Rebooting Podcasts

  I was a guest on Dave Winer's 'Rebooting the News' podcast this morning. Although we have been collaborting for several weeks on the EC2 for Poets project, it's been 6 years since we actually spoke, as in voice communication.
  It was really nice to speak again.
  Reflecting on our conversation, there are many topics I look forward to discussing with him further. Dave made a comment that there was still work to be done on Podcasts, call it unfinished business. I think he is right about this.
  It is still too hard to create and distribute, but also the 'receiving side' has a lot let to be desired.
  Some of the answers are be around, perhaps even closer than we realize.
  A dropbox-like system may be just what is needed. Probably dropbox itself.
  I follow (formerly known as subscribe) to podcasts in my personal River of News aggregator, it runs 24/7 on a server and downloads podcasts to a dropbox folder. This folder is accesible to me anywhere, and computer or device that can share a dropbox folder. There are outstanding apps for my iPhone and Android devices. These apps know how to play the files, and store a copy locally on the device when accessed.
  This is just a jumping off point for more thinking. To be continued...