Too bad... I was starting to get used to iPodder: somehow someone forgot to add the option to NOT load iPooder at boot time. And I can tell you, it takes away about 45-60 seconds when I boot up. Way too much: just uninstalled it, after testing iTunes 4.9 (the latest version that includes podcast features as well). Anyway, iPodder would automatically download MP3s from RSS feeds and add them to my library on iTunes. Now it's built in...
Somehow, this tells me that the big guys don't really need to buy up the smaller guys... Let them invent a category, build a user base (ie. educate the market), and then build on them. It might work for many companies where the value proposition is not as compelling as the brand value propositon. My favourite example? Skype. Even if yahoo! or MS or Google launch a similar service, I'd keep Skype...