Well, iTunes 4.9 is out and it has podcasts built-in. Weblogs around the world are already pimping screenshots, uses, their favorite podcasts, and because it’s a new Apple product everybody flocks to it like flies to papaya.
Wait, wasn’t there another thing that did podcasts? You know, um, I think they were still in beta or something, and they had that cool domain ….. oh man what was their name…
It was Odeo. And I hope that they don’t get trounced by iTunes 4.9’s podcast support because Odeo kicks ass.
I was hand-picked (randomly selected) to tryout Odeo and it freakin’ blew me away. It’s like a combination of all the good things of all the “Web 2.0” applications like Backpack and Flickr, but rolled into a fantastic user interface with cool functionality attached to boot. It even has a desktop syncing client that interfaces right with your iPod. It’s not public yet (screenshots on Flickr), but I can bet that when it goes public, it will be all the rage.
But will iTunes 4.9 steal all their thunder? Is there a reason one would use Odeo over iTunes to find, subscribe, and download cool podcasts? Is the great Odeo ship dead in the water before it even sailed? I really hope Odeo still survives, because it was a fantastic application, but only time will tell.