Reiter's Wireless Podcast Report

Great resource: "Mobile Podcasting"

If you're interested in wireless podcasting, you need to read "Mobile Podcasting" (see below).  It's written (primarily I think) by Stan Sorensen, senior director of product management and marketing, for Melodeo -- that just so happens to offer platform software for -- surprise! -- wireless podcasting.

Well worth reading if you want to keep up with the latest information about wireless podcasting and related technology issues.  I've been reading "Mobile Podcasting" for a few months and should have mentioned it much sooner!

Melodeo introduces Mobilcast verson 2 with SMS, more phones, improved UI, streaming

Melodeo has introduced version two of its Mobilcast wireless podcast software.  I don't see any press release about the new version on the company's Web site but Stan Sorensen of Melodeo has published an entry about it in the weblog.

Here's what Stan writes about V.2:

"When we approached v2 we set 3 priorities:  1) make it easy to get Mobilcast on a phone; 2) make Mobilcast even easier to use; 3) make a lot of content available.  We believe we've succeeded.

"Make it easy to get:  We introduced SMS download of Mobilcast a few weeks ago. We're continuing that method, and soon will add a short code so you can SMS us.  We've also added a bunch of phones to the mix, bringing our total up to 12 today.  And we're going to do our best to add 2 a week. We've also added a cool feature called 'Share' that allows you to SMS the download link to your friends.

"Make Mobilcast even easier to use:  We've tuned the UI so that Mobilcast is even more intuitive. We've also added streaming capability.  So now you can chose to download the podcast, or listen to it right away be streaming it to your phone. Streaming gives the immediate gratification consumers want.

"Content: We're adding new content all the time.  Streaming lets us pull in longer podcasts.  And we have guys making Mobilcast specific podcasts.  We think we'll match the content found online very quickly."

Azure Wireless in Australia offers special WiFi rates for The Podcast Network

Azure Wireless, a WiFi provider based on Melbourne, Australia (see below), is offering special pricing for customers who want to listen to The Podcast Network -- a great collection of, duh, podcasts, according to the press release.

The rates at $10 (AUS) for downloading 150 MB and $20 (AUS) for 400 MB.  That's about $11 (U.S.) and $14.75 (U.S.), respectively.

Azure has more than 400 hotspots across Australia.

If you care about WiFi rates around the world, you might want to take a look at those from Azure.  Some rates are based on the amount of data (megabytes) and some are based on time (e.g., one hour).

Placing a limit on the amount of data that can be downloaded is, well, crummy.  Definitely not the U.S. way for WiFi, where we prefer flat-rate prices for unlimited use.

However, Azure offers a time-based prepaid card (one hour, two, three, four, five, ten) that ranges from $13.20 (AUS) to $99 (AUS) -- certainly not cheap -- but you can log on and off an unlimited number of times for a year (or until your time runs out), based on one-minute increments.