iTunes, Podcasting, and RSSRadio
The latest version of iTunes (v4.9) is out, and includes the much talked about podcasting support. For anyone with an iPod, it's certainly worth taking a look at. I spent a few minutes with it, but since I use a SanDisk MP3 player, it doesn't do me much good (iTunes only syncs with iPods).
Apple's response to a phenomenon that didn't even exist a year ago speaks volumes toward the company's focus on the customer. Given some of their recent lawsuits, though, I half expected them to start suing everybody over the "podcasting" name since it includes "pod" in it. By embracing it, though, they have thankfully closed that door.
My choice of podcatching client these days is RSSRadio, and I use Windows Media Player 10 to manage playlists and sync with my SanDisk. RSSRadio was the only client out there that would do everything I needed it to do in order to automate the process of checking for new podcasts and creating WMP playlists that would load nicely into my player. With WMP10, all I have to do is plug in my player, and a sync starts automatically, putting all the latest podcasts into separate folders on the device. Very slick.