Podcasting, What's it all about Promo?

Even I, who have been living in a cave for the past few months, have heard the term "Podcast."

"So what is this 'podcasting' so many bloggers are speaking of?"
You may be asking this, and I'm here to help, and I will do my best to give a brief overview for you. A "podcast" is essentially an audio blog post. In many cases, it is much more. Many "podcasts" are actually much like talk radio programs, and can run from 15 minutes to as long as an hour (or more). They are almost always in MP3 format, but the files can be rather large.

(TONS more to this in the "More" section, so do read on...)

"Is 'podcasting' the act of receiving or sending a show?"
You know, I am not sure on this. I think it is still a little unclear, but to me, podcasting is the act of someone producing and posting/feeding/streaming a show. Listening or receiving/downloading a podcast isn't podcasting in my mind.

"Do I need an iPod to listen to a 'podcast'?"
You don't need an iPod to listen to podcasts. Any MP3 player will do, either PC-based or a portable model. You don't need any special software to download a podcast either. Just surf to a page that has a podcast, click the link and listen or save it to your hard drive (or portable media player).

"So why is it called 'podcasting' if you don't need an iPod?"
Many reasons. Some folks use an iPod to record their shows. Others use an iPod to play background music during their shows. Plus, the "killer" feature of podcasting is that RSS feed readers can grab a podcast you've "subscribed" to and download it for you every time a new show is available. This is accomplished though RSS media tags, called enclosures, that tell the programs to grab the media files. Now the "pod" portion of a podcast is that with some software called iPodder running, the shows will not only be downloaded, they will be added to your iPod without you lifting a finger. I am clearly skipping over the details, but if you are geeky enough to be interested, then you can dig a little deeper yourself to learn more. With the other methods, like direct download from a web page, you have to move the file to your media player or a media storage card yourself.

There are also ways to get a podcast onto your Pocket PC, as detailed by Jake.

"What do you mean by 'subscribe? Is this going to cost me money?"
Subscribe only means you've selected an RSS feed to be checked on a regular basis for new shows by your software. That's all. Subscribing doesn't cost anything...yet. At some point, someone will find a way to make money off of this, and you may be asked to pay for "premium" shows with extra content. It will happen. For now, the only cost to you is time, and of course, bandwidth.

Adam Curry, the former MTV guy, is all about podcasting. You should probably make his site your first stop on your podcasting adventure.

The best place to get podcasts are through live updated directories. Here are links to a few to get you started:

Directories of Fresh Podcasts:
iPodder.org
iPodderX - check the drop-down menu
Last 100 Podcasts audio.weblogs.com
Podcasting.net
Podcast Review
Technorati most talked about MP3s in the last 48 hours
Feedster :: The Latest Enclosures

Some Podcast News sites:
Podstar
Podcast Alley
Podcasts.Engadget.com

Tutorials:
How To Podcast in 3 Easy Steps

Podcast Download Software:
iPodder Mac & Windows
BlogMatrix Jäger for Mac
jPodder for Windows (java-based)
iPodderNet for Windows (dot Net based)

Frequently Listening To:
Useful Sounds
Daily Source Code by Adam Curry
Geek News Central
PodCat - Showcases clips from the day's newest podcasts. Clever idea and a great way to sample some shows without downloading their entire program. The meow gets annoying though.
The Audioblogging Revolution - Also showcases new podcasts, and much less annoying

file this under MultiMedia
Posted by on November 10, 2004 @ November 10, 2004 10:00 AM    
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