There seems to be some hubbub around the concept of a ‘community podcast directory’ and in fact it is one of the core reasons we have built (and continue to build) Podcast.com in the way we have – forming a solid content data foundation, with easy tools – then slapping that data into a great UI, for the web, mobiles and desktop. And btw with a simple neutral URL to find the good stuff…;)
‘Community Directories’ are exactly what you will have available at Podcast.com, in open OPML and RSS for you to consume and manipulate, using easy tools we are building here for you.
Soon, you will be able to log in to Podcast.com, create an account – get a super hot URL for your podcast directory and fill her up! In fact the other day in a matter of minutes we pulled together Canada.Podcast.com in an OPML file for easy consumption and findability of all Canadian podcasts.

The call came from http://www.rogic.com/canadapodcasts/ who was maintaining the node for the old community directory that has been abandoned – we fixed up the OPML to comply with the spec via our toolset and voila Canadian podcasts are cranking again. We left the custom tags in there. You can find it here :

http://podcast.com/opml/canada_fixed.opml
We have also been testing out various nodes – BBC.Podcast.com – Worldcup.Podcast.com – CNN.Podcast.com – NPR.Podcast.com
The power of OPML inclusion will make it very easy to connect many different users’ podcast directories together to form an infinite growth of trees of directories, mashed up any way you like.

So the ‘root’ of this directory is in place….come on in and curate!

In an article on MediaPost by Wendy Davis she reports that “Nielsen/NetRatings research is showing more than 9.2 million Web users, or 6.6 percent of U.S. adult Web users, have downloaded an audio podcast in the last 30 days, compared to 6.7 million users (4.8 percent) who published blogs in that time.”

mmmmm…..curious comparison – as my Gramother would say to me “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” Apples and oranges I would say.

Nielson goes on……

“They also have reported that around 5.6 million online adults (4 percent) have downloaded a video podcast in the last 30 days”.”Podcast downloaders tend to be younger than the online population at large. Web users between the ages 18 and 24 are 72 percent more likely than the average Web user to listen to audio podcasts and 47 percent more likely to view video podcasts. Users older than 45 were less likely than average to listen or view podcasts.”
mmmm….alright that’s interesting stuff – this certainly adds credence to our thought that people are very comfortable with ‘unchunked’ content in any form and want to be their own ‘smart reconstructors’ and interact with media on their terms. – see the article here.

It’s a nice headline though…..remember these are the folks that brought you The Nielson Box…….what a way to arbritrate visual thought….not. Glad we are working on smarter applications here @ Podcast.com

Shhh we are quietly * LIVE * Great job team!

not a Pavarotti podcast mind you…..but a quick explanation of what we are trying to achieve @ Pcom

Robyn Tippins of Sleepyblogger and The Podcast Roundtable compares and contrasts Podcast.com and Podshow. Once our doors are open the difference will be very obvious. The key point to remember here is that we are both driving the democratization of media and the better we do at bringing about that change the more listeners ( and viewers will become engaged. Personally I co-founded this service because I lost complete interest in the Mainstream Media. It is broken and needs to be fixed and that’s what entrepreneurs with passion do…..solve problems for people and fix things.

let’s upload that now……sweet….it’s fun building communities to change the world…;)