One of the biggest kerfuffles in podcasting right now is about the lack of podcasting support in Windows Media Player 11. Some (like Geek News Central) were pretty scathing regarding the lack of podcast support after a year of iTunes support - saying that “their inaction will slow the growth of podcasting in a big way.” Others (like notably Robert Scoble) think that the lack of podcasting will slow WMP 11’s growth instead.

I have to agree with Scoble. I think that Microsoft may see WMP users who learn about - and want to listen to - podcasting switching to a player that does support podcasts. During my time off last week, I introduced someone to podcasting who has only ever used Windows Media Player - and was suprised to learn WMP doesn’t support podcasting. Their choice was to either not listen to podcasts, or to switch to iTunes in order to download podcasts (or use both until it gets to be too cumbersome).

Real Video iPod (the big screen one that everyone drooled over a few months ago) is delayed by some technical difficulties (Digg)

Wired is moblogging the NY Auto Show (Wired)

CNET explores the future of video (check out the short movies made for iPods) (CNET)

“The new widescreen [Apple iPod], which will be released as soon as April, will have Bluetooth headsets,” according to MacNN and Lost Remote.

Are full film downloads headed this way for iTunes? (Digg)

Yet another bookmarking site (Micro Persuasion)

It’s like someone heard me asking: Kottke stops taking micropayments (CNET)

Broadcast Flag hearings turn on iPod use (Engadget)

Name that Flickr Tag (LifeHacker)

And, finally, because its Friday - Beer + Robot = Marketing Goodness…if you like beer and/or robots. (Boing Boing)

Arstechnica discusses the possibility that Amazon will be getting into “Buy a DVD and download/stream the movie while you wait for the mailman to come.” This is funny, because I was just looking at my Netflix queue this morning and wishing that I could watch about half the movies in it right then, via download. Granted, there is a difference between renting on Netflix, and buying the movie outright on Amazon, but the “get it now and later” idea is close to how I use both iTunes video and Netflix, and the (rumored) Amazon model is a hybrid of the two that I really like.

As many of you know, I really love to download video off of iTunes, but I’ve often wondered, as I look at the MASSIVE amount video content in my iTunes folders - 1.5 Seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Season 2 of Lost and the first five episodes of Surface - how long I’d keep them, either in my iPod or my laptop. Right now I’d hazard a guess and say that within the next few months, I’ll decide which series I will purchase on DVD, and which ones I’ll delete for good (to make room for all those new downloads I haven’t thought about yet).

I use Netflix similarly – I rent DVDs (mostly TV shows on DVD) and either send them back with a “Gee, glad I didn’t get THAT” or I run out and buy the DVD shortly after I’ve returned the disc. Using Amazon’s (rumored) method won’t save me from buying something crummy, but if they (or others) could adapt to the “try and buy” method, I would be right there with them.

At the same time, the “buy and download while you wait for the mail” method gets over another hurdle I have with downloadable video – which is sometimes, its nice to have the DVD right there in your house. Until we have a fully converged media-web-home system (on which you can get the same entertainment you can get on DVDs now), I, at least, will want the option for both.

Somehow the day got done and all I have is time for some short stuff.

Bill Maher + Amazon = Infomercial? (B2Blog)

One less line at the theater to worry about (engadget)

Downloadable TV = Better Ratings? (Slashdot)

Burger King’s New Girlfriend: Paparazzi or Viral Campaign? (Ad Freak)

No more iPod a month (Fast Company)

Whose Listening to Podcasts? (eMarketer)

Xfire Users Users Play 88 Hours a Month (Kotaku)

Over the holiday, I wrote about a social networking music site called Last FM which lets you share and listen to music via friends and accquantances with the same tastes - but hopefully new artists. I wasn’t as impressed as I could have been, but now I have found a “simliar music” site that I am impressed with, called Pandora.

I first heard about Pandora while on a call with a collegue, and on my first try, Pandora was down and I couldn’t play with it. I forgot about it for the requisite few weeks until Inside the Net featured an interview with Tim Westegren, of both the Music Genome Project and Pandora. The interview explained how the MGP is the “back end” of Pandora, and the company has teams of musicians analyzing songs to break them down to their base components - essentially their “DNA” - in order to find like songs that people like.

I went back to Pandora after listening to the interview (and if you’re not listenign to Inside the Net, you should be) and played around with the site. What I saw was really exciting - particularly if you like music, like listening to new music and yet lack the time to do so. I plugged in the name of a much-loved but not mainstream DC band, and Pandora created a radio station for me. Approximately 25% of the songs played based on the information Pandora had about my favorite band was the band itself - another 25% were other bands I had heard of. The most exciting part for me is that about 50% of the songs were bands that I’d never heard of, or have heard about but not gotten around to listening to yet.

On the monetization side, Pandora is beginning to take advertisers (though they have a $36/year subscription that gets the ads off the player) and is compatible with both Amazon and iTunes - users can click the album cover and buy either the full album from Amazon, or individual songs from iTunes.