TelePodcasting

I think I've invented something - comments please!  I was playing with PodCasting earlier this week.  PodCasting is RSS with an attachment, in this case an mp3 file.  Rather than read the blogs, you can, if you get everything set up just right, automatically download recorded blogs in the author's own voice directly to your iPod or MP3 player.  If blogging is personal printing press, PodCasting is personal radio broadcasting with TiVo.

Engadget has a tutorial on how to create a podcast.  It assumes the reader has a Mac and that they are willing to use three or four different pieces of software, a sound card, microphone, etc., to make a PodCast.  It's not rocket science, but it is far from easy.  (No offense Engadget, it's a great tutorial; I'm just thinking there could be an alternative that would be easier with only some sacrifice in sound quality.)

What I've come up with is what I'll call "TelePodcasting".  The idea is really, really simple.  To create a PodCast, rather than sitting down in a studio, you simply call in your TelePodcast post using any telephone.  This is the very first ever recorded TelePodcast.  If you clicked on the previous link, you should have heard me talking - if not, maybe your speakers aren't turned on?  The script wasn't very well thought out and I could have spoken clearer, but if I had redone it, then it wouldn't still be the Very First Ever recorded TelePodcast, would it?

The point of PodCasting is not really to listen to the recording directly, but to take the RSS feeds and use them to automatically grab the audio and download them to your iPod or MP3 player.  If you are ready to try that, than this RSS feed should do the trick.

If you haven't encountered PodCasting before, you might be wondering "what's the point?"  Lots of people prefer audio to visual, which is why Books on Tape and Audible are popular.  But there are a lot more uses.  How about politicians delivering their speeches in their own voice to your inbox?  Or State of the Company addresses, or Sales Team Updates - all delivered from any telephone and distributed automatically and instantly.  PodCasting  seems to be growing as fast as blogging and surely a lot of the people would like to have an easier way to update their sites.

I'm not ready to go into how this works exactly, but it is easy to make a post.  You dial a phone number from any telephone, you're prompted to record your message and then magically it appears on the blog. 

I think there is something to this.  I'm not sure if it is a potential product for my company, Gold Systems, or a neat idea or a dumb idea.  What do you think?