTMS.

I'd like to see some .mac integration with respect to podcasts. Getting the XML feed and everything ready for a download is still kind of complicated.

Squire
 
Object-X said:
That's all well and good on iTunes, but what about the iPod? Am I missing something here? How does iTunes keep track of what I listen too on the iPod? Most of my listening happens in a car with the iPod, not iTunes. How do you sync between the two? If you can't do this then the settings in iTunes are basically meaningless.
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No, this is one of the great features of iTunes + iPod. They sync. So, in the same way that if you buy an audio book, listen to 3 hours in iTunes, your iPod knows where you left off, you listen to another 3 hours, iTunes picks up the information from the iPod and picks up where you left off.

This is the same for podcasts -- try it out! It keeps track of where you left off with electronic bookmarks, and it all syncs back and forth between iTunes and iPod. See http://www.apple.com/itunes/sync.html for more information:

A Sync That Works Both Ways

You can rate your songs, awarding tracks from one to five stars, on your iPod and sync your ratings to iTunes. Or you can do it the other way around, rating songs in iTunes and syncing your ratings to iPod. You can also make on-the-go playlists that will appear in iTunes when you sync your iPod with your computer. Your iPod also tracks where you are in an audiobook or podcast and syncs it to iTunes. If you listen a bit more on iTunes and re-sync, your iPod knows where you left off in iTunes. If you’ve purchased a voice recorder for your iPod, any notes you take will automatically transfer to iTunes when you sync.
 
Squire said:
A couple of my favorite podcasts are from CBC: Quirks and Quarks and Tod Maffin's Radio Tech Program.
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I enjoy listening to Quirks and Quarks as well. I used to watch Bob MacDonald when I was little on a CBC show called "Wonderstruck" as well, which was pretty much the same thing. Cool science experiments, and really fascinating subject matter on the whole. :cool:
 
dcranston said:
No, this is one of the great features of iTunes + iPod. They sync. So, in the same way that if you buy an audio book, listen to 3 hours in iTunes, your iPod knows where you left off, you listen to another 3 hours, iTunes picks up the information from the iPod and picks up where you left off.

This is the same for podcasts -- try it out! It keeps track of where you left off with electronic bookmarks, and it all syncs back and forth between iTunes and iPod. See http://www.apple.com/itunes/sync.html for more information:

A Sync That Works Both Ways

You can rate your songs, awarding tracks from one to five stars, on your iPod and sync your ratings to iTunes. Or you can do it the other way around, rating songs in iTunes and syncing your ratings to iPod. You can also make on-the-go playlists that will appear in iTunes when you sync your iPod with your computer. Your iPod also tracks where you are in an audiobook or podcast and syncs it to iTunes. If you listen a bit more on iTunes and re-sync, your iPod knows where you left off in iTunes. If you’ve purchased a voice recorder for your iPod, any notes you take will automatically transfer to iTunes when you sync.
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Well then, I stand corrected. I'm now an informed ignoramous.
:eek: I will need to pay closer attention to that. I guess Apple is smarter than I thought.
 
rdowns said:
Apple(R) today announced that in just two days iTunes(R) customers have subscribed to more than one million Podcasts from the new iTunes Podcast Directory. iTunes 4.9 has everything users need to discover, subscribe, manage and listen to Podcasts built in, so users can now have each new episode of their favorite Podcasts automatically delivered over the Internet to their computer and iPod(R).

"With the release of iTunes 4.9, listeners are voting with their ears," said Adam Curry, co-founder of the PodShow Podcast Network. "Subscriptions have dramatically increased across our entire PodShow Podcast Network, and I predict over the coming months that iTunes will introduce tens of millions of new listeners to the world of Podcasting."

"Podcasting is like cappuccino," said August Trometer, developer of iPodderX. "Gourmet coffee was around for a long time, but it took Starbucks to put it on the map. Apple is like the Starbucks of Podcasting and advertisers will take us more seriously now."

"iTunes has done what possibly no one else could have accomplished, propelled Podcasting into the mainstream," said Will Lewis, management consultant for KCRW. "Our servers have been swamped with a stratospheric increase in traffic. In fact, downloads have increased tenfold as a result of the iTunes 4.9 launch."

iTunes enables anyone to quickly and easily find and subscribe to their favorite Podcasts so that every time there's a new episode, it's automatically downloaded to their Mac(R) or PC and Auto-Synced to their iPod. iTunes also makes it easy to manage multiple Podcast subscriptions with simple organization and display by episode and date. iPods now offer an easy to use Podcast menu, including bookmarking within a Podcast and the ability to display color Podcast artwork.

With Apple's legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as integrated Podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod and groundbreaking personal use rights, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online. The iTunes Music Store features more than 1.5 million songs from the major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels, 10,000 audiobooks, gift certificates and exclusive music not found anywhere else online.
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1 million in 2 days - not bad! :)
 
njmac said:
Here's another thought:

If Apple can put podcasts on iTunes, surely they can have a Garage Band section too. I know there are other sites out there, but I'm talking iTunes here. Major, major player now in the music world.

