Podango, which we wrote about last month, went into public beta today, so anyone can access the site and, if they care to, apply to be a station director.
Podango aims to combine multiple podcasts, which may only be publishing weekly, into a 3-5 shows per day channel with a single RSS feed. Podango will recruite station directors, who in turn will recruit podcasters for their channels, manage the channel using an Ajax drag and drop admin interface, and help recruit advertisers. The hope is that listeners will gain from having a person select the best podcasts for a given category as well as avoid dead air time since shows will be queued one-after-another. For more information on becoming a station director, see this page.
Podango will also generate ad sales for stations, keeping 30% and sharing 70% with station directors and the included podcasters.
Podango has six stations live now, and CEO Lee Gibbons tells me more are coming soon as station directors are recruited. See Lee’s blog entry on the beta launch here.