Forward in EMAIL Format for PRINT Web logs Music devices Digital media Microsoft Corp Apple Computer Inc

COMMENTARY -- Thanks to the holidays, it took me a little more than a month to get ZDNet`s first official podcast (download the MP3) out the door. Although your first podcast can, theoretically, be strung together in a day (if you believe the various podcasting recipes on the Internet), my prolonged R&D phase was worthwhile because it forced me to think about the ramifications of podcasting. What does it mean to my job as a journalist (will I get disintermediated?) What is podcasting`s end game -- and what could that end game mean for an industry ridden with angst over software monoculture and what to do about it?

Connecting the dots between the current state of podcasting and Microsoft`s joint announcements with TiVo coming out of CES last week results in a picture worth viewing by any technologist (enterprise, consumer, vendor, and podcaster).

Podcasting is a marriage of the TiVo concept (though TiVo itself is not involved) to Internet-delivered audio. In broadcaster-speak, TiVo facilitates ``time-shifted consumption.`` As with the VCR, broadcasts get recorded and digital video recorders (DVRs) like the TiVo facilitate the consumption of these broadcasts at your convenience. Originally, consumption of time-shifted broadcasts required the DVR. But, in the case of TiVo, technologies like TiVoToGo that promise to burn those broadcasts onto DVDs will mobilize those time-shifted broadcasts. In the context of podcasting, the DVR experience is vastly superior to that of the VCR for two reasons. First, it greatly simplifies the notion of broadcast subscription because you get to pick the specific programs you want to record as opposed to picking a channel and setting the recording start and end times. From the TV Guide in our DVR, my wife simply finds the listing for Desperate Housewives and presses the record button. Second, the way the DVR digitally records the broadcasts onto a hard drive makes the messy business of VCR tapes a thing of the past.

What`s in a name? Why is it called ``Podcasting?`` The first time that Internet-accessible MP3-based broadcasts turned up on the hard drive of a portable MP3 player -- without a middleman like Audible.com -- was with Apple`s iPod. As a recent press release from the WNYC affiliate of cost-conscious National Public Radio put it, ``Distinct from fee-based services like audible.com, podcasts are free and can be saved to iPods (hence, the name) or any other MP3 player.`` WNYC announced that NPR`s On the Media is being made available as a podcast.

It is primarily two technologies that made podcasting possible. First, an AppleScript written by ex-MTV video jockey-cum podcasting poster child Adam Curry whisked an audio file off the Internet and into an iPod. The second was the RSS protocol, which, under the stewardship of Dave Winer, is not only what facilitates the ability to subscribe to a specific podcaster`s program (much the same way you can subscribe to blogs or ZDNet`s news feeds), but also supports the notion of enclosures. As can be seen from one of Winer`s very recent postings, the work of incorporating enclosures into RSS feeds is far from over.

With a blog authoring platform like Userland`s Radio that gives users a way to attach an audio file`s URI to a blog entry as though it were an enclosure, the resulting RSS feed goes out with an enclosure field that can be parsed by an enclosure-aware RSS client like iPodder (an open-source successor to Curry`s AppleScript that`s the result of a collaboration between Winer and Curry). The audio file itself is not part of the feed. Only its URI is. What this means for the producers of podcasts is that they still must find a Web accessible host like the storage locker that AOL is testing to store their audio files -- which can be sizeable. Our first podcast was 22.6 MB and Curry`s files routinely run in the 15- to 20MB range. As an enclosure-aware client, iPodder knows exactly what to do when it encounters the URI to an audio file in a blog entry`s enclosure field. As an aside, enclosure-aware blog hosts (like Userland`s Radio) will also know what to do with the enclosure. As can be seen from ZDNet`s podcast test center, any blog entry that has an audio file enclosure with it also gets an icon (resembling a bullhorn) that is linked directly to the audio file.

Now that TiVo-like time-shifted consumption of the ``audio Web`` is built, will content authors and consumers come? They`re already here. Hundreds if not thousands of podcasters are producing content and, as exemplified by WNYC`s announcement, more are coming on-line every day. According to Release 1.0 (a CNET Networks sister outfit to ZDNet), Googling the term ``podcast`` yielded 300 search results in October 2004. Already, in early January 2005, that number is up to 1 million (having climbed by 150,000 results in just one week). By all accounts, the podosphere appears destined for a presence in digirati culture comparable to the blogosphere.

But, as also indicated by WNYC`s press release, despite the art still being referred to as podcasting, Apple`s iPod is no longer the only last stop for the circuitous route that a podcast travels before it gets consumed. The software has evolved to the point that podcasts are easily consumed by other MP3 players as well, and through other synchronization conduits such as Windows Media Player.

