Any ideas on implementing podcasting?

Here's my two cents worth...

Perhaps you see "very few" people using aggregators and that the situation needs to get "better" for it to be worthwhile. I would suggest that blogging, based on syndication and aggregation, is a phenomenon that has already had an important impact on the political, technological and social landscape and that extending the ease of textual bloggin to audio content is by definition making things better.

Try out one of the clients (e.g. iPodder) and see how you feel after listening to your favorite show while walking through the park or something. For me, being able to automatically aggregate audio content and have it synchronised to my mp3 player (with playlists and all) makes a huge difference to my quality of life. It allows me to waste less time looking for new content, I'll never miss an episode of my favorite shows, and I can listen to it, when, where and how I want.

Moreover, the fact that these tools are based on RSS and OPML (and soon BitTorrent) make it possible to imagine a whole series of innovative distribution strategies for non-corporate-sponsored audio content.

Sure, from a technological perspective, the whole "Podcasting" thing is merely a series of incremental extensions to what already existed (audio blogs, RSS v2, etc.). But from a users' perspective, it's a whole new ball game. Personally, Podcasting has completely changed my relationship to internet-based audio content. In fact, it has pushed me to finally become a producer of audio content, rather then simply a receiver.

Your question made me think of a beer campaign that has been running here for years. Alexander Kieth's "those who like it - like it a lot"

If, as you claim, 'very few' people are using aggregators, those that do use them use them A LOT. Thank god for the drupal aggregator module - its one of my favorite features, not so much for publication of content, but for my own personal use as all my favorite reads are delivered to my own site every day - and I don't have to rely on some 3rd party solution to do it for me.

Now if all my favorite internet radio shows were delivered to me too... I would be in heaven.

andre

From the Pew Internet & American Life project:

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is.

Life is change.

RSS usage has gone from unmeasurably low to 5% in a year. The term "podcasting" has only been around for a year and ipodder wasn't released until August 2004. But with more than 10 million iPods now in the wild begging to be fed, podcasting is taking off.

This is like the Web in 1994. The potential is obviously huge.