RSS FeedFor some time, we at Swoosh have been ruminating on the best approach for Swoosh to roll out podcasting features.
Ultimately, podcasters shouldn’t have to pay for bandwidth. And ideally they also shouldn’t have to think too hard about not paying for it.
But the execution of that dream for podcasters wasn’t clear. Should we have podcasters swoosh their enclosures? Should there be a Swooshed RSS feed and a non-Swooshed feed so that users can pick between the two? How do we get users installed? After a user clicks on a link, how do we determine whether they have the swooshed client?. . . there were a million questions . . .and none of the answers seemed to be too compelling
Users just want to get their content. If they get a podcatching application, all the whizbang p2p stuff should come standard. . . just be polite, respectful to the user and give the user control (See our thoughts on Swoosh’s Software Bill of Rights).
Podcasters just want to be podcasters. They want to make compelling content and get it to as many people as possible over the Net. Being a podcaster also means you may not have the dollahs for hefty bandwidth bills. . . this is where P2P comes in. But no podcaster wants to slow the user down with a client install before their users click to watch/listen to their creative works.
Then there are the podcatcher apps. These guys are the technical wizards that build applications so a consumer can aggregate all their content under one roof. They come up with breakthrough user interfaces and are the glue that brings listeners and creators together. All these guys are duking it out trying to convince podcasters to put up their own specialized RSS feed format link that automatically subscribes the user. They need podcasters to put up their links and push users to pick up their clients, but the podcatcher dudes are only just beginning to really cater to the podcaster’s needs (as opposed to the consumers' needs).
So, long story short. . . I think we’ve finally figured out where Red Swoosh fits in the Podcasting Ecosystem.
Here’s the idea:
1) Red Swoosh provides a podcatcher accelerator, essentially an .exe or .dll that podcatchers bundle with their application.
- It can be turned on and off by the user, and has all the transparency and controls of the standalone swoosh client.
- Here is the how-to with all the trimmings for how to “Swoosh your application”
2) Podcasters promote the podcatcher links that ease their bandwidth bills.
- If Swoosh is bundled in all podcatchers, the average podcaster who doesn’t have a huge budget to distribute his video/audio will no longer have to worry about bandwidth bills.
- Before Swoosh is everywhere though, the podcatchers who bundle Swoosh will certainly be favored by and better promoted by the podcasters. For every user with a Swoosh powered podcatcher, the podcaster can breathe a sigh of relief.
- Furthermore, the podcaster won’t need to get users to install anything new or separate because the Swoosh plug-in will already be in the users’ podcatcher. That means listeners/viewers can get at the content immediately without any hoops.
3) More More More and Can you say HiDef??!! When podcasters don’t have to worry about bandwidth anymore, then podcasters can deliver the goods their users really want. . . hi-res, hi-def, high quality, longer clips, more clips, more random stuff (like the vlogger/podcaster equivalent of trackbacks and blog rolls). .. I’m sure fellow Swoosher Mr. Scoble will be happy about that. . .:)
Who’s going to be the first podcatcher to “Swoosh their app?”
Paramagnus, one of our Swoosh developer discussion list members??
We certainly like the guys over at Blip.tv
Heck, why not iTunes? Mr. Jobs, I’ve got an open door policy if you’d like all podcasters to be able to do their thing without ever having to think about bandwidth again. . .
It’s easy to include swoosh’s small .dll/.exe into your podcatcher. Here’s the quick bundling How-to again.
Here’s a link to our developers discussion list and check out our our Podcasting wishlist
Let’s get to it people, we have the power to FREE all vloggers/bloggers/podcasters from the shackles of bandwidth costs.