Apple now advertises its new iPod as “podcast ready”, but to quote pioneer Montreal podcaster M-C Turgeon, “dude, it’s called a podcast! as in ipod!”

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how podcasting develops commercially and culturally over the next few months or years, now that iTunes integrates podcasts in a special part of its library. I believe all podcasts are currently free, but the possibility of commercial podcasts is there and without a doubt, it’ll be a reality soon.

Whether podcasters will have to pay fees to use songs or whether the listeners will be footing the bill, we’ll have to see but someone somewhere is going to make big money out of it.