Compared to the continued spate of new product announcements from Google, things at Yahoo have seemed more sedate. Now, Yahoo promises to help organize an area that definitely needs help: podcasting. Yahoo has released the beta version of a new podcast tool at https://podcasts.yahoo.com. the new service will help users find, organize, and either play or download podcasts.
Podcasting has huge potential to be highly targeted “radio on demand”, but is hampered by awkward interfaces for getting the content from the provider to the user’s player in a smooth and seamless manner. We’ll be testing Yahoo’s service and report back on it.
Simultaneously, Yahoo announced the Yahoo Music Engine, which might be summarized as their version of iTunes. Robin Good has a nice summary of the introductions.
What’s the best part of this announcement? I think it’s that Yahoo and Google are putting the “index size” wars behind them, and focusing instead on competition in new products and services. If even a fraction of what these companies have announced survives and prospers, the Internet will be a better place.
