Apple took the wraps off iTunes 4.9 yesterday and the big news, of course, is it's built in support for podcasts. So is this the watershed moment we've been waiting for in podcasting? Yes, I agree with the other blogerati and pundits on this one. There are millions of iPod owners who can now subscribe to podcasts painlessly. I think that podcasting has the potential to become more mainstream than blogs, in fact. Reading blogs is a tied to computer affair right now. 
You need a computer, a net connection, and power. Yes, I'm oversimplifying things, but still keep this general. Podcasts, on the other hand, take advantage of the interstitial moments in our lives. Times when radio or music CDs would've been used. In the car, walking, on mass transit, working out. All these times when reading something on screen isn't safe or practical.
So what's next? FeedBurner is continuing to help all podcasters out with improvements to their service—Burning Questions - The Official FeedBurner Weblog—support for Odeo and iTunes 4.9 is coming and it will be a part of the free service. Talking to Rick Klau of FeedBurner at Gnomedex I got a strong feeling that there is more and more cool stuff coming down the pike for bloggers and podcasters. Some, I gather, will be free others not. I think that's fair. Services that employ additional programming, bandwidth, and the like need to have their costs covered. I'm a hard-core FeedBurner users—Rick I'll still take a sponsorship any time ;-)—and I really like the power and data that I get. It's one of my first stops in the morning online.
Now back to the explosion, hopefully, in podcasting. There is a problem, though, will this popularity—bandwidth. Podcasts might be cheap to make, but they are expensive to distribute. I'm extremely lucky that my blog is sponsored by Blogware, otherwise my podcasting would be significantly reduced. 
Even Adam Curry feels the pitch. He's going to start distributing his podcasts in BitTorrent format to ease the pain. I'll probably do the same soon. What about the rest of the world? Yes there is OurMedia.org and others, but still a larger solution is going to be needed. I'm thinking one option is going to have to be advertising. Yes, I would put adverts at the beginning and end of my podcasts. I think there is a real potential business model for an ad network to supply pre-recorded, professionally produced ad files. [Hmm, he thinks to himself, I know a professional voice over person ... hmmm].
Even Adam Curry feels the pitch. He's going to start distributing his podcasts in BitTorrent format to ease the pain. I'll probably do the same soon. What about the rest of the world? Yes there is OurMedia.org and others, but still a larger solution is going to be needed. I'm thinking one option is going to have to be advertising. Yes, I would put adverts at the beginning and end of my podcasts. I think there is a real potential business model for an ad network to supply pre-recorded, professionally produced ad files. [Hmm, he thinks to himself, I know a professional voice over person ... hmmm].Regardless, I for one am looking forward to seeing what iTunes 4.9 brings us. Let the recording begin!
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