Library clips

The other day I finally got round to loading a couple of mp3 files on my mp3 player, how awesome listening to web2.0 talk whilst hanging out the washing, on the train, waiting in lines…I’m not an official all sensory information addict till I start watching vodcasts on my device.

It’s taken me a while to become a podcast listener and I’m addicted, actually I’m frustrated as I only have dial-up, I can only download about 2 or 3 shows a night.

OK, so as a user the first thing I thought was where do I find web 2.0 related mp3 files or podcasts.

The next thing I thought was how do I manage these downloads.

Find
Many of the blogs I follow point to mp3 files all the time, so now I have to go through these blogs to find these files, but how, this search doesn’t work on Google Blog Search:

blogurl:http://www.masternewmedia.com filetype:mp3

Anyone know a way around this…maybe using Altavista audio search?

So my aim is to find audio files and to also find podcasts, here are some I found.

Search engine
Podzinger - searches in media content and also generates a podcast feed,
eg. any new audio/video that contains the word “wiki” will download those episodes/s in the podcast feed that you subscribe to in your Podcatcher or RSS Reader.
When you find episodes you like, you may feel that you could subscribe to the show itself.

So this searches in the audio content, amazing…I wonder if you can get a free transcript, I don’t think so…not for free, but best yet.

Now if this was a social network, you could then search by user tags for shows and episodes…topic searching always cuts through.

Podscope - search in full-text of video/audio, and subscribe to search podcast feed, similar to Podzinger.

Blinkx - like Podscope and Podzinger, search full-text of media, and generates a podcast feed, also play the media, even login to add to your playlist.

Podcast Alley - discover shows (not episodes or media files) by category, users can submit shows and comment and vote, not sure if you can login to save favourite shows, but you can listen to them.

PodcastReady - browse for shows and episodes and listen to them, login to manage items.

Yahoo! podcast search (refine to podcast) - keyword search, this searches in the text of the blog post pointing to the media file, it does not search in the actual audio itself.
eg. wiki

Google mp3 search - this isn’t searching in podcast feeds, this is searching HTML pages.

Also see Geek to Live: Find free music on the web.

There are lots of audio search engine’s and mp3 portals, but like some above it is cleaner to limit these to the podosphere or blogosphere, ie. searching within feeds, and even better when you can search in the audio itself.

del.icio.us filetype mp3 - this will allow you to find mp3 files people have bookmarked…also add a tag to this;
eg. http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mp3+wiki
http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mp3+podcast+blog
See more from the del.icio.us blog.

Technorati examples - Tags, Blog Directory (sorted by authority)

Social Networks
Odeo - Search for shows and episodes, listen to them and heaps of user interaction. Add podcast shows (feeds), but can’t add episodes or media files. Manage your favourite shows and episodes.
Check out show and feeds by user tags check out other users, even create podcasts
Podomatic - similar idea to Odeo.
fireANT - social network for video podcasts
Evoca : Voice comments for your blog - this is an audio snippet social network, each user and tags have podcast feeds.
mefeedia - social network for audio and video podcasts
mobilcastnetwork - social network for audio and video podcasts
[ADDED 23/03/07: blipTV - social network for video podcasts]
[ADDED 23/03/07: iondb.com - social network for audio and video podcasts]
[ADDED 26/03/07: blubrry]
[ADDED 26/03/07: Scouta]
[ADDED 27/03/07: Videobomb, vodpod]

Networks
The Podcast Network
NPR, also OnTheMedia.
Revision3 (video)
PodShow (video)
Personal Life Media (topic based - personal growth)
PodTech (video)
[ADDED 23/03/07: TVTonic (video)]
[ADDED 27/03/07: gigavox, O’Reilly.net, GruntMedia]

Books
podiobooks
audible
Librivox

Live podcasts
BlogTalkRadio

Directory
Podnova (also a Podcatcher)
iPodder (also a Podcatcher)
Podcast.net (search the directory, also by tag)
AllPodcasts
The PodLounge
Podcast Pickle
Podfeed.net
Podcasting Station
Podcasting News (also a blog), also see more blogs about podcasting podcasting tools, podblaze
Idiotvox
Podcast Shuffle
SYO Top Podcasts
[ADDED 23/03/07: Democracy]
[ADDED 26/03/07: PodcasterNews]
[ADDED 27/03/07: Ziepod, Techpodcasts, Internet Archive, The Channel Channel]

See more from the lists below.

Directory List and Gateways
Where to Submit Your Podcasts: Best Podcast Search Engines and Directories - Mini-Guide, Part 1
Podcast Tools
Podcasting Tools, check out the directory.

