The winners of the People’s Choice Podcast Awards have been announced:

• Best Video Podcast – Ask a Ninja
• Best Mobile Phone Formatted Podcast – Praystation Portable
• Business – Manager Tools
• Comedy – Nobody Likes Onions
• Cultural / Arts – This American Life
• Education – Grammar Girl
• Entertainment – The Lost Podcast
• Food and Drink – Coffee Geek
• Gaming – CAGcast
• General – ShowGirls
• GLBT – Feast of Fools
• Health / Fitness – Sex is Fun
• Mature – Keith and the Girl
• Movies / Films – Firefly Talk
• PodSafe Music – Catholic Rockers
• Political – Free Talk Live
• Religion Inspiration – Daily Breakfast
• Sports – Phedippidations
• Technology / Science -Security Now
• Travel – WDW Radio

The Podcast Awards’ top two podcasts of the year will be announced at the Podcast and New Media Expo on September 28th.

Podcasting startup PodTech, which has been struggling with its finances, questionable content development choices and its image, today announced that it had ended its external search for a CEO and had instead promoted Chief Operating Officer James McCormick to CEO. Founder and current CEO John Furrier will continue to serve on the board of directors and lead efforts to develop new products and revenue.

“James has demonstrated the operational leadership to take PodTech to the next level” said John Furrier. “I look forward to continuing to work together, to build on our market position and capitalize on the growth and opportunity in new media.”

McCormick faces many challenges as he takes over the CEO role, including securing additional funding, increasing efficiency and refocusing the company on identifying content that can be profitably marketed.

McCormick joined PodTech in September 2006 as Chief Operating Officer. According to the company, he has been instrumental in increasing the number of customers and revenue for the company as well as helping to create the infrastructure necessary to position the company for future growth.

Blue Note, a record label known for its classic jazz recordings, has released a series of podcasts. The new shows focus on current releases by Blue Note artists, including Floratone, Norah Jones, Amos Lee, Ron Carter and Suzanne Vega.

Here are the podcast details…..

If you think you might run out of bizarre ways to play your MP3s, check out the Thermo Sport Fridge/Cooler. Not only does it have tiny speakers built-in, but it refrigerates 16 cans of your favorite beverage.

Here’s what SkyMall has to say about this frankenplayer:

Keep your drinks & food nice & cold!

Say hello to your new favorite travel companion! Just plug this thermo sport fridge/cooler into your car’s cigarette lighter, turn it on and relax, knowing that your contents are cooled down to 40 degrees F.

To make your tailgate parties, picnics or camping trips even more fun, turn on the two-speaker radio. Includes an input jack and a storage pocket for your iPod. High-quality insulation, sturdy nylon exterior, shoulder strap. Lights indicate when cooling.

Six Apart’s Anil Dash has announced the release of Movable Type 4.0 (MT), the latest version of the pioneering blogging platform. While the publishing platform has lost a lot of ground to WordPress in the last few years, MT is fighting back by open-sourcing much of its code, offering a free version, and bringing its feature set up to par with WordPress.

The MT4 core comes with advanced features built-in, including tagging and podcasting support.

Here are the highlights of the new version:

• A redesigned user interface.
• More powerful publishing abilities. There‚Äôs support for standalone pages in addition to blog entries, more robust templating, and smarter archiving, with the ability to create archives per-author or category archives paged by month.
• Better plugins, with many built in. Many of the most popular plugins have been folded into the MT4 core, and dozens more plugins are either upgraded for or brand-new to MT4.
• Unique features. Support for an unlimited number of blogs, with the ability to aggregate content from one, some, or all of your blogs in a single page. And the ability to add on solutions to your core MT install to enable Enterprise integration or advanced Community features.
• A reinvigorated community. Six Apart is working to leverage the strength of the MT community with open-source development and a MT Plugins Directory.

The Movable Type site has a list of new features.

If you’re using MT 4 for podcasting, let us know what you think about it in the comments!

