Thing 19. Podcasts

As an great lover of the concept of radio in the old-fashion meaning of the word, whereby it is merely a handy device to bring forth a simple audio stream, easily accessible and listenable, and so simple to use that it is virtually trouble-free, I have been finding that these podcasts, as a modern version of the radio, ended up being so much more trouble to get right than I ever imagined...YouTube, and the other video services, which I thought would be more difficult with the higher bandwidth requirements, and video complications, and such, for me were much more friendly and successful to use...

Of course, I am very new at these podcasts, never having used them before, and certainly I never went out of my way to find one to attach to a web site or to a blog...and maybe my lack of experience was the problem here, but also some of these sites I examined via the 23 Things links each had problems to make it harder in my opinion to use effectively...for example, at Educational Podcast Directory which I went to first since it interestingly was put out by educators, ridiculously, had no search function to winnow the selections down to something you actually might want to listen to...and maybe because this was a new thing for educators to do or whatever, there seemed way too many dead links disguised as real podcasts...

Now on the Yahoo Podcast link, on the other hand...everything worked so fast and smooth, and professionally...except their selections were only music clip samples to download for a price!?? Just like Itunes...maybe there was free stuff or talking heads somewhere there, but I couldn't find them...

Podcastalley.com looked promising but you couldn't play anthing without a download program...and not their own special software program; instead they wanted you to go to another screen which listed dozens of choices of different podcast software that required a shot-in-the-dark choice to be made...Which to download? Which was the best? And why? Well, I was too scared to put something unknown on my computer that could mess things up (happened too many times before)..so decided to move on to the next link on the 23 Things list...).

Podcast.com and Podcast.net seemed perfect--great selections and interesting stuff, but I had a very difficult time getting them into my blog reader...when I hit the RSS links, on both programs, they only offered to put links into my Internet Explorer browser RSS reader, nothing to copy for Bloglines,..so I just made a copy of whatever was the address in the browser, did a paste into Bloglines, which accepted it okay, and looked fine, but still didn't seem to read out on Bloglines like the other programs...I get negative messages when I click on the links in Bloglines so I think things are not right...I guess I'll try again later this week to work out the bugs, but right now I'm a little frustrated...

Compare this to YouTube...that was so easy...no download software to choose, no problems linking to my blog, or finding particular type of programs you want, no dead links or blank videos ruining your day...but these podcasts, for some reason, seem more crude, and more amaterish, particualarly at these directories...and not really fully figured out in terms of ease and accessibility for the new user...

Of course, I'm still a rookie here..and I did notice that MPR podcasts worked great...just like the radio...I only wished these other sites were as easy....