Robert Scoble is writing about podcasting with Windows Media Player. He refers to Chris Lanier's list of Windows Media Player plug ins.

Podcasting is a term Robert uses freely. Others at Microsoft are calling podcasting something else entirely. Some call it blogcasting. In his presentation about Microsoft's commitment to RSS at Gnomedex, Dean Hachamovitch, GM of Microsoft's Internet Explorer team , grouped podcasting as part of the term: "feeds of content." What Microsoft seems to say is that it's not just about audio, it's about all forms of feeds. They'll have to come up with a different term but I think I understand what they want to address.

It appears they want to move the conversation about podcasting to a different space that encompasses more than just audio. They want the conversation to be about the feed, through the built in aggregator that delivers it all.

And if they can accomplish such a feat, what does podcasting matter to them? What will podcasting matter to Microsoft if Windows applications and Internet Explorer act as feed machines? Podcasts just are another form of data that gets delivered to people when they want and how they want it.

Does Microsoft need to get all caught up in podcasting? It doesn't seem like they do. Why? Podcasting is only one part of the loosely coupled big aggregating machine that they are building as part of Longhorn and IE 7.0.

More so, it seems Microsoft is seeng a future where RSS is everywhere. Just look at MSN Spaces. When I inteviewed Mike Torres, he said that of the approximate seven million blogs, the far majority opting to have an RSS feed. Couple that with IE, which will server as a giant aggregator and you have a huge RSS ad network that can include blogs, podcasts, videoblogs and more. They don't want to talk about podcasting for obvious reasons. In the Microsoft world, nothing trumps the operating system. They want audio, video and all other data to be fed through this giant aggregator.

I like what Eric Freeman wrote for O'Reilly, after Dean's presentation at Gnomedex:

"...what Microsoft has done is essentially build an RSS aggregator into the OS and expose API's that any application can make use of to produce or consume RSS. That's a little more interesting (and perhaps would have made for a more interesting talk and discussion)."

What Eric is hinting at is a world far more universal than just syndicated audio shows. It's about feeds of all kinds that are published and consumed.

But do me a favor. Please, call it anything but "feeds of content." As Doc would say, this isn't about shipping, this is about language and how we converse.