Here’s a free plug-in that will bookmark files played in the Windows Media Player. I haven’t tested it myself. [Source: Random Bytes]

Some have suggested that podcasted MP3s have the ID3 genre tag set to Podcast. Bad idea. Podcasting is no more a genre than is TV or radio. It’s a transmission mechanism: audio files as RSS enclosures. You can do that with music (of all kinds) speech, sound effects, and more. Those are genres. If you want to use a genre to idenfity things like Daily Source Code or Evil Genius Chronicles, you could refer to them as audioblogs, but even then it might be too much of a catch-all. In any case, podcasting is not a genre.

There’s also a lot of confusion about the definition of podcasting. Again, I say it’s no more (or less) than audio files as RSS enclosures. A podcaster is someone who sends audio — any audio — in this way. So what do we call the receiving end — the people who use iPodder, its derivatives, or (heaven forbid) copy the MP3s to their players by hand or listen to them on their computers? Are the listeners of podcasts podcatchers? Okay, I admit that’s a bad name that should die an immediate death, but let’s remember that podcasting is the act of sending, which is quite decoupled from the acts of receiving or listening.

Oh, one more thing. There’s been a lot of talk about the history of podcasting. According to the above definition, the first podcast I can recall was when Dave Winer worked with Christopher Lydon to deliver some of Chris’ interviews as RSS 2.0 enclosures. I immediately copied the idea. Does that make IT Conversations the second podcast? Does anyone even care who was second? 🙂 And of course Steve Gillmor was probably the first to consider the iPod platform, and Adam Curry was first to automate the receiving process all the way to the player.

Phil Windley realized that podcasting “is likely the largest application of the occasionally connected computing model.” He and Curt Allen considered the potential impact in developing nations and remote education.

I’ve been thinking more about the hybrid MP3-player and mobile-phone devices I’m sure we’re about to see on the market. Mobile streaming is a real pain in the ass, particularly over current cellular connections. If there’s a glitch in the connection, you may have to start streaming from the beginning. And what happens when a call arrives just as you’re near the end of a one-hour podcast. Ouch!

But if you podcast (download) to a mobile device, you can just pause the playback and pick it up later. As Phil pointed out, streaming isn’t occasionally connected.

Day 2 of the Mill Valley Film Festival: The Beautiful Washing Machine was, I’m told, the first feature-length film from Malaysia, made in 1998. It’s a slow-paced intentionally surreal picture slightly reminiscent of a David Lynch movie. There’s not quite as much going on as in a Lynch film, however. (That’s right; it’s even slower.) There’s a sense of circular or asynchronous time, plot and character relationships. From the four of us who saw it together, it received three thumbs down and one thumb up (mine), but even then only marginally. I was in the mood for something like this. Tim was bored and Carrie fell asleep.

What have you started, Steve Gillmor? Okay, I’ll go back to the old theme music for The Gillmor Gang. To explain, the original music was by an L.A. band named Tanj. My son is the bass player in addition to his other gigs. I switched to One at a Time by Burnshee Thornside, a Magnatune band because the quality of the Tanj track, Kielbossa, wasn’t very good. Lots of hiss and noise.

Steve said people complained to him about the new music at the Web 2.0 conference, and tonight I got email from a listener who agreed. Alright…I’ll switch back. My son will be both flattered that you like his music and pissed at me for switching in the first place. What kind of a father am I anyway?

Phil offers us a preview of his November column for Utah’s Connect Magazine in which he explains podcasting to the masses.

Last night was opening night at the Mill Valley Film Festival. We’ve cut back this year, with tickets for only 15 films over 11 days. Our choice for the opener was Finding Neverland, directed by Marc Forster, the same guy who did Monster’s Ball. The two films couldn’t be more different, both terrific.

Johnny Depp is superb as British playwright J.M. Barrie, the author of the original Peter Pan, and anyone who knows that story will love this film. It’s a mix of drama, comedy and fantasy with the latter sprinkled lightly into the movie in ways that you gasp. The fantasy disappears as quickly as it appears and the film barely skips a beat.

During his talk after the screening, Forster said that Mirimax gave him the film and even control over the cut because of his success with Monster’s Ball, and except for a slightly awkward ending, the cut is very good.

This film should receive high critical acclaim, and hopefully audiences will take to it as well. Two thumbs up.

The Gnomedex Geeks-Gone-Wild crowd loved this rare and brilliant presentation by Steve Wozniak, a true geek’s geek. His playing started with games and pranks, crystal-set radios, reading Popular Electronics. Then he met Captain Crunch and got into telco-busting Blue Boxes.

Woz wanted to be an HP engineer forever and never thought he’d start a company, but his friend, Steve Jobs, said, “Let’s sell it!” at every opportunity. Good thing he did, and good thing HP turned down Woz’s offer for the rights to build what would become Apple’s first computer. You’ll enjoy this — one of the best from Gnomedex 4.0.

I’m looking for more photos of panels and presenters at Gnomedex 4.0 to compliment the audio archives. If you have photos online or know of someone who does, please send me a URL. Thanks. doug@itconversations.com

An open letter to MP3-player and mobile-phone manufacturers:

Your devices are no longer just for music. We’re using them to listen to longer spoken-word content such as audiobooks and talk-radio programs. Because we can’t always listen to these longer recordings all the way through to the end in one sitting, we need the ability to “bookmark” locations in each file. The iPod supports this, but only for files encoded in an Apple-proprietary format, not MP3s. And most other devices don’t support bookmarks at all.

This should be a function of the player device. It should have nothing to do with file formats, etc.

The availability of a bookmark feature will soon become an important buying-decision criterion.

The Podcasting Community