Blog pioneer launches podcasting service

Podcasting has become one of the major buzzwords in the music industry in the past year or so. The relatively new concept allows anyone to create a homemade broadcast, meant to be downloaded and heard on MP3 players. Now, a start-up company called Odeo hopes to become your one-stop-shopping destination for all-things podcasting. Odeo hopes to turn a profit through selling podcasting content, as well as advertising, and down the road, software to create podcasts. The New York Times turned a spotlight on Odeo, as the company made its official debut today at the Technology, Entertainment & Design Conference in Monterey, CA. Co-founder Evan Williams, one of the pioneers of weblogging, told the paper that he predicts the popularity curve of podcasting could mirror what has happened with weblogging over the last five year, especially with the growth of the portable MP3 player market. He also told the Times he believes podcasting will co-exist with traditional radio, especially if podcasting becomes much like TiVo, where listeners would listen to a radio broadcast at their own leisure. From the NYT article:

In podcasting, there are already a number of small commercial efforts to create audio programs especially for listening to as mobile downloads. And there are both hardware and software systems that make it possible to convert over-the-air and Internet radio broadcasts for mobile storage and listening on MP3 players. One recent example is Radio Shark, a small device that sells for $70 and enables users of Macintosh computers to automatically record over-the-air radio programs and convert them to MP3 files for later, on-the-go playback.
The enterprising Weblogger Adam Curry, a former MTV host, has created a podcast show called Daily Source Code, in which he plays music and chats about whatever is on his mind. The show, free so far, has several thousand daily listeners, he says.
Last week, Audible.com, which in 1994 pioneered the idea of using the Internet to download audio books and other audio material to personal computers, said that it would soon join the podcasting movement. The company, whose business currently includes distributing popular radio programs like "Car Talk" on a subscription basis over the Internet, now says it intends to make its software and distribution system available to people who want to produce their own podcasts.