Brad Gibson wants a Tablet PC but his company gave him a ThinkPad notebook instead.  Not to be kept down Brad attached a Wacom digitizer and has recorded a podcast about using ink in OneNote using the combination.  The podcast is completely recorded using the audio recording within OneNote which is quite clever.  Listen to his podcast and learn about enabling ink and speech recognition using a notebook, digitizer and Office 2003.

Podcasting is exploding and the race has been on for a few months to discover a viable business model to exploit the new medium.  It seems a lot of people can’t stand to see something explode in popularity without cashing in but no model has successfully emerged to date.  Mark Cuban wrote about his vision for the "podcast as business" and I don’t think many involved in podcasting today will like what he had to say about it.  In a nutshell he doesn’t think anyone will make money from podcasting other than some commercial ventures such as distributing radio content via podcast.

Unless you are repurposing content from another medium, it will be rare to find anyone making money from originating podcasts.

Talk Radio Shows repurposed from radio to a podcast. No brainer. It’s cheap and easy. Repurposing industry specific information from tradeshows, speeches, product presentations for employee or customer education or as sales support. No brainer. These are just extensions of existing content into a new low cost medium.

For those who are tying to jump on the podcasting bandwagon and create a “hit” podcast that you plan on selling advertising in, its cheap and easy to do, but even with Google Adsense for RSS its going to be really tough to do it as a fulltime job and make minimum wage back.

Along those lines Droxy reports on RadioTime, a new venture that aims to distribute radio content via podcast for time-shifting listening to the user’s schedule.  RadioTime is looking to be the "TiVo of Radio" and offer radio content from tens of thousands of stations world-wide that the user can download in MP3 to any player.  What makes RadioTime so unique is the TV Guide-like interface that makes it easy to find the shows you want.  A $39 annual subscription fee gets you unlimited downloading of your favorite shows, with a 7 day free trial available.

I have been using the beta version of MixCast Live for months and it is still the best way I have found to record Skype calls for podcast interviews.  I have been waiting for word from TinyScience that the version 1.0 was released and the word finally came down today, although from Scoble and not TinyScience.  MixCast Live is a complete podcast recording studio that lets you capture audio, mix in sound effects and music and in this new version even publish the podcast with generated RSS.  The new analog record level meter is cool, too.  The upgrade is free for paid beta users and since TinyScience has merged the MixCast program with the Bigfeeder podcast hosting service you should visit the Bigfeeder site for pricing details.

Thanks to Gnomedex rumors that Apple would be releasing iTunes 4.9 today users have been watching the iTunes download site to see if the new version is available.  Wait no longer, it’s out and downloadable for both the Mac and Windows platforms, although on the Windows side you must manually download the new version as the update feature in iTunes does not pick it up yet.  I have installed it and for the most part the new podcast section is very nice.  Both of my shows, techADDICTION and The Tablet PC Show are already available along with hundreds of other podcasts.  The interface takes a little getting used to but one awesome feature I have not seen mentioned anywhere- if you stop listening to a podcast you’ve downloaded through iTunes it remembers where you left off next time!  Sweet!  You can download the new version on the iTunes web site.

Kevin Tofel is always thinking of new ways to apply existing technology that can make this world a better place.  He and his better half, Barb, have started a service called Podcast to Troops that lets anyone call up and leave a voice message for the troops serving abroad.  The intention is to let those in the military go to the web site and retrieve real messages of support from those back home who appreciate the difficult thing they are doing in serving for us. 

To leave a message:

• Call 1-661-716-BLOG and then follow the prompts with the info below
• Primary Number:  800-PODCAST
• PIN:   four zeros (0000) followed by the # key.
• Record your message up to 5 minutes

To listen to messages:

• Any message can be heard by clicking on the "Play this Audio Post" button
• To subscribe to all messages and listen to them in your podcatcher just add this feed

Way to go, Barb and Kevin!  Let’s see how many messages of support we can send those far from home on our behalf.

Steve Jobs, speaking at the D: all things digital conference, said that the next version of iTunes will handle podcasts a la Doppler. Content providers will be able to register their content with the iTunes Music Store where users will be able to sign up to retrieve the feeds for their favorite podcasts.

(via Six Apart)

Scott Sigler wrote a novel and sold it to AOL/Time Warner who published it in 2001 as an ebook that sold quite well.  So well, in fact, that they intended to release it in paperback in 2002 until in a bout of cost cutting they shut down the division that published books like Scott’s.  It took him a year to recover the rights to the book, only to find it impossible to find another publisher willing to release the book.  Not one to let that get him down Scott has come up with a novel way to bring EarthCore to the masses.  From the EarthCore web site:

EarthCore is the world’s first podcast-only novel: you can’t find it in stores, you can’t download the full audio, and the only way to find out what happens is to subscribe to the podcast. This novel is a cross between episodic modern-action fare like "24" and classic sci-fi movies like Predator and Starship Troopers.

To subscribe, copy this link into your podcast application:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/EarthCore

I’m subscribed.

Leave it to the innovative bunch at The Podcast Network to bring their latest podcast "Claybourne".

“Claybourne” was a sci-fi / supernatural thriller / soap opera radio drama, recorded and broadcast nationwide in New Zealand in the late 1990s.

A total of 96 shows were produced by Andrew Dubber (who is hosting the The Jazz Show for us) and Belinda Todd. It premiered on New Zealand radio in 1998 (1999 perhaps?), was made with the help of New Zealand On Air and also won an award as the Best Dramatic Production at the 1999 New Zealand Radio Awards.

Andrew Dubber has given us kind permission to syndicate the show here at The Podcast Network, and we hope you really enjoy what is probably the first serialised radio drama podcast on the internet. Hopefully it will be the first of many “radio drama’s” that we present.

What a brilliant idea to bring mainstream entertainment to podcasting.  Well done, mates!

Anybody who has listened to the G’Day World Podcast with Mick Stanic and Cameron Reilly will surely agree that their shows are the most entertaining and delightful podcasts on the Internet.  Their lastest brainchild is The Podcast Network and an email I received from Mick today says the network is now live and the first two shows are available for listeners to get their headphones on.  Check it out, I’m listening to the first show now.  Oh and BTW, I hear a rumor they may have an announcement about The Tablet PC Show vewy, vewy soon.    From Mick: