Podcasting Meets iTunes - The Next Boost

Steve Jobs has annouced that the upcoming 4.9 release of iTunes will provide support for podcasting. Jobs, speaking at the D3: Everything Digital conference, took a quick jab at Podcasting, framing it as “Wayne’s World-like”, but nonetheless also noted that they planned on having a gated directory for the podcasts.

It’s hard to make out all the facts at the moment, but it “feels” like the podcasting tab will work much like the radio listings. Users can submit their podcast for approval by Apple for inclusion. It only seems logical that iTunes users will be able to add their own podcasts as well. The big question in this arena is whether or not anyone can get listed in this new directory.

If I’m a developer of a “iPodder”, otherwise known as a podcatcher, I’d be shaking in my boots at the moment. If you’re not, give a quick ring to the fine folks at Konfabulator for a more up-to-date example of what could happen.

The flip-side of that conversation, however, is that podcasting is getting closer to reaching millions of people. As many have pointed out, and I largely agree, one of the major stumbling blocks to the adoption of podcasting is the initial download of the iPodder software. Although it seems that large numbers of people still use the web to physically download podcasts, the automation of the process is key. The model we have now is more akin to logging in to your web mail app and then going to the actual server where the message originated.

My next question is simple “Can the medium be easily dismissable once there are millions of aggregators out there?”.