About Collectik

Collectik.net is a website that helps you  manage, mix and share media (audio and video) on the net. It's like mixtapes for podcasts. Collectik is also community of audio lovers, and it helps you find great content from other Collectik users and Friends with similar tastes.<> It combines the power of social bookmark tools such as del.icio.us and digg, web-based RSS aggregators such as bloglines and netvibes, and podcast management software such as iTunes and Juice.<>

But it's also an internet media mixtape maker: it gives you the power to create your own custom-built Playlists (available as RSS feeds and m3us) made of just what you want to listen to, and to make  special Playlists for friends.

Media Distribution on the Internet

Democracy has come to media production and distribution. With the Internet, traditional broadcasters no longer have a monopoly on deciding when we can watch shows or what we can listen to. Media makers from all over the world can now make their media available to anyone, anywhere with an Internet connection. All you have to do is download the media to your computer and listen or watch when you want. Portable devices such as iPods (and notebook computers) mean that you can take your media anywhere.

And it's now easier than ever before to make media yourself. Regular people are making great audio and video about the things that interest them: everything from knitting to chess to hip hop to hockey. The available audio and video on the net is growing daily. But how do you find the stuff you want? And how do you manage it all? Collectik.net was built to help answer these questions.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Podcasting

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a file format that helps distribute all this media. RSS allows you to subscribe to a specific shows, so you get updated every time there's something new. Using software like iTunes or Juice, you can get your computer to download media files automatically every time they are available. Podcasting is the term used to describe this on-demand media distribution method.

Find and Manage Media with Collectik.net

Many major media companies (radio: BBC, NPR; TV: NBC; newspapers: NYTimes, GuardianUK) are distributing content through podcasts, and many more will follow. Universities such as Berkley are making selected courses available through podcasts; companies such as McKinsey are podcasting. And of course there are thousands of individuals who podcast about the things they care about.

There's more and more media and podcasts available on the net every day, and it's already pretty tough to find the good stuff. Collectik.net was built to help you find and manage all of this wonderful content.

Collectik.net helps you:

• make a Collection of podcasts (by subscirbing to their RSS feeds) on your own (public) webpage
• make a Playlist of podcast episodes to download (and which to recommend)
• make special Playlists using tagging
• find podcasts you want from other Collectik users and Friends you trust

Who Is Collectik?

Collectik.net is owned by Collectik Software Inc., founded by Chris Goringe, Hugh McGuire, Kristen McQuillin, who met through the Internet public domain, audio literature project, librivox.org.

For more information, or to give us some feedback, please send us an email to: contact@collectik.net