Podcast: David vs. Goliath

Indie shows are struggling to stand out amid the influx of media giants. ¶ Adam Kempenaar and Sam Hallgren's 15 minutes of fame lasted exactly one month. It began when Apple Computer Inc. opened its iTunes music store to podcasts on June 28, and the duo's Cinecast movie review show was one of the site's featured offerings. The exposure, along with a plug from podcast guru Adam Curry, sent their show skittering up the iTunes' list of the top 100 podcasts, peaking at No. 13. ... ¶ Then Roger Ebert showed up. On July 28, Ebert & Roeper, the film review show featuring two columnists for the Chicago Sun-Times, began posting its own audio recordings on iTunes. Within a few short days, Ebert & Roeper climbed to No. 2, while Cinecast dropped to 72. ¶ In one of the shortest trajectories yet for a new Internet technology, podcasting has gone from the hands of indie developers to media giants in less than a year. Credit Apple. With typical finesse, it has created a centralized, easy-to-use service on iTunes that makes it a snap to find and listen to podcasts, the audio recordings that can be downloaded from the Net and played on a computer or portable music player. Apple also put out a new version of the iTunes software, which makes it easy for people to create their own podcasts, and invited all to post their creations on the site. Indie podcasters ... rejoiced, ready for the mainstream to embrace the technology they had championed. ... Link: BusinessWeek.