Lucas Gonze has a post I completely agree with regarding the origins of the term "broadcatching" (Where did the term broadcatching come from?). See also, Marc's Voice (Broadcatching).

More importantly, Gonze breaks down the difference between "RSS" and "syndication" (RSS and weblogs tag team mano a mano vs. syndication and broadcatching). I've played fast and loose with using RSS for broadcatching, letting the herd spread a bit much. Gonze flanks the cattle back into line:

The reason for the awkwardness is that RSS is about content from the creator of the RSS feed, while playlists are about deep linking to resources not owned by the linker.

Absolutely. Gonze also identifies some subtle differences between reading RSS feeds and using television. As TiVo has proved, useability is absolutely critical. Gonze also points out that some of the tools being used to make RSS more efficient (Technorati, Google, Feedster) will have to be seriously retooled to be effective for broadcatching.

Diablog connects broadcatching with the spread of broadband in Europe (Broadcatching, the future of “broadband television”). The two early posts link to articles that demonstrate that traditional broadcasters still don't get it. For example, Strategy Analytics gives bogus advice to broadcasters (Broadcasters Beware: Broadband Is Stealing Your Viewers):

TV programmers and service providers can deal with this trend by continuing to emphasise iTV services and products like Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), which can offer viewers the same kind of interactivity and personalisation associated with the Internet.

The problem with this vision is that it doesn't forsee programmers and service providers providing the tools to let the public provide the personalization. iTV has always meant, "why don't you buy this?" It should mean letting consumers help to organize and even provide the content. Read on...

Sean Carton, "Chief Experience Officer" of Carton Donofrio Partners, Inc., thinks broadcatching is the future of time shifting, only he calls it "Rich Media RSS" (Next-Generation RSS: Time-Shifted Streaming Media).

Nucleus 1.0 is released:

Nucleus will download a specified RSS file, and look for .torrent files that match any of the specified keywords. If a match is found it will queue up that file for download. After it has gone through the entire RSS file it will download each file 1 at a time. If no matches are found the program will just simply exit.

Adam Curry reviews Nucleus for the Really Simple Syndication Blog and is quite happy with the experience (Nucleus Review). This sounds like a great idea, but it'll have to be heavily revised to succeed going into the future. First, such a system seems designed for broadcatching spam. It also relys on services which will likely be eventually sued (why they haven't been sued yet by the copyright holders is beyond me).

Buttress claims to be an "application to automatically download and run .torrent files from RSS feeds, without user input."

Jeff Jarvis is doing some creative thinking about mixing RSS with rich content services (Cookies in RSS).

Finally, Doc Searls applies broadcatching to the radio medium - talking about metadata labeling, add-on services like Technorati, interface design (cell phones!) and FCC reform (Think of it as Radio Simply Sydicated). It would be great if NPR would consider such a thing, but to be honest, I've worked with public broadcasters before and they are sometimes more paranoid about loss of control than private broadcasters. For example, public television is one of the supporters of the broadcast flag. Anyway, when Doc speaks people listen. Jeff Jarvis on Doc's idea: Explode your radio. Poynter on the concept: RSS Radio.

A VC discusses a related concept, the advent of HC (for "High Choice") radio (HC Radio):

[P]rogramming choice may be the ultimate value proposition.

Absolutely true and broadcatching will be the ultimate in programming choice. Unfortunately, A VC is talking about multiple audio streams, not a mix of various audio streams. This is the difference between having a hundred cable channels (cool) and having a hundred cable channels with a multi-tuner TiVo (awesome).