Just In : Review of I-Tunes 4.9 with Podcasting

The release of ITunes 4.9 (with podcasting) has just come up on my RSS-Reader '1 minute ago' so I thought I'd real time blog my experience of Apple's embrace of Podcasting and the Wayne's World of Internet Radio. Here goes : As usual the installation + re-start runs seamlessly on my IMAC G5. I now boot up I-Tunes.

I'm greeted by exactly the same I-Tunes screen, with the left Nav having the usual Fields : 'Library' 'Artists' 'Store' etc but there is a new one there I notice in small font; 'Podcasting' : Its not that obvious, but even though my Itunes folder is full of podcasts already, I'm excited.

I click on the little text link for podcasts and expect something to come-up but there's nothing, just a blank screen as if its a empty folder which I guess it is. But right down the bottom I just see another little text link : 'Podcast Directory' - This is something I would notice but not my Mom.

I then have to wait a few seconds post click as the service 'accesses the music store', and then finally I am at the screenshots page similar to what has been circulated in the blogosphere. And guess what the PodFather - Adam Curry occupies a dynamic rectangle in top centre nav, of which there are 3, approx 200X100 each, except Mr Closing Address Gnomdex is referred to as the Podfinder, not the Podfather - maybe Puzzo wasnt happy ;) or Steve has some John Sculley like plans for the podcasters.

The rest of the page is kinda odeo meets cdnow, with old-school 1997 display advertising units. The professional podcasters to quote Steve get centre space eg ESPN, Jamie + Danny - whoever they r, and Q-104... the sorta shows which curry took off well in DSC 200 approx 28 mins in ;)

Interesting the right nav has a title called 'Top Podcasts' : The ratings dont look anything like podcastalleys, which everyone begs for (and there are more one click applications developed for than 1-click subscription to podcasts themselves !) The Top 10 goes something like :

1. Inside Mac Radio
2. Itunes New Music Tuesday
3. ESPN Radio
4. Engadget
5. Disney Insider
6. KCRW Bookworm
7. ABC News
8. KCRW Le Show
9. KCRW To The Point
10. KCRW The Treatment

In the top 20 there is also some godcasting (Catholic Insider) some more KCRW, bit of BBC, and Adam Curry's Weblog (curry.com) comes in at 20 (Im assuming people have downloaded his 200th show thru itunes requesting curry.com)

On this major home page (the only one I find with real graphics and text) : No Dawn and Drew from their farm, or Keith and the Girl talking New York Clown parties in the Hamptons, or Nate and Di from their human storage facility they live in, and no PK & J, or high quality shows like Coverville, and others I like such as Bitterman Circle (soundie from Weezer band on world tour) or Reel Reviews (talking Swingers, Raging Bull) or Tech Podcasts (Gnomdex) or Chris Pirillo (how he met Ponzi on Match.com) or Dave Winer's Morning Coffee Notes (about Ron Bloom ;) - for starters.

Steve Jobs wasnt joking when he talked about 'professional' podcasters vs 'amateur' podcasters - Apple seem to be promoting the repurposed radio content over their amateur unemployed siblings, who are actually funny and in the case of Keith and the Girl put out a good hour 5-6 times a week.

Funnily enough, some of the more popular 'amateurs' do get to the 'bottom' of the top of the 'home page', with small buttons kinda below the fold. Podshow rep'd Dawn and Drew for example get a little logo and header under 'Indie Podcasts' - I guess Dawn did meet Kurt Cobain once !!!!

The general look and feel is farely non-interactive and actually makes Odeo's implementation seem very sophisticated in a mainstream way, in that you can easy listen and subscribe, plus read the cutesy logo and headings. Both still make me want to boot up ipodder lemon, and use my own networks and research to find the great new podcasts coming through, as well as updates to my favourites. But I have been staying up late, and not bringing home fish sometimes.

There is also a classic ABC directory : Arts, Entertainment, Blaaagh (i was sick) - Has anyone told Apple about tagging - If Feedtagger, Rojo, Furls, Odeo and of course the master del.icio.us can use tags, cant we see Apple create a mainstream, non-offensive way of offering this to the 1.2m song buyers per day ? When you click on the category eg 'comedy' you get a shortlist of 'comedy' podcasts, in a text/playlist manner which I assume they've ripped from ipodder/podcastalley - overall done in a pretty average to bad way. If you are going to start with the cheesy dynamic graphics, you may as well keep the metaphor as they say. To me its a bit like odeo, build the easy part of something, then try and ship something quickly because your boss told you. (It aint yet the google or yahoo of podcasting ! but it will work)

So when you actually click on the podcast you want to listen to, depending if you are on the front graphic page, or a playlist/directory category, the actual podcast goes into Itunes - There is summary information and interestingly the field 'price' is retained, with a 'FREE' badge next to it - So it will be very easy for one click podcasting ecommerce.

What is interesting is you can 'Free Subscribe' or 'Get Episode' - If I chose Free Subscribe it warns me that it will download the current and all future podcasts of this service. Again give me ipodder and let me choose my shows. If I subscribe to 50 podcasts, which I do, I dont want to download every single episode or my bandwith costs would be crazy and my PC would slow to nothing. Alternatively when I 'get episode' that seems to play the episode, rather than download it directly onto my IPOD for later mobile listening. I cant seem to easily choose here ! I had similar lack of user control with odeo, and result in me not using their Synch solution.

For mainstream Internet users who are comfortable with Itunes, I think they will find this an interesting experiment, but without any real guides as to do what to do, my bet is they will ironically not use the podcasts for the Ipod but rather 95% will just listen to the podcasts in real time, with buffering issues, on their PC. They will get bored and go back to music 85% of them. This isnt podcasting. Very few will click, as we know from web behaviour, past the first page, when the cute graphics end. The need for directive explanatory content (even audio !) would really help people here I think. And as mentioned, the podcasts promoted are 'too professional' for me. I left FM radio for a new type of content and to receive repurposed, limited out of date, non-top rating FM radio within my podcasts mix is the antithesis of what I am looking for.

Dont get me wrong Im all for professional content : Cant wait till record labels and movie studios hand assistants and A-List stars Irivers and say "Record your Life" What I would pay for some MP3 files from Katie Holmes at the moment.

But this will drive the market forward, and the quick shipping means we will quickly see 4.10. 4.11 Itunes etc as they improve. I'm off to download Daily Source Code 201 and Morning Coffee Notes ! through my trusty Ipodder Lemon Open Source Client.