Channel 4 gets it

I was reading some site or other this morning and was pointed in the direction of a brilliant new podcasting site - a place that has some top quality podcasts and allows you to select what you want and how.

The basic gist of Channel 4 Radio is that you find the show your interested in, add it to your library and then you’re given an rss feed url that will contain all your selected shows and will deliver them to your podcast player when they’re published.

When I first heard Channel 4 were launching an online radio station I assumed it would be a streaming one that worked like all other radio stations - but broadcast online.

I was wrong - they just publish the shows and you decide what you subscribe to - it’s all then download to iTunes and you can put it on your mp3 player or listen on your computer.

Basically Channel 4 Radio lets you schedule the station yourself.

However, as there is only one episode of each of the shows so far I haven’t been able to work out whether you have to add every episode to your library or whether when you tell it to add a show it adds all episodes in that series - time will tell.

‘Co-Creation Season’

The other exciting thing Channel 4 Radio are doing is what they’ve called the  ‘co-creation season’ where they give users the chance to upload their own work and have it published through the Channel 4 Radio site.

It isn’t an open game though so you can’t just send in an episode from your podcast and have Channel 4 publish it although that could be interesting, they could incorporate some popular, independent shows into their ‘radio’ network.

For the co-creation project you have to publish something based on their current theme - they give you content to work with and you need to create something new from that.

The current one is old & new, they’ve voiced a few classic poems and you have to take those poems and turn them into a radio show, report or feature - interesting idea, might give it a go if I can find time.

The site says: “We want you to unleash your creative talents on a fusion of old and new. We provide the old - classic poetry from the greats such as Keats, Byron and Wordsworth - you provide the new, whatever that may be. Just download the poetry from the list below, then mix it together, shake it up and see what you get.”

Apparantly the winner which we’ll announce at the beginning of September will get the opportunity to come and work on a project with Channel 4 Radio.

Somewhere Else

I’d also like to see more podcast networks - either sites like podcast.com and iTunes or specific creators like TWiT and the BBC adopt this approach.

Give me the chance to choose from all your available podcasts and have them delived in a single feed - I already create  playlists for Podcasts so I can group them together and play them one after another without having to click anything on my iPod so this would be a great addition.

For example I’d love to be able to go to the C|Net podcast page, click a little tick box next to the podcasts I want (they’re all great but I don’t listen to them all - just about three of them) and then click Generate Feed - it gives me an RSS feed that will contain the most recent episode of each of my selected shows.

If I want to go back and get more I can do so by subscibing to the shows own feed.

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