Apple has recently released iTunes 4.9, which provides native support and easy access to podcast content.  For those of you who have bought your kid an iPod, you’ve probably already thought about the possibly of your kids downloading explicit music (or have you?).  Now, you have podcasts to think about…

For those of you who’ve largely been ignoring internet media but somehow still managed to find this weblog, podcasts are MP3 files that contain audio programs that usually aren’t musical in nature.  Most podcasts are verbal commentary or something analogous to a talk radio show.

Rober Scoble brought the issue of podcasts and kids to our attention the other day and it poses some interesting questions for parents. 

Question One, do you as a parent know what is out there?  The importance of podcasts is that anyone with a computer can create them and distribute them.  Anyone, including the guy we saw wearing a mohawk and a ripped t-shirt proclaiming “Mickey Mouse is DEAD” this weekend at Disneyland.  Bad language, sex, racism, terrorism - the potential topics for podcasts are endless and in a way podcasts stand to attract broadcasters that wouldn’t be able to get heard in traditional channels.

Question Two, do you attempt to spy on your kids?  I tend to gravitate towards these “parent/child privacy” issues because it forces us to think hard about our parenting philosophies.  My personal take on this is that for something like podcasts it will be impossible to prevent your kids from getting access to content on the internet that they shouldn’t have.