In early September 2008, the Pew Research Center published findings that 19% of Internet users stated they downloaded a podcast to listen to or view later. Top-rated (most viewed, downloaded and listened to)  podcasts may come from large and famous media entities,  but the little guys appeal to a niche. The gamut includes debates, gossip sessions, lectures, demonstrations, panel discussions, and more where the receiver feels as if he or she is eavesdropping, totally involved or a combination of both. Downloading and listening at one’s convenience appeals to multi-taskers, those want to make every second of their awake time either entertaining or educational, and fills in a void that occurs while waiting at the doctor’s office, in a grocery line queue, or while walking, shopping, or resting.

The Techistan Team uses the open source Podcast Generator to interview international voices of entrepreneurs, software developers, inventors, business owners, and marketers.  One of the most recent is Alberto Betella about the Podcast Generator he created with the help and inspiration of others for a university project in Italy. Links to the complete transcripts and mp3 files follow.

Part one:  

Suzanne Bowen:  Today we have with us Alberto Betella. Our company needed a good podcast generating software program. We found the Podcast Generator which Alberto is the inventor and creator of.  Alberto, tell us a little about yourself. You mentioned developing this while you were in at a university in Italy.

Alberto Betella:  Hello to you, Suzanne, and everyone. Here’s the story of Podcast Generator. In 2005, I was a student and had to complete my final project. I was talking with La Corarsori (name of professor?), a professor of computer science at the University of Belgama in Italy. I was quite interested in podcasting, in the application form.

First, I needed to discover what podcasting was. There was this service called iTunes from Apple in late 2005, early 2006… some universities (only a few in the USA) were experimenting with this platform.

We wanted to use podcasting as an extension of studies in the classroom. We contacted Apple and asked if iTunes was available? They replied that unfortunately it was not available in much of Europe and not Italy either.

So, that couldn’t be the end! We decided to develop our own platform in order to make it available to the students. After some months of coding, I started in March 2006, we were able to set up (???), the podcasting service from the university of Belgamo. It was one of the first podcasting services in Italy.

We decided to leave the “engine,” the Podcast Generator, under an open source license. We started to get much feedback from users and realized we had something good. There were not too many open source podcast opportunities at that time. 

Suzanne Bowen:  It is amazing what your software is making available. The users are able to share content online that might not normally be so easily shared. I’ve listened to many types of podcasts created by using your software. People download these podcasts in mp3 format to their iPod, iPhone, CD, computer or other mp3 player. They replay in their cars, while they are jogging, walking, shopping.

It’s open source, too. I’m familiar especially with open source inventors such as two others I have interviewed for this podcast channel, Anthony Minessalle of freeSWITCH, Daniel Constantin-Miera of Kamailio and Mark Spencer of Asterisk.

Now, one thing for sure is that when people take advantage of open source (free) software, they should take advantage of opportunities to give back. That’s what I do. There’s a guy named Peter from VoIP Users Conference who kind of “preached” on the same thing about a year ago.

Are there any other open source softwares that you are impressed with and/or use?

Anthony Betella:  There are commonly used open source such as Open Office and Firefox that are used by a huge amount of people.

There is an open source platform called IOS. See www.ios.org which is open source cloud computing. Your whole system is in the web browser. Open your web browser, and find your office suite, mail client… use for business and school.

This project was started in Barcelona where I’m living now. I’m very impressed by this.

This is the future, an operating system that is online. Every terminal at work will login and find your own desktop with your own applications and files.

The importance of open source and Podcast Generator… well it didn’t stop there. It’s an example of open source that works. We had some funds and grants to go on working, so for a few years I was paid to continue research and development.

We participated in international conferences. We published papers. This shows that open source software is a good alternative to proprietary software.

Let’s think about ethics. It is actually a play on culture. If you use just proprietary software, you don’t share anything with the community while with open source, you can share your code. You get feedback from the users. It means sharing knowledge. But also as a business model, it does work. For example, I had money to do it.

