I’m listening/watching the stream from the Apple WWDC ’05 and my ears perked up when Steve Jobs started talking about Podcasting.
Everyone’s talking about the Intel bomb — my take: don’t worry about it. OS X will be OS X no matter what architecture it’s running on. Plus cross-platform/Web developers should be happy about the (unsupported) possibility of dual-booting.
But what caught my attention was Jobs’ mention that there’d be a **Podcast directory** in the iTunes Music Store.
Now, this is an innocuous start, but I wonder how soon we’ll see some way for Podcasters to make money through the iTMS.
I doubt most folks would pay per-download for Podcasts, but a small, optional, subscription charge could supplement/supplant the PayPal dropslot.
Or imagine if Apple offers to insert brief ads in their podcasts automatically, and cut them in on a percentage of the buy.
Ideally, for both parties, there should be a way to set up affiliate links to the iTMS for any songs in your Podcast that are also in the store.
I’m not sure what it’ll be, but with Podcasts sitting inside a proven micro-payment application, something interesting is sure to happen.
