Wizzard Media acquires Libsyn

An announcement was made by Wizzard Media that will impact thousands of podcasters like us MobileTechRoundupers.  The company announced it has acquired Liberated Syndication, known to podcasters as Libsyn.  The Wizzard announcement states their intent is to improve content monetization and we’ll just have to see what they mean by that.  Many podcasters use Libsyn’s free hosting service to dish out their podcasts to subscribers, although high traffic podcasts like MoTR have been paying for the service for quite some time.  Here’s hoping they don’t change the service too much, Libsyn has been a rock solid solution for podcasters needing a good host.  Full press release after the jump.

Mobility Site Minute podcast: tech news in five minutes

Don't have time to listen to a lengthy podcast today? No problem; just hit up the new Mobility Site Minute podcast hosted by Chris Leckness. I spoke with Chris on the phone yesterday and he shared his reasons for the new tech podcast. Chris realizes that it can be hard to find the time to listen to a podcast that goes for an hour or more. It's also time consuming to produce and schedule a podcast with multiple hosts so Chris decided to host a five minute tech podcast by himself.

I just listened to the first two episodes in the time it took to write this post, so if you're looking for a quick dose of mobile tech news, you'll want to check this out. Here are direct links to the first two shows; if you're a Google Reader user like I am now, you can simply stream the brief audio show within the RSS aggregator:

• Mobility Site Minute #1
• Mobility Site Minute #2

HearHere demos at DEMO

The DEMO conference was held last week while I was working hard in Boston and one of the coolest things I’ve seen come out of the conference is the HearHere podcast searching tool.  HearHere lets you type in a search term for something you want to find in a podcast so you can zoom right to the topic that interests you.  Take a look at the cool video demo and you’ll see why as a podcaster I am excited about HearHere.

Now I know that our listeners always hang on every word in every podcast but this is still very cool technology because it means that HearHere is converting the speech to text in the background somehow.

Mobility Guys interview Tyler Welch; Microsoft MVP Lead

Chris, Jack and Steve have a great podcast interview on episode number eight of Mobility Guys. Tyler Welch, a Microsoft MVP lead, answers questions on the Microsoft MVP program, which I found to be extremely interesting. The conversation turns towards DRM as Tyler's favorite device of late is the iRiver Clix digital audio player. Great stuff and worth the listen!

-kct

Mobility Guys Podcast: must have mobile software and just blame James

Those Mobility Guys are back with podcast number seven. This ep is great roundtable of must-have software for your mobile device, ranging from utilities to remote connectivity and RSS readers. The best part (in my humble opinion of course) is when James gets completely blamed for Jack’s Motion LS800 purchase! What a troublemaker that James is….  Oh, and speaking of RSS readers, don’t miss Greg Smith as a special guest; he developed one of my favorite mobile RSS readers: FeederReader. Download and check it out…

-kct

Minnesota University uses Tablets and Podcasting for class

I thought I was cool in college with a scientific calculator (I wasn't), but Saint Mary's University really puts me to shame. The school has adopted several mobile technology methods which extend learning far beyond the classroom. SMU just signed a three-year agreement with Tegrity for the Tegrity Campus service that provides the framework for the technology. Faculty will use Tegrity Capture along with a Tablet PC or a Tegrity digital pen and notebook and the class lectures are then made available as podcasts for students to watch and listen to on their iPods. According to students who piloted the system, over two-thirds of them believe that it helped them in the learning process.

I'm all for the time-shifting of the class lectures, but now that they can place-shift them too, I'd expect the local bars and clubs to be quite the centers for educational excellence.

-kct

HHB FlashMic- podcasting in the field made easy

So you are a budding podcaster, longing to record those bits of brilliance in the field.  Maybe conduct interviews of your cat, capture the wit of your neighbors sitting on their back deck.  HHB has you covered with the FlashMic, a high-quality microphone with a gig of memory that makes the mic a self-contained recording solution on the run.  A recording time of up to 18 hours and a USB port for downloading direct to your PC makes the FlashMic very powerful indeed.  It does all this on just 2 AA batteries.  Of course, the price of GBP700 may put this out of the budget of most of us.

(HHB via Stuff)

Podcasting for beginners

Podcasts are everywhere now that they have a home on the iTunes Music Store but even so there are many people who are unfamiliar with them.  I found a great “introduction to podcasts” article from the Irish Times that explains the history and ins and outs of podcasts and podcasting in clear terms.  If you have been wanting to find out more about podcasts check out the article, appropriately titled POD PEOPLE.

-jk

AudioBay- podcasting on the Pocket PC

AcroDesign Technologies Launches New AudioBay, Introducing Podcasting to the Pocket PC

AudioBay offers a complete podcasting solution for Pocket PCs—from recording to hosting

Colchester, VT, USA (March 16, 2006) -- AcroDesign Technologies today released the AudioBay Podcasting application for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.  AudioBay provides everything needed to publish a podcast from a Pocket PC.  Within a few minutes, users can record a podcast episode using the Pocket PC’s built-in recorder and upload it to the Web over a wireless Internet connection for immediate access by the public.

Podcasting is the preparation and distribution of audio files for download to desktops and digital multimedia players, such as the iPod. AudioBay makes this process simple and mobile: users can record podcasts from anywhere and the software saves the audio in a file and then uploads it to the AcroDesign Technologies’ hosting service. As soon as the podcast is uploaded it will be available to the public as an RSS feed to download and play on desktop PCs or mobile MP3 players.

“We are excited to release the first software to allow mobile users to create and publish podcasts,” said Scott Thibault, president and founder of AcroDesign Technologies.  “Podcasting offers a great new way to connect with an audience and has already become a major tool for communication. AudioBay enables anyone to become a broadcaster with their own portable recording studio.”

“AudioBay is an integrated solution that let my students use their Pocket PCs to speak to the world,” said Mark Frydenberg, professor of Bentley College's intensive Introduction to Information Technology course, where students use Pocket PCs to  learn about technology.  “Our students served as beta-testers of AudioBay, providing them an opportunity to experiment with podcasting and for AcroDesign to gain valuable feedback about their product.”

AudioBay retails for $24.95 and is available immediately from www.voiceatom.com.

Earthcore now available on the iTunes Music Store

Author Scott Sigler first made news when he decided to release his book EarthCore as a weekly podcast last year. Sigler produced the audio book himself and released it a few chapters at a time via podcast and garnered 10,000 subscribers. The innovative author has now achieved a "second first" by putting the audio novel on the iTunes Music Store. The entire 20 episode audio book can be purchased from iTunes for $9.99 and it will be interesting to see how well this sells. It could pave the way for other authors to self-publish in audio format.

(via iPod Observer)