What’s today’s program? Some talk about a pencil-necked Wal-Marter they call the Chicken Boy. A visit to the local porno store. And, as always, her confessions of love for former MTV host Adam Curry. It’s the digital world meets Wayne’s World (literally: They’re in Wayne, Wis.), short audio shows from young marrieds with matching tongue piercings, shows that are delivered right to your MP3 player. Heavy breathing not what you want to hear while walking the dog? Then how about Michael Geoghegan’s Reel Reviews? Every few days the Newport Beach, Calif., insurance wholesaler talks for about 10 minutes about another of his favorite flicks from his basement theater as his wife and kids sleep. Seen lately: The Getaway, The Kid Stays in the Picture and Once Upon a Time in the West. There’s a podcast dedicated to the Seattle Mariners, others about ’70s glitter rock and ’80s hair bands, parody podcasts, poetry podcasts, and, of course, podcasts about podcasts. So what are these little windows into other people’s worlds? Podcasting: The "pod" comes from iPod, Apple’s market leader among digital music players. The "casting" comes from broadcasting, which anyone with an Internet connection and a microphone plugged into a computer can do. And thanks to some clever new software, your computer can now search for these free shows as you sleep, and they’re good to go as soon as you sync your MP3 player with it in the morning. While people have been posting audio diaries or shows on the Internet for years, the technology and talent have combusted this fall in a way that is multiplying the numbers and categories of offerings by the day. Some are the niche programming of radio veterans frustrated by what they can do at work. Curry has used podcasts to talk about his mother’s cancer and his impending move to England — as well as developments in the emerging podcast field and music that’s free of licensing restrictions, which he plays as well. Others are the native works of neophytes such as Dawn Miceli, 28, a metal artist, and her husband, Drew Domkus, 33, a computer designer. Or Will Simpson, an Australian computer programmer, whose Daily Photo is a tell-all about his latest shot. Or Geoghegan, 35, who has 871 DVDs in his basement theater and no one to talk to about them. "Within four to five hours of my first show, I got an e-mail from some guy in Holland," Geoghegan says. "I was sold." How fast is this moving? In mid-October, the word "podcasting" yielded 53,000 hits in the Google search engine. A couple weeks later, the number had nearly tripled. Curry’s software, called iPodder, works this way: Once downloaded, it enables you to subscribe to your choice of Web sites where the audio files are posted. (Several Web sites have already stepped up to list and review various podcasts.) His program retrieves audio files that are linked by a technology called RSS, for Really Simple Syndication. And each time you connect your music player to the computer, the lists are updated. While it all works most seamlessly with Apple’s music player iPod and computer software, those using other devices and programs can podcast and listen to shows, too. Dawn and Drew figure they now have a couple of thousand listeners who have downloaded their 18 shows, so many that their Internet service provider can’t handle the traffic. "We’ve gotten e-mail from people who heard us while riding the subway in Manhattan and driving through the outback in Australia," she said.
Knight Ridder Newspapers