Comments on: Recombinant Podcasting

By: Kitt

Kitt — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 11:55:41 +0000

Hey Buzz, what do you think of http://last.fm

kinda like an audio flickr?

BTW – the player wouldn’t work on my 10.3.9 system?

By: Vince

Vince — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:48:49 +0000

There is a pretty fully developed scheme for doing similar things at http://www.annodex.net.
They are always looking for contributors.

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 20:38:02 +0000

How would macjams.com play in to your idea?

By: Dom

Dom — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 07:41:20 +0000

I like the Odeo “game” concept, Buzz. This whole sociable audio space has a kind of ‘Calvin Ball’ feeling to it – where the rules keep shifting.

The question for me is: Buzz – how are you getting away with posting MP3s of other peoples’ music to your server? Where do we draw the line between broadcasting and podcasting?

By: Buzz Andersen

Buzz Andersen — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:54:27 +0000

Oh, sorry–I guess I should have explained that a little more clearly. Essentially, you’re correct: I upload files to my server, add them as bookmarks in del.icio.us, tag them with “scifihifi:podcast,” and then have Odeo check my del.icio.us RSS feed for my links tagged with “scifihifi:podcast” and “system:media:audio.” Since del.icio.us has its media support feature, URLs to media files automatically get enclosures in the resulting RSS feed. Essentially, Odeo is merely a pretty front end for the del.icio.us feed that provides standard social software features like comments, contacts, stats, etc.

As for the issue of subscribing in iTunes, the following URL works fine for me:

http://del.icio.us/rss/ldandersen/scifihifi:podcast+system:media:audio

Again, del.icio.us automatically adds the enclosure tags now, so it should be a valid podcast.

By: Jens Alfke

Jens Alfke — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:31:47 +0000

I’m not sure I get what you’re doing with Odeo. Your “music podcast” link is broken (no URL in the A tag), but I searched Odeo for “scifihifi” and found your page. It looks like you are uploading MP3s to your server and then creating del.icio.us bookmarks for them, tagged with “scifihifi:podcast”. Which is a really interesting idea!

Unfortunately, when I tried to subscribe to the RSS feed with iTunes, it says there are “no playable episodes”. I think this is because the MP3 URL appears in the permalink of the article, not in an enclosure tag? So I’m wondering how one listens to your podcast besides viewing the feed in a newsreader and clicking the links one by one…

The copyright issues are a bitch. I think the only way to do this in the present environment is under-the-radar, as you’re doing it. Or alternatively via a P2P app that’s general-purpose enough that it can’t be sued out of existence in the post-Grokster legal climate.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 14:00:23 +0000

Thanks for this really insightful comment about social software. I think you are dead on that part of the secret sauce is to turn these applications into a game. I am working on a social software product (www.blinklist.com) and we are still working hard at making it better and making it more like a game, enhancing the fun element of it to encourage more user participation.

Since you are into online discovery engines for music, I thought you might like to check out this link. I found a great new site “Hype machine” that you might be interested in:
http://www.blinklist.com/tag/discovery%20engine/