On Friday, I received an email from Apple’s iTunes Podcasting team that they’re changing the categories in the iTunes directory. So, I updated the WP-iPodcatter plugin to reflect these changes.

Like their removal of item-level categorization, I’m not crazy about these changes.

1. There are 2 ‘Other’ categories (in Religion, Games & Hobbies). But not in any of the other categories. ‘Other’, like ‘Miscellaneous’, is an acknowledgment of an unsuccessful categorization scheme. Conceivably, ‘Other’ will have the most things in it – so filtering that category will be the challenge.
2. These categories feel more like Apple trying to form and mold what’s in the iTunes directory rather than fostering what’s currently being published.
3. I have no idea where to put the First Crack Podcast. Best I could do was; Business, Technology, Arts:Food. I know. Not accurate.

Then again, iTunes is a pretty worthless interface for finding podcasts, and these category revisions only make the problem worse. While doing nothing to eliminate podcasters gaming their placement with; -, –>, :: , ‘, ‘”, “”””””””””””””””””.

All podcast directories have a similar problem – trying to be the Yahoo of podcasts (hierarchical directory) rather than the Google (really good filtering). If you’re looking for good podcasts – I recommend AmigoFish or a regular web search (Google, Yahoo, etc) with “podcast” added at the end.