Apple is not the Gatekeeper of Podcasting

New York Times: “Late last month, Apple brought seven leading podcast professionals to the companyâ€ s campus in Cupertino, Calif., to air their case to a room full of employees, according to two people who were there. The people would speak only on the condition of anonymity because they had signed nondisclosure agreements. The company made no promises, the people said, but several pressing issues for podcasters were discussed in frank terms.”

Here’s the thing, Apple did not invent Podcasting — Dave Winer and Adam Curry did — Apple just has a really good Podcast directory. Anyone could do the same thing. In fact you don’t need to be part of Apple’s Podcast Directory to have a Podcast. All you need is a place to put your audio files so people can download them. Yes, that’s it.

One other note. I know there are services to help with podcasting, and I’m not going to advise against using one, especially if you are not a technical person. Just understand you don’t need a large corporation like Apple to publish your podcast on the internet.

Also note. I’m not bagging on Apple. They can’t help it if they created something really useful and people believe they own the gateway to podcasting. It just kind of happened that way.