Rimini Textcasts

What on earth is a textcast? Well, it is, as the name suggests, like a podcast which you can download to either i-tunes or your i-pod, but rather than listening to it, you get to read it.

The first example of a textcast was created by American online magazine Slate, who also put together a number of different podcasts. They wanted to find a way to exploit the i-pod's memory capacity and visual display. Unfortunately, to date, Apple haven't included a specific function for reading text files on an i-pod, so the folks at Slate (and also at Stanford University) came up with a novel workaround. Basically you download a lengthy mp3 file as per a normal podcast. The difference, though, is that the podcast mp3 is silent. The textcast itself comes in the accompanying description, held in the podcast xml rss feed. We've used a similar model to bring you the Visit Rimini textcast series.

Once downloaded to your i-pod, or i-tunes, or both, the textcast can then be accessed by hitting the i-pod's centre button a couple of times, until you reach the description field. Here you'll find the text of the textcast downloaded and readable as long as your silent mp3 is playing (Our version lasts about 15minutes, which is more than enough for any of the articles downloaded - and because the mp3 contains silence, we've shrinked the file size down to a measly 928k). You can read the textcast in i-tunes by playing the 'podcast', right-clicking on its title, and selecting 'show description'.

What's the point of reading something on an i-pod, when the screen is so small? Good question. Well, in our case the answer is mobility. On your trip to Rimini you may want to do some reading up while on the move, and if you have an i-pod with you, why not download a couple of our textcasts to keep you going. They take up next to no room, and they'll give you handy information without having to run to the nearest tourist office or internet cafe.

Our Current Textcasts

Rimini Monuments
We'll regularly update the textcast to include all the major monuments and sights in Rimini
Italian Phrasebook (Coming Soon)
A handy and free Italian phrasebook, to help you get the most out of your trip
Practical Rimini (Coming Soon)
All sorts of useful information for visitors to Rimini

How to add the textcast to your i-pod

We'll be posting i-tunes friendly links in a couple of days, but in the meantime

simply right-click on the textcast link above, and copy link
Open i-tunes, click on 'advanced' and 'subscribe to podcast'
Paste the link into the window that opens, and click 'o.k'
I-tunes will automatically add the visit-rimini textcast to your podcast subscriptions