Monday, June 17, 2013

A Mini Rant About Finding Video Podcasts on iTunes

I just installed iTunes after a long break. I found my long lost Nano and it was time. One of the reasons I used iTunes was to find both audio and video podcasts.

I don't know why I bothered. Most of the video podcasts, if you can find them are from broadcast or traditional providers. This doesn't make them not worth watching. There is good content.

But there is a reason people flocked to YouTube and the part of that reason is Apple's institutional barriers about user generated content. 



Really, not talking about the dog and kitty types of videos. I'm talking about the kind of place it could have been that would have programs like Feminist Frequency, The Young Turks or Adventures in Woodworking.

Don't get me wrong. You still can set up a iTunes podcast. Reading the FAQ kinda tells you the you need to do the heavy lifting and then when you are ready let iTunes know and they will then evaluate your podcasts.

If it is acceptable, and if you have done the right things, your podcast is included into the iTunes system.

But that does not mean a user can find your show. I spent too much time trying to find specific kinds of video podcast content. It was either the fire hose or unrelated audio shows mixed in with a video search.

There is no effective way to discover new and current video podcasts. Or exclude older videos. Or exclude religious podcasts when I use the search terms creation or creativity. I don't want that content to go away. I just want a decent search engine inside of the podcasting area.

Other users probably want the same things. And maybe that is why when people think about viewing videos they think Blip.tv, Vimeo and YouTube and hardly every iTunes.

It did not use to be this way.


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