By Robert MacMillan
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005 9:48 AM

Podcasting has done what no new technology that I'm aware of has ever accomplished: It's gone mainstream and underground at the same time.

I don't know any other word to use besides "mainstream" when I hear from the White House that President Bush's radio addresses will be offered via podcast. And I have no other word at my fingertips than "underground" when I read a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece that suggests that podcasting is the biggest tech craze that most of us have never heard of.

Here's what White House spokesman David Almacy told me: Selected Bush speeches, along with the radio addresses, are available now at the iTunes Web site. A team of about a dozen Web staffers are converting these and selected speeches into MP3 files and making them available too.

Not only that, the White House has created RSS feeds for the radio addresses in English and Spanish. That means that anyone who wants to can sign up to receive the information through their RSS readers along with news and other Web site updates that offer this service.

"As technology advances, the White House recognizes the importance of providing content in new ways to reach new audiences to communicate the president's vision," Almacy said.

Regardless of the current brouhaha over what that vision is, it might be possible to classify the Bush White House as jumping ahead of the curve on technology.

That's the conclusion one could draw from reading Chris Suellentrop's "Mediavore" column on the Los Angeles Times Web site. In his Aug. 7 column, the former Slate.com campaign correspondent made the facetious suggestion that the only way to account for podcasting's popularity is a dedicated PR campaign from Steve Jobs's publicist.

"How else to explain July's monthlong media swoon over a phenomenon -- podcasting -- that is used by almost no one?" Suellentrop wrote. "Granted, an ever-increasing number of Internet users are being added to the ranks of 'almost no one,' so that in the near future podcasting may be a technology used by 'nearly someone.' But today, there are only 6,000 to 7,000 regular podcasts being created online, and the number of regular listeners probably doesn't exceed the lower reaches of 'hundreds of thousands.'"

The best media commentary I can offer here is: Ouch. That's a distinct reality check on a tech topic that news sources around the country have taken great pains to report early and often. Here's more:

"In late June, Apple released a new version of its popular iTunes software that includes support for podcasts. The press responded by making July its first-ever Official Podcasting Coverage Month. Fortune, the Washington Post (which put it on the front page) and the Economist weighed in. The New York Times published four podcasting stories, each longer than 1,000 words. C-SPAN, the Fox television network and Slate began creating podcasts. Media and technology reporters are obviously interested in podcasting, but so are political reporters (John Edwards podcasts! So does Nancy Pelosi! And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger!), religion reporters (for whom 'Godcasts' is the neologism of choice) and local news reporters, who get to write about the podcasters in their backyards (and employ Onion-like headlines such as 'Tri-state man part of communications "revolution."')."

Yes sir, there's nothing I like better than a cranky columnist, and Suellentrop fits the mold. He admits, however, that podcasting's portability is a big deal, as is the ability to let people listen to radio programs at some other time than when they're broadcasting.

But his comment about the small usage numbers makes me think of something else that's important to remember about any new technology. The media, when they smell a story, tend to blow it out of proportion for months at a time. Those new things, from podcasts to blogs, wind up as interesting and popular -- in the sense of being widely known, even if not widely used -- cultural phenomena.

Still, the things that are truly "revolutionary" are the ones that creep up on us. I am thinking at this moment of e-mail. It's a boring application, and would-be futurists in the journalism world already cite evidence that tomorrow's teens will prefer instant messaging to e-mail, which is too much like sending a letter.

But try living without e-mail these days. If you're reading this column online, I imagine that you can't live without it too long, even if you want to. There's no point in writing a story that says, "E-Mail: Everybody Uses It Now," but it is evidence that a communications revolution did take place.

If podcasting takes off the way e-mail did, then we'll have a real revolution on (or in) our hands.

For those of you who do enjoy podcasting, I have to ask: If you had the choice between sitting through President Bush's weekly radio address or some hot, steamy audio action, which would you choose?

The San Francisco Chronicle today covered the rise of "podnography," a portmanteau word that would make Lewis Carroll proud.

"A recent Google search for the phrase 'adult podcast' showed 6,850 results. Compare that to the category 'rock podcast,' which had only 3,890. In one sexcast -- available at www.podcastdirectory.com -- a San Francisco man describes a lurid rendezvous with a 'gorgeous' woman he meets on Craigslist. He calls it 'The Trist from Craigslist,' spelling 'tryst' with an 'I'," the Chronicle's Daniel King wrote. "To begin, he sets the scene. 'I went ahead and met her at a coffee shop,' he says. His voice is matter-of-fact and sedated. 'I could see her -- uh, the little points of her nipples poking through her red T-shirt.' From there, they walk to her place and close the door. 'It was a little awkward,' he says. 'She got us a couple of glasses of wine, and we're sitting there drinking.' Then he stands up and plants a kiss. 'And she kissed back -- a very, very eager kiss.' His lips become dry, and quickly, his voice gains speed: 'I started kissing her again ... sliding my tongue in her mouth.'"

I'll leave you to find that file on your own to see how things work out.

On a practical note, King said, podcasts offer anonymity that a phone-sex conversation never would: "With sexcasts, you don't have to sit up nights worrying that the phone-sex operator has Caller ID and will sell your number to marketers or call you the following day and speak to your parents or significant other."

The idea that the porn industry is usually the trailblazer when it comes to finding profits in the latest technology is not new, but I wonder how far an audio-only format will get in a medium that relies so much on, uh, visuals.

On another Apple note, Slate's Tim Noah filed part two of his two-part series on his quest to find a customer service phone number for the iTunes music store.

In his first installment, he detailed the beginning of his "Roger & Me"-style hunt for an actual phone representative, something that many of us find useful in the customer service experience when Web-based help desks no longer fulfill our needs.

The search began when he tried to help his sister Patsy find a number when she couldn't resolve a billing error on her iTunes account: "The number was: 1-800-676-2775. Choose menu option 1 for English, then menu option 2, and then menu option 1, and then menu option 3. But wait! Here's what I got after I'd done all that: If you're calling about a question relating to an iTunes music store purchase or gift certificate, please visit us on the Web at www.apple.com/support/iTunes and select the iTunes music store customer service link. (Click! Dial tone.)"

More frustration ensued, until Noah finally conceded in today's file that Apple simply doesn't offer phone-based customer service for iTunes. Here's the note he got from an anonymous former Apple employee: "I can tell you definitively that, as of now, there is no phone support for the iTunes Music Store. The absolute only way to get support is to open iTunes, go to the Music Store, and click the 'Support' link in the left-hand column. That takes you to a web page for all kinds of questions. Click the link that's most relevant (in this case, probably the section on 'Purchasing Information'). On every one of those pages, there's a form to get support. But don't waste your time looking for anything else. There are no alternatives."

Note to Apple: The Internet is a wonderful thing, but not making a phone-based customer service alternative available is like making yourself one degree less accessible than the DMV. That's no one's idea of a good time.

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com.