The new Zune media player from Microsoft was launched today. The new features relevant to podcasters and podcasting appear to be:-
- A 1 click method of subscribing to podcasts from within web pages;
- The device can sync with the base PC over the home wireless network - users will always leave home with the latest content.
What does this mean to podcasters? Ensure you put a Zune 1 Click subscribe link/button on your podcast web page - Paul Colligan has a nice tool to generate the URL and also some links to button you can use.
What does this mean to podcast listeners? With a Zune, you’ll no longer be tethered to your PC- well, not in the wired sense anyway.
My thoughts on all this:-
- iTunes has had the magic URL 1 click subscription method for a long time - i.e. itpc://podcast/rss/feed/path
- There needs to be a divorce between the media player and the PC - this has started with the Zune but is not yet complete. The holy grail is surely a media player which you can have in your pocket, which downloads new podcast episodes (that you previously subscribed to), over the phone network/wimax/wireless, without the need for a PC.