Evan (you know, one of the people at the oh-neato Odeo) has an interesting blog post about how people have been using a combination of Del.icio.us and their service in order to create an ad-hoc podcast. That’s interesting indeed, and one of the best uses of the “remix” paradigm that the web 2.0 empowers.

The part of the blog post that I find even more interesting, though, is when evan mentions the inumerous possibilities to put the content out there for users to consume. I quote:

For odeo we’ve been debating how to display feeds for the user which allows flexibility, yet also makes sense. It’s easy to generate atom, rss 2, rss 1, opml, oml, pcast, m3u, smil, xspf, asx, etc… but how to present it to the user. So far we’ve been burying these in the sidebar.

Here’s a thought, Evan. All those formats fall basically into two distinct categories: subscriptions (atom, rss, opml, the new pcast) and playlists (mru, pls, asx, etc.). Instead of using all three, why not give the user these two choices (subscribe / listen now) based on his preferences at odeo? It seems to be the most logical thing to do, interaction-wise. Here’s a practical example:

I have a mac, an ipod, but I also listen to a lot of content on my laptop mp3 player. So, Odeo would ask me first, my mp3 player of choice (you know, from the usual list: winamp, windows media player, itunes), and second, how I usually subscribe to podcasts (itunes, a news reader, a podcatcher like ipodder). According to my choices, Odeo would “customize” the “subscribe / listen now” experience by making each button (or link) produce the adequate filetype for my preferences. In my case, that would be a pcast so I could get it into iTunes and from there to my iPod (this on the Subscribe end) and a “standard” .m3u for the “Listen Now”.

Considerations:

What the method I describe above makes odeo transparently accomodate all sorts of users and formats without compromising sidebar space or user frustration levels (something I preach about when consulting on usability). You transparently create 2 options (again, “Subscribe” and “Listen Now” - your mileage may vary) and instantly give users the possibility of using any of their sofware players, news readers/podcatchers, mp3 portable players, etc.