Reviews
The New, New Podcast Review
podcast-review (outdated)

Delivery
I’ve decided to not subscribe to podcast feeds in a Podcatcher like Podnova (which also has a directory of feeds) or Doppler as I often don’t like every show, I know you don’t have to auto-download, you can pick and choose which episodes to download.

My method is to subscribe to podcast feeds in my RSS Reader, any shows I like I bookmark the actual mp3 files into either del.icio.us or Podchains, I choose Podchains as this is a service like del.icio.us but dedicated to media.

Then I subscribe to my Podchains feed in my Podcatcher (eg. Podnova), this way ideally when I get home all the files I have bookmarked are downloaded. But in reality, because my computer is slow a Podcatcher is just a tease, so I just manually download my latest bookmarks, these are labelled “Unplayed” in Podchains.

I suppose another place where you can save your media files are in a file host like DivShare, and like del.icio.us Playtagger, you can play the file from the service, also if you include the mp3 file in your blog post, a player will be displayed so people can listen to it from within your post.
DivShare has another feature where you can upload mp3 straight into your blog post.
See some other hosts here, including blipTV and OurMedia.

The real advantage of a a file host is that if you record your own media file you can upload it to a file host, which will create your very own web URL for your media file. You can put this URL of your media file into your blog post which will be included in your feed (if your feed is set up to with enclosures).

NOTE: in del.icio.us you bookmark an existing web file, in a file host you actually host the file from your PC, ie. give it a URL, which people could then bookmark in del.icio.us.

UPDATE: MediaMaster is a hosted online music library, once your files are uploaded they cannot be downloaded for copyright reasons, so this probably doesn’t qualify for this post…others are webjay, radioblogclub (download hack), imeem, last.fm, MyStrands, pandora, Slacker, MOG, etc…

Podchains Update
Podchains is now a cross between a file host and a bookmark service
- 400MB of storage (this means you can enable a web URL for media files you have on your PC)
- feed for your account, feed for Played or Unplayed bookmarks, feeds for each tag…I wish they had a section for audio and video, but that’s OK because I’m tagging my audio files with “audio”, which generates a feed.
- a widget
- you can’t play files unlike del.icio.us and many other services
- it’s not quite a social network, when you look at a tag page you are only recommended other files, but you don’t get to see other users or tags.

Here is my Podchains feed

Video
In the directory links you will find some video casts or video blogs (vlogs), but what if you want to download video clips from services that don’t offer downloadable files, eg. YouTube.
Here are some tips, most of them from Digital Inspiration:
The Easiest Way to Save Youtube Videos: Kiss The Address Bar
Extract Still Image Sequences from Video Clips with AVCutty
Download Youtube Videos As iTunes MOV or MP3 Files Directly
When Video Files Won’t Play on Your Computer, Call Video Inspector
Zen Mix Blends Internet Video With Any Picture
Directly Download Youtube Videos with YouRipper
How to Split a Large Video File into Smaller Clips
10 Interesting Things You Can Do with YouTube or Google Videos
How to Convert a Video Podcast to Audio Only
HeyWatch
ZamZar

More
This post is more focused on the listener, but if you are into creating podcasts Portals and KM has a post on some services, also check out the links in the Directory/Gateway section.

Podlinez, a podcast directory with phone numbers next to each entry, just ring a number to listen to the latest podcast from that website on your phone…or enter the podcast URL and it will churn out a phone number.

Fonpods - audio on demand for your mobile phone, more precisely, you join the website and have your own RSS Reader for audio posts or podcasts, but instead of downloading the audio files like a Podcatcher does, you instead ring up and listen to your podcasts (no downloading and you don’t need and mp3 player, all you need is a mobile phone).

Botcasting - automated text-to-voice services - listen to feeds by turning them into podcasts.

mobilize - subscribe to audio feeds on your phone

Download podcasts straight onto your device.
Podcatcher Matrix
MobaTalk : Multimedia blog comments
Textcasting : podcast for text
podcast text
Podcast comments

Podcast is a weird name, it has really got nothing to do with iPods, all you are doing is using an advanced download manager (Podcatcher) to manage your downloads. Then you can listen to them on your PC, or then perhaps drag them to your mobile device.
The great thing about enclosed RSS feeds (Podcasts?) is that you don’t have to keep going to the website to grab the audio file and put it into your download manager, you just subscribe to the feed so the latest media files come to you.
Basically an RSS Reader, but with the additional step of downloading (even automatically) the files in the feed enclosures.

[ADDED 23/03/07:
vlogmap
freevlog]