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.

Yesterday at the O’Reilly Mac Dev Center, Richard Koman published an interview with Evan Williams (you know, the Odeo fellow). Considering I’ve been talking about podcasting and specifically Odeo’s approach to the business side of it, I was quite interested in seeing what Evan had to say about their business model for podcasts - mainly because, as I’ve said before, competition is going to be stiff.

Now, after reading the interview, I’m still trying to get to conclusions and predictions about if it’s going to work out for them or not. Evan talks a bit about their business model and he mentions 3 key points: podcast show hosting, premium content and targetted ads on podcast shows. Here’s my view on those:

1st: Show hosting is one of those businesses where you can never be too sure of how (and if) it’s actually going to work, mainly because hosting has been around for years. A new solution is going to be exactly that: just a new solution. Even if advertised or marketed as hosting for podcast specific material, I’m not sure if it has the ability to lift off on its own.

2nd: Premium content may work but we’re either getting audible.com-quality material or the competition is going to be hard enough to disencourage trying. I can see some options for premium audio content (like targetted conference recordings - you heard it here first -, or really good interview series) but I’m not sure. Evan will have to play the marketing game real well to convince me they’re better than the competition.

3rd: Advertising in podcasts. I remember when I first noticed Noah Glass buying podads.com (I noticed because I was thinking about that service too) that this might actually be the main revenue model for Odeo and Odeo-like services, and apparently I wasn’t wrong. Creating a solution that gets advertisers and content-creators together does give Odeo the edge over competition if they pull it off. That’s probably what I’d be interested in too, if acquiring a company like Odeo - now that the rest of their feature-set is not entirely unique. Adsense-like services for podcasts may be the key.

Now, there’s something that’s really missing in Odeo and that they haven’t even mentioned anywhere yet (which astonishes me to be honest, in the time for web 2.0), which is how developers may explore and extend their services. I’ve said before that services are the key to the web 2.0 and Odeo’s not exploring that field all too well yet. That’s exactly what made Flickr so successful. Am I missing something here?

Wow. I’ve discussed iTunes versus other podcasting services like Odeo before, and at the time I mentioned how any service based on the podcasting business model would have to launch before iTunes in order to get the necessary momentum to survive with such a big competitor.

Boy, was I right on the mark. I’ve finished upgrading to iTunes 4.9 and the new 3.1 software for my 4G iPod, and now I know why Steve Jobs was excited. He was excited not because that’s his way of marketing his ideas, but because he was on to something special. At the WWDC, people saw what he was talking about, but didn’t enjoy the experience themselves, and that makes a lot of difference.

iTunes 4.9 does in fact “just work”. I’ve been browsing the music store (which, unlike most other ipod users, I visited only once or twice before) to check out how they’re doing the podcasting thing, and I’m quite amazed. On a first look, it is an extremely powerful and well designed experience. And the way it works and integrates with the iPod itself is icing on the cake, something other companies will have to try harder to acomplish.

Here’s a few screenshots for those who haven’t seen it yet:

This first one is how the Music Store podcast section looks like. Slick indeed. I like how this integrates so well with the apple look, something that is important to me and many others.

And this is how a show page looks like. On top, you can see a picture related to the show as well as a description for it. On the bottom pane, you’re able to download each particular episode on its own. Pretty standard behaviour.

So this new podcasting service built into iTunes works. I have some concerns about it, like what kind of podcasts will be accepted into the directory (I’ve seen the link to adding a podcast, but haven’t done it yet). On the other hand, for most people with regular music and podcasting tastes, this will work just fine.

For other businesses - and particularly Odeo, which I’ve grown to be very fond of and have mentioned quite a lot in this blog - this may mean trouble. Competing against something as ubiquitous as iTunes is extremely hard, if you don’t push the envelope. Odeo Studio will allow users to create their own podcasts, but until that’s out there and working, I don’t see bright times ahead. I hope I’m wrong, though.

Will I stop using odeo? Probably not, because I like the social aspect of being able to comment shows. However, if that discussion as a social object isn’t able to keep the users on the service, something needs to be done.

If you’ve seen my extensive odeo review a few days ago, you were probably waiting for this moment. Odeo is starting to roll out invitations for the system to people who signed up for the mailing list, so if you did you’ll probably get yours soon.

Its nice to see new feeds being added, and what people have been listening to. Seems like my old favorite ITconversations is the most popular channel right now - which is no real surprise. It’ll be nice to keep up with the trends of the podcast listening market. Congratulations to the Evans, Noah and the rest of the odeo gang for the launch. Great job.

On a related note and as I mention on a post at Evan Plaths weblog, I’ve been thinking about ways to extend and use Odeo functionality to other applications if they release a web-service API for developers. There’s at least a couple of applications I can think off the top of my head that would be great to see developed.

Plus, everybody knows the trick to survival in the web2.0 is services, like I’ve mentioned several times before on this blog.