Podcasts are unruly things. There are millions of them out there, and only a small percentage interest you. An even smaller percentage are actually worth listening to. You've got to search them out, add them to your aggregator, or download them to your computer or device. Not particularly difficult, but not particularly convenient, either.
We've taken some time to play with the Mediafly podcast/vodcast search and delivery service. We'd describe Mediafly as part search engine, part social network, part delivery service, with a healthy dose of Amazon-esque recommendation thrown in. It's still in beta, and where there's definitely some work left to be done, it's shaping up to be a service with promise.
Describing Mediafly is hard. Using it is considerably easier.
Merlin Mann of 43 Folders has just launched The Merlin Show, a new podcast which looks to be a logical expansion into video for the man behind all things productivity. The first episode, published today and titled Hello, offers a brief introduction and insight into some of Merlin's guiding inspiration (such as Benjamin Franklin, kites, beer and other various pleasures in life), while Merlin really kicks things off in episode 002 (also published today) in an interview with Jonathan Coulton, the man behind the now-infamous Code Monkey song.
After listening to and watching Merlin in many of his adventures with TWiT, it's great to see Merlin headlining his own podcasting effort. I'm already subscribed, and Merlin offers a bunch of handy pre-built buttons at The Merlin Show site.
I love Photoshop tutorials. I like them even better when they're not six pages long and produce great results. I'm guessing you can guess from its name what 2 Minute Photoshop Tricks is. It's a text, video, and audio blog that shows gives you tips, tricks, and tutorials for Photoshop, each in about two minutes. Unfortunately it's not updated especially frequently, but there's a lot of good stuff there, from adding a dept of field effect to a photo to giving text a shiny Web 2.0 look. They've got feeds for their videos, podcasts, and blog posts, so you never miss a tip.
Say you want to listen to
podcasts or watch vodcasts and a) don't have an iPod or similar, b) don't want to (or can't) install a desktop
aggregator, and b) can't be troubled to download them by hand. MediaTuner
might be what you're looking for. It's a web-based "rich media aggregator/player," which basically means it
gives you a web-based interface for listening to and watching podcasts and vodcasts, kind of like a web-based Democracy.
MediaTuner also supports regular old news feeds as well as photo feeds.
True to his word, Michael Robertson announced eyespot today, a web-based video editor. This is part of his ajaxLaunch site, where they'll be launching a new ajaxian app each Wednesday. I'm
sure NVU is heading for the ajax treatment any time. This is a neat trick, but there's a social aspect to it as well.
You can take videos and clips from other users, and remix them into your own. That, in itself, is pretty neat. Can't
wait to see more user generated content that Scoble claims is all baloney.
Legitimate media outlet or info-mercial-tainment?
That seems to be the question swarming around Microsoft's "10" like so many
black flies. 10 is a daily videocast with an unGoogleable name and one has to squint a bit—but not much—to
figure out that it's coming direct from Redmond. Hosted by ex-TechTV hosts Tina Wood and Laura Foy, 10 is "for
people who want to use technology to change the world" and features videos "highlighting people, their
passions and often the technology they are using." Today's video is about indie Internet radio station KEXP, and
about one minute in is when you'll hear the testimonial for Microsoft's IIS and SQL Server. No smoking gun, to be sure,
but I'm not holding my breath for them to feature some great site built on a LAMP stack. As a side note, if you load the site in
Internet Explorer you're served WMV videos, but if you do it in Firefox you'll get H.264. Hmm.
It's been a bit quiet on the new
podcast apps front lately, but here's a new one: WinPodder is a podcast client
for, yes, Windows. Details are scarce on the WinPodder web site, but it's free and supports audio, video, and, er,
photo podcasts. It also supports Apple's "enhanced" podcast format.
Podcasts are unruly things. There are millions of them out there, and only a small percentage interest you. An even smaller percentage are actually worth listening to. You've got to search them out, add them to your aggregator, or download them to your computer or device. Not particularly difficult, but not particularly convenient, either. 
True to his word, Michael Robertson announced 
