Podcasting for B2B publishers?

I recently discovered podcasting. (Yes, I feel old.) I downloaded ipodder, loaded it up with some sample feeds, listened to a few podcasts, then promptly deleted all the feeds I had signed up for. Most of what I listened too wasn't very good, and I agree with others who say the growth of the medium will really take off when it's easy to find cream-of-the-crop podcasts, especially for B2B publishing.

However, there are a couple of interesting angles on podcasting for B2B publishers:

1. Really, really, really high-quality interviews. Sort of the Terry Gross/NPR model. An example is IT Conversations. So instead of an editor droning on and on reading his copy into a microphone, we get the editor conducting provocative interviews with thought leaders in the industry. Which they do all day long anyway. Hel-lo? Is that a natural for podcasting or what?

2. Meanwhile, from across the pond, I came across this interesting idea for a sort of audio newsclipping service:

We put together a monitoring package, scanning a variety of aggregated news sources - PubSub, Google Alerts and so on. Based on criteria that the client supplies - “this week I need to know about X” - we scan the feeds and grab anything that seems likely.

Then we quickly scan what comes up - and using our skill and judgment - select the items that we judge to be the most interesting. We narrate a summary of each item (in our finest BBC English accent) as an MP3 file. They’re short podcasts, no more than 3 or 4 minutes each. And there’s maybe a half-dozen at a time.

Their client, who travels quite a bit, simply grabs his ipod and throws it in a suitcase, loaded up with short, relevant clips of good content. This has profound implications for publications whose audiences tend to travel. It's essentially a form of "push" audio publishing. Not sure what the ad angle is yet.

What a wonderful way of pushing out good quality content for readers to consume on those cross-country plane flights.