Such evolution was only natural. (Microsoft did nothing to make that happen.) However, Apple failed to seize the natural advantage that was gifted to it by Adam Curry when his first AppleScript changed the course of the audio Web. Had I been Steve Jobs, I would have marshaled every engineer needed to produce the GarageBand equivalent of a podcast authoring tool for the Mac and to turn the iPod into the ultimate podcast endpoint. Not only would I make them capable of reading the Outline Processor Markup Language-based (OPML) outlines that podcasters are using to describe the content (known as ``shownotes``) within their podcasts (for example, this outline for one of Adam Curry`s podcasts) , but I`d also make them capable of managing podcast subscriptions without the need for a middleman like iPodder. At the very least, I`d fund the open source iPodder project, try to take on Dave Winer and Adam Curry as consultants (not that they`d accept), and build all of the functionality of iPodder into iTunes (turning iTunes into an enclosure-aware RSS client).

Recipes for creating podcasts with the Mac and Windows get the job done, but they basically involve a handful of technologies that must be alligator-clipped together.

Not only doesn`t Apple seem interested in greasing the wheels of the podosphere, it doesn`t appear interested in what big content publishers like ZDNet would like to see happen. So far, I`ve received no response from Apple to an e-mail inquiry regarding ideas for how podcast authoring and consumption (on the Mac platforms) could be vastly improved.

For example, not only am I imagining MP3 players that, in synch with the podcast, display text (or JPG-based slides in the case of the iPod Photo) that are driven by an OPML-based outline, I`m also imagining still images, animation, and video. As a content publisher looking to create polished podcasts, ZDNet would prefer to have the tools sooner rather than later. I know that I`m not alone in this thinking. On the heels of blogging, millions of content authors (traditional media, individuals, businesses, etc.) will be publishing such multimedia content, which raises some important questions about the future of computing and technology. That`s because the de facto standard multimedia file format could easily become the next technology monoculture.

As evidenced by the ease with which podcasters are publishing their work -- mostly in the lowest common denominator of the MP3 audio format -- the barrier to time-shifted audiocasting is relatively low. About the only question that the proliferation of large audio files across the Internet raises is how existing infrastructures will bear a traffic load that podcasting is sure to increase exponentially.

As a potential publisher of time-shifted ``multimedia-casts,`` I have no clue what the most common denominator file format will be. Had Apple been on its toes on both the authoring tool and consumption device fronts, the company could have given QuickTime first mover advantage, perhaps bridging the gap by fudging some time-synched slide show capability with its iPod Photo. But Apple`s slow reaction has left the door wide open for Microsoft`s Windows Media format. The ``open`` movement could try to save the day by pulling together something Linux-based that works with MPEG, but my sense is that the vultures, seeing big dollar signs, will be circling this ecosystem on short order.

On first blush, Microsoft doesn`t appear to be circling. In fact, considering that the majority of Windows Media-based video playback devices don`t have hard drives (all those iPaqs, for example), Redmond doesn`t appear to be in a position to dive in for the kill. But, the company`s TiVo announcement at CES changed that in a heartbeat. A joint press release issued by Microsoft, TiVo, and, ironically, Adam Curry`s former employer MTV makes clear that it`s only a matter of time before Microsoft`s Mobile Windows Media Player is married to the sort of storage that puts it at the forefront of targets for time-shifted multimedia-casts. Between this announcement and the ability to receive podcasts on non-iPod devices, is it time to strike the ``pod`` from ``podcasting?``

Perhaps for nostalgic reasons, the name will stick. But if it doesn`t, what might the new name be? WMPcasting? Sounds a bit wimpy. Paqcasting (after HP`s iPaq)? If I could have my way, it would be FlashCasting. That`s because I`d much rather publish my multimedia content in Macromedia`s Flash technology than anything else. Flash has it all -- text, audio, animation, still images, video -- and it`s interactive. I sent an e-mail to Macromedia (which has a Flash client for PocketPC), but got the same dose of silence that Apple delivered.

My bet? Windows Media will eventually get a leg up in the world of time-shifted multimedia-casting. That hunch is compounded by the fact that if we podcast consumers were hoping for a way to eliminate PCs and Macs as a part of the podcast consumption formula (they`re the conduit through which the audio files currently flow onto MP3 players), then here too Microsoft has an advantage. Why? We`re only a heartbeat away from Windows Media Player-based phones (for example, Robert Scoble`s ``Scoble Phone``) with hard drives and high bandwidth 3G wireless technology that enables the sort of direct connections needed to gather the content without the need for a PC or Mac.

With podcasting on track to follow in blogging`s footsteps, multimedia-casting won`t be far behind --especially since the work on RSS doesn`t have to change to support different types of enclosures. To the extent that the publishers of those multimedia casts want to reach the biggest target, they may also end up stretching the Microsoft monoculture beyond the desktop into everything that`s digital, including but not limited to handhelds, cameras, phones (OK, those are converging anyway), rights management, and networks.

For a fleeting moment, Apple has an opportunity -- as does Sun, perhaps (because of the prevalence of Java in so many phones) -- to balance Microsoft`s movements. But, as of CES, that time appears to be running out.