The Podcast Media & OSS

I’ve been thinking about podcasts… dabbling a bit this week. One thing that is pretty darn cool is that some of this phenomenon/trend has roots in good old Open Source Software.

What is a podcast? Folks have been offering definitions. For example, PodcastAlley defines it, Webopedia does as well, and wikipedia has a great entry here:“A podcast is much like an audio magazine subscription: a subscriber receives regular audio programs delivered via the internet, and she or he can listen to them at her or his leisure.”

For example, downloading Audacity is a good first step. Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems, according to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.

Then grab iPodder too at http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php. iPodder, the site informs, “allows you to create your own custom online audio content from the thousands of audio sources on the web. It helps you select and download shows and music and to play whenever you want on your iPod, portable digital media player, or your computer. And it’s all done automatically after you specify which music or shows you want.”

iPodder’s site takes donations but the software comes with an OS license and is based in PYTHON! The donation banner says this:” Donations will be transacted by Sourceforge, which hosts open source projects. Any donation will automatically tip Sourceforge for their service.”

I’m still deciding folks…but I’m happy to see that the possibilities for libraries, librarians — “citizen broadcasters”, if you will — are grounded in Open Source.