I've been listening to non-commercial programming on my iPod for a few months now, being totally hooked on ITConversations. It's extremely refreshing to have compelling, intelligent content that isn't full of ads and BE THE 9TH CALLER AND GET TICKETS TO AVRIL LAVINE!!! and mindless DJ drivel crap.
Over the weekend, I played around with iPodderX - an RSS aggregator for these "podcasts" - holy crap, there is some awesome stuff out there! iPodderX checks a bunch of feeds, and automagically downloads the audio linked to each - sort of an on-demand radio station aggregator, without all the suck.
My previous "broadcast" listening experience was typically something like this (in the car, since that's the only radio I bother to listen to):
- Turn on car.
- Stab 10 different station presets until something sucks less, or is at least not offensive, or at least provides acceptable background music, or (hopefully) provides some intelligent conversation - occasionally from CBC AM
- More often than not, mutter "Gwah! RADIO SUCKS!" before settling on some mindless inane DJ-infested commercial station that brags "Your station is a STANDARD radio station!" - like that's a good thing
- Put up with that crap for the next 5-10 minutes before repeating from step 2 until reaching our destination.
After getting hooked on ITConversations, Adam Curry's Daily Source Code, and any number of "podcasts", the process is more like:
- press play
- enjoy/think/relax
The main problem with podcasts is that I have a limited amount of time to listen, and there is too much awesome content out there. The exact opposite of commercial radio.
I'm even toying around with the idea of doing a podcast on learning objects etc... Perhaps a job for "The Three Amigos"?