Ever think of the convenience of dialing a number and listening to a podcast? It is possible thanks to two services, Podlinez and Fonpods.

Podlinez is essentially a portal providing you with podcasts and telephone numbers that correspond to the podcast so you can simply dial up and listen. There’s no sign-up required. As of this writing, there are 15 pages of podcasts in the directory (25 per page) and counting. You can browse the podcast directory for the corresponding telephone number or you can input an RSS feed URL of the podcast so that you can access it immediately thereafter. It has been so popular during its launch that the service provider is already ordering new telephone numbers (I tried to input a new RSS feed and was unable to at this time.)

Fonpods: Contrary to Podlinez, this service has a single access number and many more podcasts. Users can dial this number and hear an automated lady bot offer different categories of podcasts. If you do choose to sign up for an account (which is optional), you can configure your favorite podcasts on the website and listen to them offline by phone by dialing the same number and then inputting your 10-digit phone number as identification.

I found Podlinez pretty easy to use compared to Fonpods — its web interfaces compared side-by-side seem to reflect what you hear once you dial in. As a new user trying out Fonpods, unless I knew the web ID of the podcast immediately, it seemed like I had the option to listen to NPR, ESPN, and National Geographic, and there was no easy way to back out (eventually, I discovered that pressing # enough did the trick). Fonpods seemed to have a lot of “headlines,” indicating multiple podcasts, not playing just the most recent podcast, which is interesting because Podlinez doesn’t seem to support multiple podcasts, just the most recent one.

Both options seem pretty practical depending your needs. If you want to access an old podcast, Fonpods seems doable. If you want centralized access to multiple podcasts, Fonpods is also the choice product. If you want really simple access, Podlinez is the way to go.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2006 at 11:40 am by Tamar Weinberg and is filed under Podcasting News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.