First, the boring technical stuff
XML based (isn't everything these days?)
Originally designed for Internal Code Maintenance
Primarily Serialized Content
Comes bundled with simplified publishing models (ie. blogs, wikis, mobblogs, etc)
Example code for RSS Podcasting Feed
Simple to Create
Small Files
Platform independent (PC, Mac, iPod, Cell)
Portable (Device Driving Content?)
Multitasking Friendly (Workout, While Driving)
Enhanced Podcasts, i.e. m4b files. Typically AAC audio combined with URL's and Images.
Video is driven by formats supported by mobile devices. Typically it is mpeg-4.
NPR Program doubles online listenership in 4 weeks
List of Universities offering Podcasts of Course Lectures
iPrep offers online lectures and study guides
Adam Curry Signs Deal with Sirius to do "best of podcasts"
Infinity Broadcasting Launches all Podcasting Radio Station
Duke gives all freshmen iPods and year later holds a PodCasting Symposium
Gates says iPod success won't last
Microsoft announces compatability with the iPod in the upcoming Xbox 360
Many RSS readers are being updated to at least understand multimedia enclosures in RSS feeds.
Apple's iTunes has an integrated Podcast Channel Manager.
Fire ANT Video Podcasting Client (Windows and Mac)
Generally, dedicated devices are preferred for live recording. Fewer varibles, easier training.
iPod, Griffin iTalk, Radio Shack Lavalier Microphone
Pogo Products Radio Your Way LX
Edirol R1 -- High Quality 2-Track digital recorder
DVForge XLR USB Adapter and Microphone (either wireless or wired) makes it simple to do
And inexpensive recording software.
More details on equipment are at Wolfcast.ncsu.edu
Art Mobs -- Guided tours of Art Museums created by students
ADVICE - A/V Tecnology and Design Seminars (synchronized Powerpoint slides and audio)
PodGuide -- Rudimentary Enhanced Podcasting tool for Windows and Mac (hint: go through short tutorial)
PodCastAV -- Beta Enhanced Podcast creation tool with a fairly fluid interface
Driven primarily by portable media player capability. Mpeg-4 appears to be moving ahead as dominant standard
Plenty of tools exist for all major platforms, commercial and freeware
Limited Resolution on mobile devices -- Adequate for simple content, or standard resolution broadcast
Storage always a problem (on device and on server)
Audience Expectation -- Audience may tolerate "amateur" but adequate audio, but may shun video that does not meet professional standards
Production -- as a result of audience expectations, and due to the nature of the tools, video is more labor intensive
Incoming Freshmen Survey on Student Ownership of Technology courtesy the College of Agriculture at NCSU
Device |
Number of Responses |
Percentage |
| desktop computer | 155 | 24.11% |
| notebook (laptop) computer | 494 | 76.83% |
| color printer | 515 | 80.09% |
| monochrome printer | 22 | 3.42% |
| PDA /handheld computer | 27 | 4.20% |
| MP3 player (iPod, iRiver, etc.) | 206 | 32.04% |
| cell phone | 600 | 93.31% |
pager |
5 | 0.78% |
digital still camera |
230 | 35.77% |
| digital video camera | 83 | 12.91% |
Wolfcast was built on code from the "Shady Dentist" (Dircaster), modded to not support PHP in writable directories (ask Everette)
Numbered at 18 active feeds (some more active than others)
Utilizes existing resources (no special server, minimal technical support)
Simplifies publication of Podcasting Content. If you have a web browser, you can publish a feed. No reliance on desktop applications or specific skills for publication.
Currently focused on publishing audio content in mp3 format. Examines
Audio only content reduces storage requirements
Inability to do meaningful tagging of RSS feed
No GUI based file management
Restriction to just mp3 is beginning to get in the way due to support for other file formats
No "Web Face" i.e. RSS to HTML aggregator for those with no RSS reader
No Authenication for subscription (are you in my class?)
Generating feeds is not a problem. Storage is, particularly as video is introduced.
If you have space on a server, you can use a desktop tool to generate podcast feeds for you, so you don't have to write code.
Vodcaster is simple, and free, and for the Mac:
http://www.twocanoes.com/vodcaster/
For the Windows Platform, you can use:
http://www.websitediscovery.com/Free-Podcasting-Software.html
This lets you just use dumb web space somewhere (like your www4 or course locker here at NCSU).
I like for-free solutions, here is a way to use blogger.com and feedburner to generate a RSS 2.0 compliant audio feed. This is okay for audio, but if you need video you may want to consider a hosted solution, because of space issues.
http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/Make_Podcast_Blogger.html
Edublogs.org offers 25MB of free space and access to wordpress. so you can use them as well.
Feeddigest and Google's Homepage can turn RSS feeds (including Podcasts) back into HTML
Do you need to restrict access? How about Privacast?
Portable Digital Media Playback devices tied to media providers (Cell Phones, Sony PSP, iTunes/Video iPod)
Dumb Marketing Tie-ins (burger king).
User driven content distribution models that lead to new business models (YouTube, GoogleVideo,Veoh, etc.)
Google's Authors At Google Series
Trio Dies and Comes back as a Broadband Channel
PSP is built to play back network distributed video.
Atom Films and others are taking notice.
Orb lets you broadcast your own recorded content (Windows only)
Garage Cinema Research at Berkeley is pretty cool
MobiTV -- Cellphone backed video content system
Nokia's DVB-H Digital Broadcast Initiative
In the end, it is content that will make it happen.
