I had dabbled in audio podcasts in the past with my iPod. Unfortunately, I found that I had neither the time nor the inclination to keep up with many of the podcasts I was interested in. As a result, I had not checked out the podcast section of the iTunes store in some time. Since then, how things have changed. While I was aware at how popular podcasting had become, I was not aware of the extent of content available. IThere are a plethera of not only audio but video podcasts - some of the quite good.
With there large screens and video resolutions, the iPhone and iPod Touch just scream out for video content. But, you can only buy so many TV episodes and movies from the iTunes store. Apple's YouTube application tries to help fill that void, but I find YouTube so full of junk that its near worthless (not to mention the fact that much of the video available on YouTube looks horrible). Enter the Video PodCast. There are some real gems available with excellent production and content. The best part - most are free.
In the past week, I've looked at cooking podcasts (something that really shines in a video as you can watch the recipe being made), the Philadelphia Eagles week in review (26 minutes of video reviewing the Eagles week and there are similar podcasts for each NFL team), National Geographic Video Shorts (sharks, nature, history), The Discovery Channel Video PodCast (additional content from the Discovery Channel Shows) and many others ( network news shows, comedy podcasts network TV shows, newspapers, tech magazines and websites - just a large variety of content is available).
To give you an idea of what's available, check out these links:
VideoPodCast.tv Directory
PodCast Alley - Video PodCast Section
PodCasting News - Video PodCasts
Podfeed - Video PodCast Reviews
and, of course, the PodCast section of the iTunes store. It is well worth the visit.
The BBC I think shows the potential future of podcasting. Up until now, you had to download a podcast to your computer and sync it up with your iPod. With the iPhone and iPod Touch, that's not a requirement any longer. The BBC Podcast directory allows you to use Safari to select a BBC podcast and stream it right from WiFi or the Edge network. While the BBC podcasts are audio only, I expect we will see many video podcasts go this route (as could TV shows and even movies - given enough bandwidth).
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