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Credit: Image by M. Keefe on Flickr. Creative commons licence. Some rights reserved.

Podcast makers and fans are calling for Microsoft to add a built-in podcasting app to its soon-to-be-released Windows 8 operating system.

Windows 8 is due to launch on 26 October and is built with tablets and touch-screen interfaces in mind.

It is exactly a week since Microsoft published a list of apps that will be built-in to the new operating system and since then people have been using the comments system to call for a podcasting app.

At the time of writing 555 comments had been left on the announcement blog post, which include 536 mentions of the word 'podcast' (it should be noted that some comments repeat the word).

RawVoice, a technology firm which makes the Blubrry podcasting plugin for blogging platform WordPress, called for podcasters to send a "positive message to Microsoft that podcasting is important".

An email from RawVoice sent hours after the list of built-in apps was published said: "One thing we need to remember is that 100s of millions of potential listeners and viewers use Windows computers."

Todd Cochrane, chief executive of RawVoice, said in the email: "Missing is any mention of podcasting support. We encourage each of you to leave a 'positive' comment on the Microsoft Blog post asking for podcasting support."

Cochrane encouraged podcasters to follow this link and "ask Microsoft politely to add an podcasting app to Windows 8".

Microsoft were unavailable for comment.

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