Never one to be on the bleeding edge (not through lack of trying – its just the edges I keep picking turn out not to be the bleeding ones 
), I dabbled into the wonderful world of podcasting today.
Neat – very neat.
The catalyst was JJJ (the OZ national, indie-yet-government-run radio station) advertising that they were getting into podcasting, including a “best of the week” 30 minute podcast. Now, I’m thinking these things are a “killer app” for the commuter set. Some of my Sydney friends tell me of a 70 minute commute each way – loading up on a few 30 minute podcasts would while that otherwise useless time away.
Now I a) live in a much smaller town where commutes of more than 30 minutes are almost unheard of, and b) live pretty close to all my current clients. But, what it does let me do is have some more relevant background noise going when I’m doing some telecommuting. Its targeted, so less irritating than, say, the radio. But it doesn’t demand my attention either (well, at least the podcasts I’ve downloaded to date) so it doesn’t interfere with my concentration when I’m working on a problem.
Thus the title – its Radio Next Generation. I’ve picked exactly the sort of programming I want to hear – and I’ll pick when I hear it.
So, my setup is iPodder as the podcasting software, and iTunes as the player. I plan to get some of these on my iPod and see how it fits into life in general – I’m not a fan of people plugging in and tuning out in the office environment, but there are other periods in my day when I have some potential iPod time. I’ll see how I go…..