Podcasting

Whoever said, "Nostalgia aint what it used to be" was right. Why is it that listening to a podcast reminds me of listening to the radio? In the "old days" before television, Mom, Dad, little Susie, and little Tommy would gather around after supper and listen with rapt attention to their favorite programs, like "Dragnet", or "Buck Rogers". Now, through the miracle of 21st century technology, we can......hey, wait a minute! I plunked down a whole boat-load of money for a computer, wireless connection, and pay a monthly cable bill in order to listen to "streaming audio"?

Yes, indeed I did. And once I got over the future-shock, and even later, found an actual site I was interested in subscribing to, I warmed up quite nicely to the whole concept. But a whole lot of aggravation occurred before the pleasant end result:

1. Podcast.net would not load.
2. Podcastalley.com wanted me to download an "aggregator" before subscribing to a feed. Having been told many times not to download anything on library computers, I found it scary to even contemplate completing this step.
3. Yahoo wanted money.
4. I went home and tried it all again from my home computer.
5. Nothing in particular struck me as very appealing, and I yawned alot.

Earlier, a coworker had suggested I look on the BBC site, because she knew they had podcasts there. I found that, and, oh happy day, they even had a link which enabled me to grab their RSS feed and subscribe to a podcast without having to deal with the whole [to my] mind-boggling aggregator issue. I subscribed to "Digital Planet", which addresses how digital technology affects our lives. (Note to self: download binary vocabulary and jargon comprehension aggregator to increase chances of actually understanding aforementioned podcasts.) I next started my quest for library-related audio. I googled The Philadelphia Free Library's webpage (why not start with THE first public library?), and found their podcast for an "Author Event Series", complete with another RSS link. I added that to my bloglines account as well. I selected a lecture by Dr. Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion". His talk was quite lengthy, over an hour, but since I was at home, I happily played mahjong online while listening to him read excerpts and field questions from the audience.

Audience participation is where podcasting has it all over little Susie's radio. Aggregate THAT.