The Archaeology Of Podcasting
Mar 11th, 2010 | By James Lewin | Category: Audio Podcasting 
Podcasts are only 5 years old – but podcasting has already gone from being a niche indie tool to being a mainstream communication channel, even for corporations.
Podcast pioneer Dave Winer, who created one of the standards upon which podcasting is based and who helped popularize the technology, has published a torrrent that aggregates podcasts from the early days:
I was doing some research for a blog post and came across this folder of RSS enclosures from late 2004 and early-mid 2005.
These were the months when podcasting was beginning to take root.
I was doing Morning Coffee Notes. Adam Curry was doing Daily Source Code. Together, we were doing the Trade Secrets podcast.
Dave Slusher, Steve Gillmor, IT Conversations, Dawn and Drew, Tony Kahn at WGBH, Engadget.
It occurred to me that this slice of early podcasting might be worth preserving, so turned it into a torrent and have uploaded it.
Podcasting has come a long way in 5 year. But, while podcasting has changed a lot, the key feature of podcasting – that it lets anyone publish audio to the entire world – hasn’t.
Do have any favorites from the early days of podcasting?
Image: mr brown
I’ve been at it almost three years now and feel I got in around the tail end of the beginning, or at least just after it. If you have to mark a splitting point it would be the point where iTunes started listing podcasts, which is about June/July 2005. Although there’s many major podcasts that came about in the boom that followed.
A podcast starting today has a much harder time getting attention since they can’t rely upon the old promotional routes like iTunes and podcast directories that the early podcasters used. They can get listed, but people aren’t really using podcast directories anymore and iTunes os overcrowded.
Wow, I remember those days!
I started Career Opportunities on Sept 24, 2004 and was one of the first folks listed in the podcasting directory along with Daily Source Code, Morning Stories, etc. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Douglas
Wow, Jim!
It’s amazing to think how far we’ve come from those rag-tag days.
* Remember life BEFORE iTunes?
* Trading promos?
* The first PME in Ontario, CA?
Always good to look back to see how far we’ve come! Thanks for the memories.
Ron – remember how much people agonized over whether podcasting would be adopted b a broad audience & whether podcasting could be used to make money?
A podcast starting today has a much harder time getting attention since they can’t rely upon the old promotional routes like iTunes and podcast directories that the early podcasters used.