If there was a Garage Band section on iTunes, Millions of people will hear true indy stuff. Now, alot of that will be pure crap, but I bet a lot of jems would emerge and would be an amazing outlet for talented amatuers.

Podcasts paved the way. Garage Band for iTunes can't be too far away.
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That's a ***great*** idea!

But even without Apple doing anything directly, what's to stop someone creating a Podcast show featuring amateurs' GarageBand music...

1. Set up a web site inviting GarageBand users to submit some music.

2. Put on your best DJ voice, "Now we're going to a hear a silky smooth track from John Smith. His notes say that's his girlfriend on vocals..."

3. Mix in the tracks.

4. Publish the podcast and submit it to iTunes Podcasts submission.


In fact, since there are already GarageBand user sites, step 1 could be eliminated if those sites just decided to do a podcast...

If anyone is thinking of starting up a podcast, Apple's posted a guide to recording one in GarageBand:

http://www.apple.com/support/garageband/podcasts/
 
~Shard~ said:
Hmm, interesting idea, please elaborate... could that really work?
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Well, a podcast involves files (.mp3 and .xml, right?) that people innocently download. What's to stop some warped geek from embedding a virus into the podcast? (That's a real question, by the way. Isn't it possible?) I mean, the first few million folks who downloaded stuff off of p2p networks probably weren't too worried about viruses. Imagine the bad press if Apple, the company supposedly immune to virus attacks, actually hosted a podcast containing a virus.

Just a dark thought.

Squire
 
Squire said:
Well, a podcast involves files (.mp3 and .xml, right?) that people innocently download. What's to stop some warped geek from embedding a virus into the podcast? (That's a real question, by the way. Isn't it possible?) I mean, the first few million folks who downloaded stuff off of p2p networks probably weren't too worried about viruses. Imagine the bad press if Apple, the company supposedly immune to virus attacks, actually hosted a podcast containing a virus.

Just a dark thought.

Squire
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That's a really good point, and now that you mention it, yes, I do think it would be possible. But come on, who would do such a mean thing? :rolleyes: ;) :cool:
 
Personally, I think Apple is making too much of a big deal over the Podcasts. Most of them aren't very interesting. I have unsubscribed to the ones I subscribed to when I first got 4.9. It began to bore me.
 
Squire said:
I wonder if podcasts will become a new means of virus spreading?

Squire
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It would seem that Mac OS X users would still be protected. If any problems occurred Apple would release a security update. It would seem that it could occur with Windows users.
 
The jokes of statistics

Apple(R) today announced that in just two days iTunes(R) customers have subscribed to more than one million Podcasts from the new iTunes Podcast Directory. (...)

"With the release of iTunes 4.9, listeners are voting with their ears," said Adam Curry, co-founder of the PodShow Podcast Network. "Subscriptions have dramatically increased across our entire PodShow Podcast Network, and I predict over the coming months that iTunes will introduce tens of millions of new listeners to the world of Podcasting."
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The interest of Podcasts is one thing, but this press release is a pathetic.

I mean, not even knowing what a podcast was, and because of all the noise about it, I had to suscribe to 4 or 5 of them in iTunes in order to listen to them and make up my mind, i.e. I voted with my ears before even listening to a podcast...

Now, I wasn't impressed by the result and the concept, and 2 of them didn't work at all. I unsuscribed to everyone of them.

So, basically, I represent 4.5/1000000 of the "supporting subscribers", even though I don't support the concept ?

The beauty of statistics and PR... I guess it's all for the sake of the shareholders ?

A. :confused:
 
The shareholders are the one's that Apple needs to keep happy. My wife subscribed, she likes the Apple Radio.
 
Arnaud said:
I had to suscribe to 4 or 5 of them in iTunes in order to listen to them and make up my mind, i.e. I voted with my ears before even listening to a podcast...

Now, I wasn't impressed by the result and the concept, and 2 of them didn't work at all. I unsuscribed to everyone of them.

So, basically, I represent 4.5/1000000 of the "supporting subscribers", even though I don't support the concept ?

The beauty of statistics and PR... I guess it's all for the sake of the shareholders ?

A. :confused:
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You didn't actually have to subscribe to listen to them - just double clicking the podcast starts it playing (it's not a 30 sec preview like iTMS songs), and then you're not skewing the stats, but still able to "vote with your ears"! Everybody happy!
 
Meromo said:
You didn't actually have to subscribe to listen to them - just double clicking the podcast starts it playing (it's not a 30 sec preview like iTMS songs), and then you're not skewing the stats, but still able to "vote with your ears"! Everybody happy!
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Mmm, ok, I'll give it another try then.
(But people who made a mistake like me must have influenced the statistics anyway, no ? :) )

A.
 
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