Carrying the Lantern

So here's where the Miami trip led; to the Podshow.

For regular readers & listeners to Dave Winer &Adam Curry, you know that no matter what the MSM (main stream media) says, the two of them were both critical to the creation of podcasting. Apparently when they met in Miami back in early January this year, the main topic of discussion / brainstorming was where they wanted to go with podcasting. Others were involved, but Dave and Adam did not agree on the future and have parted ways for the moment. Maybe someday ..., but I digress.

I've been an avid listener to podcasts since the beginning...OK there's no consensus on when that was. I've been listening since Dave Winer covered the DNC in the summer of 2004 and began his MCN & since Adam started his DSC on Friday the 13th! (August 2004). As I've said before to Adam (see minute 23:10 in his DSC back on Oct 21), I'm along for the ride as podcasting evolves.

IMHO Adam views podcasting as he viewed the web back in the mid 90's when he started On Ramp; it's a great business opportunity. Fast forward to March 2005 and Podshow.com.

Clear to me now that Adam and his partners will try in earnest to make 2005 the Year of the Podca$t. The point of contention seems to be whether the commercialization of podcasting at this early stage will help or hurt its growth. Can ventures like the Podshow make money for some, while still nurturing (not stifling) the free spirits that permeate the genre today?

To paraphrase something Steve Gillmor might say, can commercialization and free spirits cohabitate the podcasting space?

Speaking of Podcasting, Music & Me, came across this tidbit in Rob Pegoraro's Sunday tech column in The Washington Post about BitTorrent (free registration required). Most have heard about Bram Cohen's great invention for downloading large files. But some products are using BitTorrent in the bowls of their programs. And here's the music angle & a podcast idea. One such application mentioned by Rob P. available for the Mac is Goombah.

As the name implies, it's an advisor that works in the background to analyze your iTunes metadata and recommend other music you might enjoy. It does this by comparing your listening preferences to 'Goombah Neighbors'; other's whom have installed the Goombah client and let it look at (and upload) their metadata. No personal info is shared - point is not who else is listening to similar music, but what is similar that you don't yet have in iTunes. When you register (free) you can leave an e-mail address that will be displayed to others, if you want.

When you ctrl-click on a 'neighbor's album, Goombah drops down a pick list of about six on-line stores that carry that album/song. This is the heart of their business model.

Here's a new idea for the folks at Goombah (and the iPodder (generic) community). Why not include podcasts?

I like Podcast Alley as much as the next listener. But as the number of podcasts available has grown, we might be getting to a point where this Goombah Neighborhood approach would make sense for podcasts.

And in both the music case and podcast instance, I wish Goombah would provide a way to sort not just by Neighbors, but by an album / podcast of my choosing. It would show me, for my selection, what others with the same album / podcast are listening to of the same genre.

In any case, an interesting application.