Thing 19 -- Podcasts

Although I've listened to a couple of podcasts in the past, I'd linked directly to them based on recommendations and had not previously done much searching. Accordingly, I did run a few searches in each of the 5 directories given in the resource section of this Thing.

I found the podcast that I actually listened to in Yahoo Podcasts; it was the 2007 Minnesota Book Awards Finalists program at the Minneapolis Public Library, available here. The podcast to which I subscribed was the NPR Books podcast. I found the latter on Podcast.com.

In terms of which directory I preferred for searching....I like PodcastAlley's location feature, and that you could easily access a list of podcasts by location. Podcast.com seemed very neatly organized with topical folders and subfolders, and the RSS feed option was very accessible and easy to use. I think I would choose Podcast.net as my favorite, though. The layout reminded me of the Librarian's Index to the Internet with topical headings that could be opened up to reveal subheadings. I also thought they had done the most with smart search features, allowing searches to be designated by keyword or title/description or host or episode or location.

As to whether or not this Thing has inspired me to do any podcasting or subscribe to and listen to podcasts....well, I will probably listen to at least a couple of the podcasts that come up in my RSS feeder since I subscribed to them! In the long run, though, listening to podcasts is not how I see myself spending a whole lot of my time--though I will perhaps occasionally search topics of interest to me. While it would be interesting to post podcasts of author visits, I suspect that actually doing so will probably fall a bit farther down the list of all of the things that I could start doing based on everything I'm learning in the 23 Things on a Stick program!