'Podcasters' deliver radio-on-demand
New Scientist - UK

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Celeste Biever

Every night, Adam Curry's iPod downloads a raft of radio shows from the internet while he is asleep. Then, as the former MTV DJ drives to work the next day, he listens to his selection on his iPod. And he is not limited to conventional broadcasters. He has a wide choice of geeky talk shows, tracks by indie bands, satirical comedy and reviews of obscure movies.

What UK-based Curry is using is an emerging method of audio file distribution that he helped develop. He and co-creator David Winer call the idea "podcasting", although it works just as well on other types of MP3 player.

As a DJ constantly on the lookout for new music, Curry found it tiresome and time-consuming to surf the net for new material and then manually transfer tracks from his PC to his iPod.

A new piece of software solves both these problems because it automatically sends newly posted audio files to an MP3 player's music management software as soon as they arrive online. "The beautiful thing about it is that you can take the internet with you and you don't need to sit there and download it," Curry says.

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