There have been lots of apps developed and released that facilitate listening to podcasts. Amazingly though,
the software used to create podcasts hasn't evolved much over the years.
Many podcasters have spent the last week sharing how they record their shows, and while the hardware is fun to argue about, the software story leaves a lot to be desired. Casey Liss describes his software setup for recording ATP: Skype, Piezo, Skype Call Recorder, and Google Docs. Jason Snell recommends getting a microphone with a heapdhone jack to compensate for Skype's lack of local input monitoring. If you can stomach it, you can listen to Dan Benjamin describe the ridiculous lengths he's gone to to record multiple guests in real time, and he still ends up dealing with Skype artifacts. This is a professional podcaster with a half-dozen Macs dedicated to the task of getting reasonable audio from remote guests. Ugh.
Allen Pike has some interesting thoughts on the subject, as well as a
previous article detailing the "fall and rise of podcasting". As an avid podcast listener, I agree the field is ripe for improvement. What do you think? And which podcasts do you enjoy listening to?
What if the podcasters all asked their listeners to donate a buck to a kickstarter so that they could waste less time doing audio gymnastics and more time generating interesting shows. Set the goal high and promise a few versions on the initial funding so there is enough time and feedback to work out the major bugs and give it a decent user interface. Offer the resulting software at a very low price ($10-20?) to raise the quality bar for everyone (creators and listeners).