Podcaster
A podcast listening device with the simplicity of traditional radio
- 2006~2007 Self-motivated project
|
ProblemPodcast is gaining popularity. There was about 150 thousand podcast program available to download in 2007 and the number is growing fast. So the problem assoiciated with finding suitable program is growing fast, too. Furthermore podcast as a communication medium is similar to the radio or TV. Thus the current solution like category browsing or searching is inappropriate for this kind of media, for the user is rather passive when using this media.
SolutionThe user can be categorized according to the preference. If we have large database of user program, we can apply information mining technology. For example, if user likes A, B, and C program, we can propose D program which has high probability that user will like also. The proposed solution consists of device “Podcaster” and online server. The Podcaster looks like old vintage radio with big tuning dial and volume dial. It has built-in wi-fi capability and HDD or flash memory for data storage.
The tuning dial has about 10~12 channels. Channel is a compilation of podcast program based on the keyword. You can assign various keyword to the channel. For example, an specific program address to the business week podcast or “business week” or even “business” keyword can be assigned to the specific channels. So for the user this “podcaster” device has similar experience like conventional radio or TV, however this thing somehow plays his/her type of program only. There is two more button in remote control which is “thumb up” and “thumb down”. The user can use this button to indicate his/her feedback to specific episode. This data will be used to enhance the recommendation algorithm for channel compilation. |
Resources
- Presentation explaining Podcaster [PDF]