One of the early criticisms of the Zune, Microsoft’s digital media player, was that it didn’t support podcasts. That all changed with the release of Zune 2. Now, Microsoft is taking it a step further with the introduction of the Zune Marketplace Podcast directory.
Which isn’t a bad idea. If you’re a podcaster looking to get the word out about your show — and you don’t want to be buried amongst the thousands of shows and personalities in iTunes and other podcast directories — then the Zune Marketplace Podcast directory is for you.
Rob Greenlee, the Zune Podcast Programming Manager, said the directory will launch next week with just a 1,000 feeds in its directory, making it nice and clean compared with other listings.
“The reason we are doing this is to seed the catalog with a base level of podcasts that Zune users and podcasters can build on over the next few months,” he said. “Being a long-time podcaster, I understand that most content providers want to know about where their podcasts are being distributed and thus would want to actually submit his or her feed to us.
“It has been exciting over the past few weeks to have so many podcasters contact me and request inclusion in the new Marketplace podcast area – the catalog will have the first 1000 or so from us, but the rest will come from the podcasting community.”
Greenlee suggests downloading the new Zune Marketplace software from the Zune site on Nov. 13, then visiting the main podcast section in the software to “Suggest a Podcast” for inclusion in the Public Podcast Marketplace.