Audible Aims to Turn Podcasting into Business Model
Audible has begun to use Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to podcast spoken word periodical programming over the Web. Beginning today, audio programming from sources such as the New York Times, This American Life, Wall Street Journal and BBC News Hour may be downloaded by Audible customers and content partners.
With RSS, customers can subscribe to feeds and use compatible RSS software to synchronize content with their portal media devices. RSS is an XML-based Internet publishing standard commonly used to inform subscribers when new content is available and that content can be downloaded and aggregated by RSS-aware applications.
A complete listing of the content Audible has made available is: BBC News Hour, Car Talk, Charlie Rose, C-SPAN, Fast Company, Forbes Magazine, Fresh Air, JazzTimes, Harvard Business Review, Latino USA, Marketplace, MSNBC, News from Lake Wobegon, Scientific American, Science News, Technology Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The World, This American Life, and To the Best of Our Knowledge.
"We've been delivering digitally downloadable spoken audio to hundreds of thousands of listeners for many years now. During this time, we have continually looked for advancements in digital audio technology that would improve our listeners' experience," said Donald Katz, CEO and chairman of Audible Inc.
"We believe podcasting is an advancement that will make digital spoken audio more accessible and manageable for content creators and listeners around the world."
Katz vowed to provide even more current technology solutions for content providers. "Over the coming months, podcasters will have increased access to new infrastructure, tools and proprietary technologies that Audible has developed over the years to empower content creators to turn their digital audio into sustainable revenue streams."
An Audible spokesperson elaborated to BetaNews, saying that the company will provide "a fairly decent spectrum of podcasting tools. These new tools will utilize Audible's existing proprietary digital audio format and digital rights management technologies to provide the podcasters with the same functionality that is available to its existing content providers, offering podcasters more control over the distribution and integrity of their content."
Audible will also provide podcasters with measurement capabilities to build their business based upon whichever business model they decide upon.
An Apple iPod or any other "AudibleReady" media player is required to play back the RSS feeds.