July 27, 2006

iTunes Podcast Directory Keeps Getting Better

I have to hand it to Apple. They’ve really nailed it when it comes to promoting podcasting. Back when they launched their podcast directory over a year ago, I remember it being a sort of free for all and you couldn’t find much of anything outside of what they featured and everyone was struggling to get on iTunes and their images weren’t showing up right and going into the categories you’d just get overwhelmed with this never ending laundry list of podcasts.

Well Apple has come a long way since then. The ability to subscribe to and listen to podcasts through the iTunes application and then to transfer them to your iPod is flawless. They’ve nailed video casting with the ability to stream right in the application or transfer to a video iPod, and they’ve added the ability to make enhanced podcasts with chapter marks, inserted images, text, and hyperlinks. Every podcast you download is an MPEG-4 file that goes to the Podcast section of your iPod and each file is bookmarkable so you never lose your place.

They’ve grouped together all the big podcasters such as NPR and all their affiliates making those podcasts easy to browse. And now they’ve added a new section of categories and subcategories making it much easier to find podcasts in your areas of interest, complete with listings of new podcasts, featured ones, and the top 100 podcasts in every category and subcategory. And let me not forget that they’ve got good listener reviews along with excellent “Listeners who subscribed to this also subscribed to this” podcast suggestions.

Now for a few things I think iTunes can improve on with their directory. First off I still think their search is weak. It’s better than it used to be, particularly when you do a broad search like “wine” and you get a nice set of relevant results up top with images. Search anything more obscure though and you’re bound to pull up no results or a result that seems totally off base. It doesn’t even seem like they’re bringing the text in the RSS feeds to bear on the results, much less converting the audio of podcast episodes to text and allowing people to search the audio like our good friends at Podzinger have done for our podcast directory.

Another thing I don’t like is that they don’t allow you to stream podcasts in their entirety. I have to download it and then find it in my ever growing list of podcasts I’ve downloaded or subscribed to in iTunes. I guess it’s a concern that streaming whole podcasts might suck too much bandwidth from podcasters and make them mad so I sort of understand.

So Apple’s almost there with the ultimate podcasting player/catcher/directory. The only problem facing podcasting now is that I believe it’s reaching a glut. So many seemingly interesting podcasts, so little time. That’s why at LearnOutLoud.com we’ll keep devoting ourselves to seeking out only the best podcasts that you can learn from. We don’t want to overwhelm you with information, we want you to learn!