Podcasts On The Waters

I looked over 7 podcast aggregating/searching sites. They begin to all look alike after awhile, but there are distinct differences, or at least categories. Podscope is a new approach, in which the search for a podcast searches the actual transcripts of podcasts. I found this not to be very helpful, since my searches led me to podcasts that weren't about the topic I was interested; they just had somebody mention that word in passing. Too broad, unless you're looking for a very specific sentence of name or something like that. Not good for general topics.

Podcast.net and Podcast directory seem similar to each other, though the latter is a little more graphically interesting and seems to have more categories. Some of the sites I visited seemed to be for searching the web generally, while others highlighted the podcasts that they had brought under their umbrella. In the latter case, the emphasis is on selecting a topic or general category (e.g., technology, politics, comedy), seeing what's being offered, and selecting something to listen to/download.

Juice and Yahoo! emphasize their ability to deliver subscribed feeds automatically. You subscribe to a series (a radio show or podcast show, for example, or something from NPR that is a series) and each succeeding episode is "delivered" to your computer automatically when it is available. If the series is already complete and all episodes recorded, you'll get the whole ball of wax.

I think I like podcasts, as long as I can separate the wheat from the chaff. I've listened to Buddhist dharma talks (lessons on how to improve different aspects of one's Buddhist practice), syndicated radio shows (Al Franken), music, etc. The real benefit comes when you have an mp3 player. I never ever want to sit in front of my computer and listen to something for 45 minutes, nor do I want to sit with the hot laptop on my lap doing the same. The mp3 player allows me to take this stuff anywhere--which is a great deal (it's generally free once you have the player), given the fact that I can't get any radio reception where I live and do not want to subcribe to satellite radio.