maiunshr bxfnvhyg iqawnvsoai fmjvwmyhcq ikhwiugsn…

Two things arise.

One is that as things stand, and according to Audible.com itself, I can’t use Audible material on any device (which didn’t come with the stuff preloaded in firmware like, say, my old Jornada PDA) without downloading additional software.

If I were producing audio for an audience, I’d be hoping – nay, assuming – that they’d sorted this out before bothering me with ‘Wordcasts’. ‘Cos otherwise it fails my trusty acid test of ‘would I do this?’. No, I wouldn’t, any more than I’d download a new browser to look at some guy’s website.

Secondly, Mitch has told me – several times now – that the AudibleReady format “has been published since last year”. Yet his only link is to some crufty press release claiming its immediate availability.

As far as I’m concerned, it ain’t published until I can read it. Where is it? Audible.com has no link… not even on the site map.

I’m happy to be told where it is, just as I’d be quite happy enough to be assured that listeners would under no circumstances have to download some plugin or app to listen to my audio. Both may be true.

I’m still pissed off about his dumbass comment form though.

At Jeff Jarvis’ suggestion, in this post I am going to take a closer look into the recent blogosphere blow-up over Audible’s podcasting efforts. This is a case study that perhaps others can learn from. I am not here

The audio service known as Audible.com, which has been around for a number of years and — to be fair — was way out in front of the downloadable audio game, set off a bit of a firestorm when it announced a service that would allow podcaster...

The problem with a system of tracking, though, is that you have to have a collection point where data is audited. That’s primarily what the idea of service, like Wordcast, is intended to address—then there is the adjunct ability to place ads in programs dynamically, which is designed into this, too.

Mitch

How are they going to make their technology work with MP3 when than format can’t support state and callbacks?

Then you say “And as if trying to thumb the noses of podcasters, the company has come up with their own moniker. Wordcast.” Oddly enough, you recommend a pseudo-alternative, “Fruitcast”, without disparaging their choice of names.

I can understand the reluctance to support non-MP3 efforts, but it seems clear that MP3 can’t handle the operations Audible proposes. The alternatives are to develop an open-source format that will handle tracking (will take a long time) or simply say you don’t need what the Audible system provides. But there’s no need to make the company look evil.