Hey, thanks for stopping by the DailySplice blog! This is the blog to go along with our podcasting website DailySplice. I’m Rian, and I just want to kick things off by talking a bit about what kinds of mischief we’re up to with DailySplice.

In short, we want to change the way you think about audio podcasts. Let me explain…

You probably don’t think of podcasts as something that is meant to be a part of your daily routine. Research companies usually regard you as a “regular podcast listener” if you listen once per week. If you listen to podcasts, you probably think one of the reasons they’re cool is because they’re “on demand.” The idea of using podcasts in your routine may even seem counter intuitive. But podcasts will never be mainstream until we can change the meaning of a “regular podcast listener” into someone who listens as a part of their daily routine.

The podcasting industry made 165 million in 2007, while the radio industry raked in 20.1 billion. 77% of Americans over 12 are exposed to radio on a daily basis. Almost everyone has some kind of daily routine, and it’s so easy to tune into radio that a lot of people end up including radio in that routine.

Podcasts need to replace radio. They’re time-shiftable, there’s more content to choose from, they’re more targeted, easier to track for advertisers, and these days you’ve probably got your own device capable of playing them within reach 24 hours a day.

So why don’t you listen to podcasts everyday? Instead of setting your morning alarm to the radio, you should just find some good podcasts, subscribe to them, get up a bit earlier every morning and download your new podcasts, sync them up with iPod, choose which ones you want to listen to that day, and every once in a while find a few more good ones and delete the boring ones.

Sounds Fantastic eh? But surprisingly, the majority of people would rather just listen the quirky morning DJs prank call Buck’s Auto Garage every morning then put in the extra effort.

Podcast’s lack the accessibility, organization, and predictability that radio has. Without these, podcasts will never become a suitable part of your routine, regardless of how great the content is. But what if we could make it as easy to find, subscribe, and sync up good podcasts as it is to tune into a radio show? What if we could organize the entire global podcast community into one central network that produced as much or more quality content then all the radio stations combined? What if, just as you can always be assured the radio DJs will be at work every morning, you could be assured that the perfect amount of high quality and relevant podcast content would be delivered to your mp3 player every day?

Over the next little while, DailySplice will be introducing a number of podcast tools that will eventually make all these things and more a reality. Our mission is to make it easier to use podcasts in your routine than it is to listen to the radio. A lofty goal, but if you’ve got a beta account you may already be seeing how this can be possible with the tools we’re building.

If you don’t have a beta account, we’ve still got a free a podcasts directory for you to use. It’s a work in progress, but we’re releasing it now because we want you to help us. We want you to submit podcasts, rate them, tag them, discuss them, and tell us what else we need to do to make it easier for others to find them.

You’ll notice something in our directory that you won’t find anywhere else: publishing schedule information. You can see what days of the week a podcast is typically published, what time it usually comes out, and how long it is. This is going to be important for our vision because we want a podcast’s publication schedule to influence how you choose podcasts. We hope we can start building some standards in the industry so that podcasters make podcasts that are more suitable for your routine.

Of course we’ve also got some features on the site to help you start connecting with friends. Your friends can help you find podcasts and help us recommend your own top podcasts. Once you’ve set up a username and password, go to the Share section to start building a profile and networking.

So welcome to DailySplice, we look forward to putting podcasts into your daily routine!