What is Huffduffer?

Shortcut for illicitly inhaling (huffing) toxic chemicals? Nope.

New version of Duff Beer featured on the Simpsons? Not quite.

As a longtime fan of podcasts, there’s something that podcasting definitely hasn’t had – an easy way of sharing or having a fun discovery tool. It’s always been a difficult process as well as social aspects have been lacking. Unless you’re lucky enough to have an aficionado tweet or status their favourites on a constant basis, it can be hard to find new stuff.

Here’s where Huffduffer comes in. It’s a silly name, but it actually means something, unlike most cutesy names of the Web 2.0 ilk – it’s the pronounceable way of saying HF/DF, which is an actual term which is a triangulation method that uses two or more radio receivers to find the location of a radio transmitter. Very apropos for it’s task – finding podcasts.

So of course, I’ve signed up. What does it do? It makes your very own personal podcast feed. That’s right. No muss, no fuss, you drop the MP3 file links in, and voila. People can subscribe and find the newest stuff you’re interested in (a tip – if the link has tracking code on it by someone like podtrac, leave it in – it’s important so that the creators know how many people are downloading and how).

I’m not thinking this is for “cardinal” feeds – which are the basis of the content – but great as “adjuncts” for fans or maybe if you’re a network highlighting the best clips or shows in your network. You can add tags, a description, and see others who are HuffDuffing (Either one of the key sounds, huff or duff, when shortened, are going to be unfortunate shortened terms – “I Huffed That?” Either you’re doing something that kills brain cells or referring to The Hoff, David Hasselhoff. And I’m not sure what “I Hoffed It” would mean. Feel free to expound in comments).

The power is in taking audio content – in podcast form or not – and creating something useful, a soundscape of the things you like or you think others would – and then using the ubiquitous RSS format to distribute that information.

I must admit, as someone who likes good user experience, I really appreciated their signup process. that alone should be copied by others. It’s got a great screen that I had to share below that speaks in.. *gasp* human speak. You can click the image for a larger version.

Sharing integration is not complete with other services such as Facebook or Twitter as of this writing but there is the ability to link and embed, and there is a Firefox plugin and the iTouch mobile experience works well (haven’t had a chance to look at it on a Blackberry, but it’s a well done mobile site – you’ll be using cut and paste for this one so far until there’s a better way – and frankly, on the iPhone with it’s walled gardens, Huffduffer being a mobile site experience might just be the best way to go).

The ability to add in-depth with the notes is really valuable, too. It gives the potential for much more context and content usually only found in blog posts, or it also can be a short blast. I’d suggest being a bit descriptive if you like something and want to turn others on to it.

As to the traditional podcast feeds, it creates an iTunes-acceptable (not submitted to store but able to subscribe to anyway) feed as well as your standard RSS feed for iTunes, Google Reader, Firefox, or whatever else. Then, you can subscribe to the feeds of your friends and find the new stuff that they like.

In short, it’s a simple site that I could see in the future having a lot of potential for sharing, comments, etc. Simple disqus integration might be nice in the future, to make podcasts a much more social experience with commenting in easier ways as many podcast sites and blogs have very poor comment support.

It’s not perfect, it’s obviously new, but I think it’s a good step in the right direction to make podcasting more social.

Check it out at http://www.huffduffer.com and subscribe to my HuffDuff here.