I’ve really been getting into Stitcher Radio, a new service that does for spoken word audio what services like Pandora Radio and Last.fm do for music. This is an extremely cool service that seems to bring the positive things about satellite or terrestrial radio and podcasting, taking podcasts and “stitching” them together into an audio channel made up of podcasts.

Like Pandora and Last.fm, Stitcher features a personalization engine that parses over 2 million shows (yes, the world of podcasts has exploded!) into recommended lists that you can then stream over your iPhone. There are some pre-rolled podcast stitches that you can listen to right away, including:

• American News and Politics (CNN Headlines, NPR Hourly News, MSNBC, AP)
• Apple & Mac (Mac OS Ken, Today in iPhone, Mac Observer, EZ Mac)
• Arts & Culture (Writer’s Almanac, The Moth, Archers, Old Time Radio)
• Music & Talk (Stereogum, Today in Music History)
• Public Radio (NPR News, Prairie Home Companion)

Stitcher eliminates the annoyances of podcasting

Now, I’m a podcaster, and I also spend a substantial portion of my waking hours listening to them. This is a great way to get the exact content I want, and I find myself opting for the podcast version even with things that I could get over the radio (like NPR).

There are two major annoyances with getting my content this way:

1. Need to Sync

2. Active Organization – pruning, smart playlist, deleting

Stitcher solves both of these annoyances, making it easy to get the most current version of your favorite podcasts. Just select your favorite shows and Stitcher will play the most recent episodes for you, over Wi-Fi, 3G, or Edge (yes, Edge–and it actually works!), eliminating the need to sync your iPhone ot iPod Touch to get all your most recent podcast episodes.

Other Stitcher coverage

TechCrunch did a write-up about Stitcher recently that highlights some of its more compelling features, including the huge potential for the iPhone app.

Contrabass Conversations on Stitcher!

Just head on over to Stitcher.com and search for Contrabass Conversations. Add us to your favorites!