It has just occurred to me that I could enhance my simple Python script to read any old OPML link and you can pull down podcast feeds from anywhere and not just Bloglines. This includes the podcast directory over at ipodder.org such as New Podcasts.
Perhaps iPodder can be configured to pull down feeds on an evaluation basis. Create a GUI to browse the directory and subscribe for a single download. There are so many Podcasts up there now that it seems only logical that browsing them would be a good idea. Maybe.
I see that Dave Winer has launched audio.weblogs.com. However, I don't think I would ever willingly subscribe to that feed in it's entirety. There too many Podcasts! Some people might not point iPodder at it for this reason. Rather, they might want to subscribe to the feed just to see the new stuff coming in.
It might be nice if someone wrote a sampler Podcast. It would resemble Dave's site, but it would only have 5 minutes of each podcast. I'm not an mp3 genius, but I think you can download the first n bytes of a mp3 file, save it, and play it back. I think that the format is tolerant of sudden losses of the rest of the file. It would seem easy, then, to create a sample feed in this manner.
Posted by Nick Codignotto at October 21, 2004 08:57 PM | TrackBack