Yahoo Launches Podcast Search

Yahoo Launches Podcast Search

Techtree News Staff, Oct 10, 2005 1900 hrs IST

Tuning in to the latest Web trend, Yahoo has launched a Web site that allows users to find and listen to podcasts.

Tuning in to the latest Web trend, Yahoo has launched a Web site that allows users to find and listen to podcasts.

Along with blogs, portable music players and on-line music stores, podcasting is also fast gaining currency. Podcasts are discrete audio programs which people can subscribe to, download and listen on their portable players.

Yahoo s latest site enables people to search for as well as subscribe to personally produced audio programs, which are designed for download onto portable music players.

Users can search for podcasts through keywords, categories or tagging, which is user-generated topic coding. They can listen to or subscribe to RSS (really simple syndication) feeds for individual shows / programming episodes / entire series. While listening to a podcast through Yahoo s site, users can increase the playback speed without the voices cracking.

The beta site also features reviews of popular podcasts, as also user recommendations and ratings.

In future, Yahoo plans to produce its own tools to help people put together and upload their own podcasts.

Web sites such as Podcast.net, Blinkx and Odeo are already offering Podcast search services. However, Yahoo is the first of the Net's giants to offer a dedicated site. Yahoo maintains that in spite of the popularity of the iPod and downloadable music, only 5 million people across the globe regularly download podcasts.