Bloggers reflect on new Yahoo podcast tool
Yahoo joined the ranks of Blinkx and America Online Monday by launching a beta of a new podcast search service. Yahoo Podcasts allows users to search podcasts through keywords, categories or user-generated topic tags. But it also highlights podcasts of note, offers a tutorial to those interesting in podcasting and promotes podcasting as "a realm where anyone and everyone can have a voice and broadcast their opinions and imagination to the world."
While some bloggers reviewed the beta's features, others emphasized the significance of the launch in legitimizing the young medium, one that some predict has a strong and lucrative future.
We're already calling into question Yahoo Podcasts' ranking system, which gives CNET News.com's podcast five stars. Not that the ranking itself isn't warranted--but it was driven by one review from a News.com VP.
Blog community response:
"Yahoo! has jumped into the 21st century with Yahoo! Podcasts. This is great news and takes podcasting one more step towards legitimacy...This is also a first in that Google didn't do it first. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for the Google-cast site to open up?"
--Jurgle.com
"I hope they do a better job of keeping the directory squared away and will not allow the abuse that has been happening in the Apple iTunes Podcast directory. Sites are still listing themselves 20 separate times under the guide of having 20 different categorized shows. I hope we start seeing some reportable stats from them. This will help podcasters in the long run."
--Geek News Central
"I'm ashamed to say that despite loving my iPods (full size, mini and most recently nano) and iTunes and music in general, I don't really know what a podcast is. I suddenly feel old...So I'm off to do some research."
--Scribbled Lines
"Now I'll get to listen to even more poorly produced podcasts put on by people who have no business behind a microphone...Some of the podcasts are pretty good (The ones produced by NPR are generally good), but almost all of the others I've heard I can't stand to listen to for more than a minute or two."
--SoCalChris on Slashdot
"Earlier this year Toyota Motor Sales USA's Lexus division signed a deal to sponsor for 26 weeks the podcasts at KCRW, a public radio station in California. The deal was based on a cost per download of the program. So no more waiting. It's already started. Do you have your podcast marketing strategy ready to go?"
--Spiderbait