Podcasts are fantastic. In fact, they are so great I am planning on making one myself. Eventually. At any rate, ever since Apple released iTunes 4.9 Podcasting has started going mainstream. A medium once restricted to people who were willing to pay for software and hunt down RSS feeds has now been integrated into iTunes with one-click supscibing.

Early Podcasts tended to be poorly produced independent ventures. Some of these were quite good, others were atrocious. Then, at about the time Apple announced they would be adding Podcasting to the next point version of iTunes, a number of larger media organizations started making their own Podcasts to try riding the iPod wave. Organizations like ABC were early adopters, creating Podcasts such as the ABC News Shuffle, which was probably some pathetic attempt at trying to make their very bad news summary Podcast sound hip and interesting.

Since ABC's well produced, but altogether awful bits (though I cannot speak for the Spanish news Podcast; that just went over my head) a number of other media heavyweights have tossed in their entries to the Podcasting ring. Most have been big improvements over ABC's attempt. I subscribe to a number of excellent Podcasts of BBC radio programmes.

However, I realized Podcasting had really gone mainstream when I heard Tim Russert inform viewers about the Meet the Press Podcast, available at msnbc.com. I subscribe to that one too, along with the NBC Nightly News Podcast. I am waiting for ABC to post their evening news program as a Podcast.