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?

“Podcasting is like cappuccino,” said August Trometer, developer of iPodderX. “Gourmet coffee was around for a long time, but it took Starbucks to put it on the map. Apple is like the Starbucks of Podcasting and advertisers will take us more seriously now.”

Thats a direct quote from a press release by apple about their podcasting effort, that in two days delivered one million podcasts worldwide. I guess this is what happens when you add important value to something that’s ubiquitous like iTunes. Did Apple invent podcasting? Of course they didn’t (even though I can see a lot of people thinking otherwise), but they’re the ones who’ll be bringing the idea to the masses, because the marketing machine behind them is pretty much unbeatable.

This heavy impact has two major consequences I can foresee. First, other podcast oriented services will be seriously affected (Odeo might be one of those, unless they can come up with something that gives them the edge advantage), and second: companies will become aware of the strenght of podcasting - meaning we’ll probably see a lot of new corporate efforts in the area, like we’re seeing with weblogs.

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.

Like many people, I take my iPod everywhere. However, unlike most I’m usually not playing music but podcasts related to technology, computer science, arts or businesses. So yesterday night I thought: “why not get the readers of my blog to tell me what I should listen to, just for kicks?”. So that’s that, and here’s how it goes.

If you have something you think I should be listening to, be that music, spoken word, your own recorded voice with comments and thoughts or anything else that’s audible, upload it somewhere online, bookmark the URL on del.icio.us with the tag “webreakstuff“, and I’ll listen.

Every day (usually I do this several times a day), I’ll sync up my iPod to the content of that feed, and play it whenever I’m outside the house, in my car, running, or trying to fall asleep. I’ll be creating a webpage specifically to comment on what I’ve heard, so you’ll definitely be getting feedback from me, especially if you’re sending me your ideas, thoughts, comments, words of praise, or a job offer to feed your cats and dogs.

Surprise me! Start uploading and tagging. I’ll be listening. Should be fun enough!