Carrying the Lantern

Bill R.: So in addition to Adam Curry, here's another good input for Steve Jobs.

Some thoughts on the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory Implementation.

Since the Apple's announcement I have been thinking about how they may implement their podcast directory listings in iTunes, lets consider a couple of points.

The current Podcatchers are relative easy to use, that is if you know what show you are looking for. But the vast majority of podcatcher applications have done nothing but copy the ipodder.org directory which is relatively well sorted. But lets face the facts, it's just a list there are no really good show descriptions in the majority of Podcatchers. This makes it difficult for new listeners to find shows that they may be interested in or even be able to tell what shows are about.

Some of the podcatcher applications actually index each sites RSS feed, and weblog description. In trying to use that description field to improve my sites description but I have found some podcatchers applications break if you enter more than a couple of lines worth of description that goes into your RSS feed.

I am going to assume Apple is going to use those descriptions to populate their listings, as there is no other current mechanism except for editing the thousands of shows by hand. All of you developing podcatchers need first of all, to make sure that your software can read extended entries that some of us would like to put in those descriptions fields. I and others would like to put the equivalent of 2-3 lines of text to describe our shows better, but don’t want to loose subscribers when we break your application by putting in extended entries. In addition those of you that are creating or managing podcast directories could be reading these description and importing them to your website listings. If you did this and sweep the directory listings every few days you would see podcasters get their act together, and enter very concise descriptions.

My next point is we could also decide on some way to give those building directories a starting point to know where to put each of our shows when categorizing new directories so if Apple is looking to clean up the directory listings they could do so easier. This could be in the way of keywords pre-faced by a trigger word. My thought was something like this to put at the end of the description entry "category: Technology|News" The RSS experts would be better to address this and input some ideas.

Apple can only work from what is already created, or set their own standard! OPML is great for plain jane directory listings, but as podcasters and developers we need to have clear communications to Apple saying, ok we know you are building a directory for iTunes but we want to make sure we are all on the same page in extracting show descriptions. As a community if we all say ok this is going to be the standard and on podcatcher application we will read those descriptions and include them in the listings this would be a great coup for the listeners. We also need to set a limit on those descriptions to 300 words or something similar so as not to allow people to abuse the description listings by putting reams of data in their.

I am assuming that Apple is talking to Dave Winer, and we know they are talking to Adam, but I would hope that they would reach out to the community and talk to some of the podcasters and the podcatcher developers. Adam said it was like developers, and users partying together when he met with Apple, and I say that is quite a stretch. If you listened to the Gillmor gang, Adam talked about the Apple team being diverse which you would expect. I respect what Adam has to say, but he is not the only person in the podcasting community that should have some input. If Apple wants to make sure that their implementation is right, then they are going to have to NDA a few more people, tell the community who they are and let us flow some constructive ideas to them so they can relay that to Apple.

Seeing that Apple is not currently doing that here is my recommendation. Each podcatcher team you need to get you acts together immediately, and write a letter to Apple, and lay out anything that you have on your mind in a constructive way. Personally I am going to put together a letter to submit to Apple via registered mail to Steve Jobs, on my thoughts on their implementation it may be intercepted by a staffer but I am going to try and at least send something formal to them.

I can only speculate what Apple is doing, and I can only speculate on their implementation. I am happy Adam got to make some comments to them. But his voice is not the only voice, and there are a lot of great developers out their doing great work.

It's like this, a Tidal wave that is already 5 feet high is 50 some days away, and when that Tidal wave hits we will have 30 million people automatically dialed into the podcasting community. That means more listeners, more content producers etc.

That being said we always have to keep the listeners in mind first, and foremost no mater what. THIS IS ESSENTIAL make it easy for the listener to find and decide which shows to listen to in a organized and well laid out manner, and they will come.

Todd...

- Posted by William A. Riski - 8:49:39 PM - comment []

The latest Gillmor Gang is up. Here's the feed.

It was a fun show to do, and great to have it back.

- Posted by William A. Riski - 8:48:35 PM - comment []