Energizer announced today the introduction of the Energi To Go Portable Power for iPod. This battery-powered device will be available at retail nationwide this fall.

The Energi To Go is powered by two Lithium AA batteries. The device features a control chip that maximizes power transfer to the iPod. In testing with Energizer e2 Lithium AA batteries, the Energizer Energi To Go charger provided more than 46 hours of music playback on the iPod nano and more than 32 hours of music playback on the iPod with video.

“For many consumers, digital music players are an essential,” said Mike Rivard, Energizer General Manager, New Products. “This new Energizer Energi To Go Portable Power for iPod allows them to know that whether they’re on a plane, at the beach, or anywhere in between, their music will keep going. ”

The Energizer Energi To Go Portable Power for iPod features a licensed Apple iPod tip and is adjustable so that it’s compatible with iPod (with & without video) and iPod nano. The MSRP for Energizer Energi To Go iPod Portable Power Source is $29.99 and includes the charger and two Energizer e2 Lithium AA batteries.

AT&T & LG Electronics have announced a new phone, the trax, that gives users access to subscription music services such as Napster and eMusic. The phone offers an alternative to the computer-centric approach championed by Apple with its iPhone/iTunes offering.

The trax is a multipurpose clamshell-shaped phone that connects to AT&T’s 3G UMTS/HSDPA network. Besides video sharing, AT&T offers video streams, music downloading, and other services on the high-speed network. The phone also supports Bluetooth wireless technology used in hands-free headsets, and includes a 1.3-megapixel camera and in-camera photo-editing.

And at $130, it offers a cheap alternative to the relatively expensive iPhone, which has sophisticated support for Internet media, but is designed to be a computer peripheral. By offering both the iPhone and phones like the trax, AT&T appears to be betting on the iPhone, but hedging its bet by offering ever-more-powerful inexpensive phones.

Apple announced today the debut of the John Lennon solo catalog on the iTunes Store. Sixteen of Lennon’s solo works from EMI Music are available on iTunes starting today, with the ‚ÄúLennon Legend‚Äù and ‚ÄúAcoustic‚Äù collections making their worldwide digital debuts. For a limited period of 30 days, exclusive video content will be included with the albums ‚ÄúJohn Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,‚Äù ‚ÄúSometime in New York City,‚Äù ‚ÄúWalls and Bridges,‚Äù ‚ÄúMilk and Honey‚Äù and the collections ‚ÄúAnthology‚Äù and ‚ÄúWorking Class Hero.‚Äù

“John would have loved the fact that his music will now be available in a format suited to a new generation of listeners,” said Yoko Ono.

“John Lennon is one of the greatest artists of our time,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to have his solo catalog available on the iTunes Store for the first time.”

As part of EMI Music’s digital catalog, the John Lennon solo works will be available in iTunes Plus, offering DRM-free music tracks with 256 kbps AAC encoding for $1.29 per song

Podcast Pickle has announced a contest to reward people for writing reviews at their directory.

Beginning Friday, August 10, the Reviews for Riches contest begins, and will run for 4 weeks. When you review a podcast at the site, your name will be entered into the drawing. If your name is drawn, you can win $100.

Details can be found on the Contest Page.

A new Survey from market research firm Parks Associates has found that few in the U.S. are satisfied with their experience downloading videos from the Internet:

• Only 16% say the selection of videos available online is good;
• Only 13% say video downloads are sold at a reasonable price; and
• Fewer than one in five consumers downloading video say they plan to download videos again.

In other words, despite the growth of video podcasting, despite the availability of mature video download options like iTunes and despite the huge growth of Internet video, most people are still not getting what they want.

People don’t see a reason to use video downloading services,” said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates. “Sure, it saves a trip to the video store, but it takes longer, looks worse, and you end up watching it on a 17” screen. No wonder consumers are dissatisfied with the experience.” He noted that niche markets will emerge, but mainstream consumers will remain lukewarm about the video download experience. Good news for DVD makers, perhaps, but certainly not the feedback that online distributors like Apple are hoping to hear.