The Hills are Alive … with the Sound of Podcasts!

For my next thing, I’ll be talking about podcasts. Podcasts are essentially internet radio programs that you can subscribe to. A common misconception is that you need an iPod to listen to a podcast, but that’s not true. Since most podcasts are just plain old Mp3 files, they’ll work with just about anything – including your computer. Podcasts started off as just a bunch of amateur guys with recording equipment talking about something they liked. But now, podcasts have evolved so much that big names are taking notice. While I’ve listened and subscribed to podcasts, I decided to go a bit deeper and see what sort of things I could find.

My favorite way to find, download, and listen to podcasts is through iTunes. I have used other software in the past, but iTunes is so smooth, especially if you own an iDevice of any kid (iPod, iPhone, etc.) There are many different ratings and categories for the different podcasts and you can also see audio and/or video podcasts. I noticed that iTunes also has something called iTunes U, where you can listen to various lectures in college campuses in the form of a podcast. Very neat! Also, while poking around iTunes, I found this article (http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/), which pretty much tells you anything you want or need to know about how podcasting works and how to make a podcast yourself. As a technical writer, I am very impressed at how it is written.

NPR makes a lot of different podcasts that I listen to. I typically subscribe to them via iTunes, download them to my computer, and sync them to my iPhone or iPod. However, I decided to try something new and poke around on the NPR site to see what more I can do with podcasting. One thing that’s really cool is that you can mix your own podcasts (http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php). Basically, I can select key words, topics, or programs and create a hybrid or mashup of several different podcasts. As I add keywords, it creates a “live view” the most recent topics that will be in my feed. I decided to make a feed of the topics Technology, Pop Culture, and Books and called it, “Pop & Geek”. NPR gave me a convenient and personal link to put into  iTunes, so now – only the relevant articles for the topics above will pop up.  This would be great for librarians, because they could make custom feeds based on the topics that they (or the patrons) are interested in.


I could also see how libraries could create their own podcasts, too. For instance, if libraries had guest speakers come, they could record these lectures and they make them available as a podcast so everyone could see. This would require a bit more maintenance though than just mashing together a feed.

All in all, podcasting is very cool and there’s quite a lot to do with it. I really like how big sites like NBC, ABC, etc. are embracing podcasting and put out their news programs for everyone to download so you don’t necessarily have to watch it on TV. I think of all the sites I’ve seen, NPR is the most welcoming of podcasts, putting all their programs online, transcribing a good chunk of them, and allowing the user to create custom podcast feed of their choosing (as mentioned in the paragraph above).

RSS is as easy as Do-Re-Mi! (IPL Things #10: RSS)

Since my last post was about blogs, I felt that RSS (Really Simple Syndication) would be the natural progression. I am familiar with RSS, and use it quite a bit, but there’s always more you can do with it, so I thought it would be good to explore a bit more.

RSS feeds – by themselves – don’t really do much. It looks like a bunch of code. To unlock the true power of RSS, you have to put into a feed reader or some sort. My favorite reader is Google Reader, although I have used others in the past. I like Google Reader because it’s very easy to add, manage, and move around in feeds. For instance, I’m a big gadget lover, and I love keeping up on all things related to Apple. There is a good Apple blog I read called TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog. I have the TUAW feed in Google Reader, tagged as “apple”. I also read another site called iSource, which also talks about Apple products, and is also tagged as “apple”. Since both feeds have the same tag, when in Google Reader, I can just click the “apple” tag/folder and read both feeds together. The items appear in the other that they were posted, as though they were on just one blog. Also, as I scroll past each article, I don’t have to mark it as read – Google figures it out for me.

Since I had some experience with Google Reader, I decided to play with some features I normally ignore. For instance, one such feature is called “Browse for stuff”. It allows you to create a bundle of feeds – similar to what I have already been doing with my Apple feeds. In fact, I was able to easily create an Apple bundle by just dragging my apple folder into the window. The advantage to a bundle is that it is a bit more social than the tag process I described above. For instance, I can e-mail the bundle to friends, create a bundle for my website, or add a link to my website. I can also see what other bundles my friends have created, although, at the time of writing this, I didn’t see any.

Another neat feature is the “Explore” option which contains a feed called “Recommended Items”. As Google puts it, “these are items from the Internet that you might enjoy. Hit the smiley face at the bottom of items that you like -- we'll customize your list to help you discover even more stuff.” Basically, it scans my feeds and, based on what other people are reading, recommends new items that it thinks I would like. By telling it what I do and don’t like, it better customizes the feed. This would be a great way to discover new feeds – although I do admit, I have a hard time keeping up with the feeds I already have.

Also worth noting, I noticed that for the fellow classmate blogs I clicked “Follow” now appear in my Google Reader, since I share the same account. This is very handy and is a good way to keep up to date on what my classmates are doing!


All in all, Google Reader is a very powerful web-based RSS reader. I am still exploring all of the features of it. While I’m not sure how much I will use every single thing, it’s nice to see that they are really trying to bring the social aspect to the RSS feeds. Google Reader would also be great for librarians because it gives them the opportunity to keep up to date with all their feeds in one place, but also has options for exploring new feeds and seeing what other people are interested in.

Jolly Blog-i-day! (IPL Thing #1: Blogs)

While I have had experience with other blog sites before, this is my first experience with Blogger. I had an account for a long time – most likely to comment on someone else’s posts – but I had never actually written anything. I decided to poke around on the site and explore some of the features that it offers that are different or new to me.

One feature I really like is the ability to schedule blog posts, instead of posting right away. If I were keeping more of an informative blog on a particular topic, I could see how this would be very useful. I’ve read before that a key to a good blog is to keep it constantly updated. However, the idea of scheduling time every single day to make a blog post might seem daunting to some individuals – especially if you are the sole writer for your blog. By scheduling blog posts, you can write them when you feel like it, but space them out as needed. I think I will experiment with this feature by writing my blog post ahead of time and scheduling, just to see how the feature works.

Another thing I noticed Blogger has is the ability to “follow” a blog and see who else follows it. As of right now, by blog only has one follower (thanks Scarlett). If I click on her name, I can also see what blogs she follows. If I go to another blog, I have the option to follow them and keep up to date on what sort of posts they are making.

What’s also interesting is that Blogger allows you to have multiple blogs tied to one account. For instance, I have my account that has one blog – my 23 things blog. However, if I plan to make a separate blog from my library center analysis, I can also tie that to the same account. If I make any other blogs on any other topics, I can register those as well. Just for fun I decided to register a few more names for blogs, so I now have 8 blogs tied to my name! I like how each blog can have its own specific settings, too. 


I can definitely see how a blog could be used in library setting. This can be an easy way for librarians to share information about their library in a timely matter, without having to worry about the hassle of setting up a webpage.

One final note, that as I am typing this entry, Blogger also saves an automatic draft without me having to do anything. This is very handy, especially if the power were to be cut off at any moment (or I accidentally close a window – which I’ve also been known to do).

Hello, world!

This is my first post in what will be my "23 things" exploration activity. For those wondering, my blog title is a nod to the song "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music. Expect more posts very soon!

For now, here's a snippet of the song, for those not familiar:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things