More On Shownotes

Thanks for everyone's feedback so far on this. You can read my original posts on the subject of shownotes here and here. I'd like to thank Hobson and Holtz for their comments from a user's perspective in their podcast "For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report". Interestingly, they also mention Britcaster, so I'm effectively in their show twice!

Also, on friday night at Gnomedex I had the opportunity to talk to Dave Winer about the subject. A very nice bloke, who gave me some good feedback and suggestions. I'm currently firmly convinced OPML is the way to go.

On the subject of addressing the issue of user needs and some example scenarios, I thought you might be interested in the following, excepted from a post I made to the ipodder-dev mailing list:

...I totally agree on the need for end user support - how many of us edit RSS by hand anymore - very few I suspect. Personally I rely on the MT-Enclosures plugin in MT to do it all for me. The same would need to happen for this idea, but it will require some time on the part of the podcaster.

I can envisage a number of app scenarios. From a web based helper app to purely provide a form fill in, through to a full podcaster application (e.g. CastBlaster, Odeo) that you would enter the metadata whilst reviewing the show before uploading. Personally, my workflow when producing my podcast has me listening back to the show before uploading for two purposes:

1. To make sure I haven't messed up anywhere.
2. To create the shownotes with timestamps.

The implementation of a small app to playback the podcast and provide the ability to enter metadata/annotations, and then squirt out the final file should be the first order of business during the investigation of this idea.

Gathering input from podcasters as to their workflow would be very useful.

I do my shownotes with timestamps and place them in my blog entry structured with ul.

As for end user scenarios, others here have posted some ideas, I'd like to brain dump a little:

• The Rock'n'Roll geek show has album art that changes with every song and includes a link to each band.
• Engadget has links to their articles about everything they talk about, plus pictures.
• A show like Claybourne has act/chapter entries.
• An Opera podcast might include the libretto, moving along with the show.
• A foreign language podcast/vidblog might include subtitles.
• Any vidblog might include subtitles for the hard of hearing.
• A podcast of a conference includes the slides.
• Someone listening to the podcast via a Media Center would have shownotes/images/links appear on the television.
• On my pocketpc I press a button to mark an interesting point in the show - later on I can review these marks, visit links, read more info.
• In my podcatcher client I can see the shows I haven't yet downloaded, view the shownotes in a treeview for the show and mark particular sections for download.

I'm sure there are many more.