If you are able to push your open source work and make it more visible, people do donate money. Podcast Generator was downloaded 56,000 times since 2006. In 2009, the total was 14,000. It’s not a huge number, but it’s not bad.

Suzanne Bowen: This is a real success story. We’ll be back for part two soon.

Part two:   

Suzanne Bowen:  We’re back with Alberto Betella. We were discussing open source versus proprietary software and his creation Podcast Generator. You’re very energetic and enthusiastic, so let me hand the mic back to you. This kind of talk inspires open source developers around the world.

Alberto Betella:  When I talk about money, I mean an economic model. People can donate to Podcast Generator. I don’t receive a lot, but it’s enough to go on developing. A creation is not something you just leave.

In my case for example, we joined this idea of education with podcasting to our project. We’re on version 1.3. Version number one was created with funds from the European community. The Mozilla Foundation is another model of open source software that can earn money through donations, sponsorships, but I was thinking just now…

Like Wikipedia. You can download the engine of Wikipedia and even install on your corporate website. Now, it is one of the world’s most important sources of information. It doesn’t need advertisement to live. They ask for donations. I think they collected seven thousand… million dollars… whatever, that’s a lot. They spend a lot on servers and infrastructure.

One can earn money even in the open source model. We don’t have to close our code and not share. I was able to improve the Podcast Generator enough to sell a service even while it is open source. For example, a podcasting space, powered by Podcast Generator on our server. You know you can do business with open source.

Suzanne Bowen:  What plans do you have to expand? What kind of collaborators are you searching for? Partners, investors?

Alberto Betella:  I’m not currently planning to do business with Podcast Generator. I plan to go on and maintain and upgrade it. I want to upgrade especially on the language side. This is because languages are difficult to handle.

For example, if I have to add a feature, it’s really long to do for me. I will become faster in development. I want to change a little bit before thinking of doing business. What I’m doing now is moving into the academic research.  Since September 2008,  I moved to Barcelona where I obtained a Masters degree and am working at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona with a group called SPECS which means Synthetic Perceptive and Cognitive System.  Our aim is understanding mind, brain, behavior, using this system, robots, or mixed reality environments, so I’m still researching.

The laboratory for Synthetic Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems – SPECS – uses synthetic methods to study and synthesize the neuronal, psychological and behavioural principles underlying perception, emotion and cognition. The synthetic approach of SPECS combines real-world systems, such as robots, virtual reality systems and interactive installations with anatomically, physiologically and behaviorally constrained computational models. It is in this constructive approach that we retain a system’s view on mind, brain and behaviour while elucidating its underlying principles. Moreover, this approach directly gives rise to novel brain based artefacts and these synthetic perceptive, emotive and cognitive systems in turn can provide novel technologies for real-world problems including the enhancement of the quality of life.

On one hand I’m on research. On the other hand I’m a freelancer and developer of websites and media content and still collaborating with my old university … University of Bergamo. I can assure you that if you trust in what you do, you find a lot of ways to do what you like. You may have to move, change your country, and you don’t need anything more.

I don’t feel now I want to open an enterprise. I want to collect all this knowledge. Eventually I may make an enterprise, of course. To offer something to society.

Suzanne Bowen:  I like that answer. Go where your heart takes you, learn and eventually business will follow. I notice that you have a personal website.

Alberto Betella: My personal webpage is simple as betella.net or just go to Podcast Generator with more information. It’s http://podcastgen,sourceforge.net. See the publiciations, source story, references, and such. In Italian, we say, “You put your hands in a lot of stuff.”

When you do this, you don’t have time for your own personal web page. It’s true.  

Suzanne Bowen: You’re enjoying what you’re doing. We have one minute left here. Would you like to close this podcast with something else in Spanish or Italian?

Alberto Betella: I will say in my native language which is Italian and I miss the food from home.

Alberto closes with message in Italian for open source inspiration.