Casting for Pods: podcast directories

For step #21 of our 23 Things, we looked at finding podcasts through three podcast directories. And, I have added a fun podcast to my Blogline account which is connected to my "And now, some real news" links located at the bottom on the left sidebar. Just look for Washington TravelCast. I know, it sounds silly to live this close to Washington, D.C. and have a podcast about traveling in our nation's capital. But, I enjoy hearing about a lot that is offered in the city that many people take for granted. Plus, there are sites (physical locations, not websites) that I have not visited and may sound quite interesting in the podcast.

Anyway, here are three podcast directories that I explored.

Podcast.net This is the site I used to find the travel podcast I have in my bloglines account. It is set up as a directory which is easy to use, but you cannot search within the categories. You can browse tags and you can search Title & Description, Keywords, Location, Host, or Episodes. Unfortunately, you cannot sort your search results either and the sidebar displays the most recent episodes of everything (I don't see the point unless what is listed is the podcast you want).

Search results allow a small summary and plenty of detail when you click on a search result. But descriptions are very brief if you use the directory only. You can sort by newest or alphabetically and the brief description includes category/categories, latest episode, author, and nothing else.


Podcast Alley is another site using the directory format, but only after choosing the "genre" from a pull down menu. On their homepage, between all those ads, they have the Top 10 for the month with no descriptions making it pretty much worthless. They also list five featured and five newest podcast, all without descriptions making them as useful as the Top 10.

One nice feature about Podcast Alley is that you will get a brief description in the same page each time you click on a podcast in the list. There are quick links for Subscribe, Vote, and Details, but I did not see where you can sort the list like you can in Podcast.net. Like Podcast.net, you cannot search within the "genres" and Boolean does not appear to be a feature.


Yahoo Podcasts is probably the best of the three. You can search Series, Episodes, or both. There is a section of Most Popular and Highly Rated podcasts with a very brief summary and links to listen or subscribe and a note on whether the podcast is free.

There is a section for Main Categories, but these are not a directory, but simply lists the podcasts with a good amount of description. Also, there is an additional search option to Search the Web that will take your request and search from Yahoo's main page. This search option will look for all results, not podcasts only. There is a section for Popular Tags in a tag cloud format.

The amount of description upfront and the amount of description in the search results is why I think it is the best choice of the three. However, I would recommend downloading Apple's ITunes for free to search podcasts. The usability of Itunes appears to be far superior to any of the three I reviewed.

One more "Thing" exercise and a summary to go and then I will be finito!