What Is Podcasting?

Podcasting is a relatively new term that is becoming quite the trend with not only the techie crowd but with everyday people. Think of podcasting like a radio show that you can take with you anytime you want. Technically it is online audio content that is delivered through RSS feeds that bring you your radio on demand. Podcasting doesn’t just bring you radio content though, it gives you far more options in content and programming then your standard radio show.

What people love about podcasting is that you, the listener, can determine when you want to listen to it, as well as where. You decide what programming you want to receive no matter what time of the day you plan on listening. You can even keep the audio archives to listen to later by retaining the audio archives. Basically it’s like Tivo for the listening audience but with a lot more options. Each podcast that you listen to has a series of individual episodes that you can listen to through various means such as on your computer, MP3 player, or with just a simple web browser. You can listen to the podcast episodes either one at a time, or you can subscribe to the entire podcast series using specific software.

If you do subscribe to a specific podcast series all the new shows will be automatically downloaded to your computer as they are published. No waiting or wondering what is coming up next! If you are using a MP3 player the next time you sync your device your podcasts will be immediately downloaded so that you can listen as you are on the go.

Stepping into the world of podcasting is exciting to say the least. Everyone and anyone has a voice and whether you agree with it or not, you can hear it. Podcasts are made for exploring, and giving you the options that you just have available on a radio. Many listeners have themselves become podcast “DJ’s”. With the right software and courage you can easily be a podcaster for your own show!

Listening to podcasts is usually a matter of preference. There are literally millions of podcasts that you can listen to at any given time. The thrill of being heard by almost 10 million people really draws the normal everyday Joe to becoming a podcaster so everyday more and more podcasts become available to the listening public. Besides the standard music podcasts there is podcasting for self-guided walking tours, talk shows, training or instructional material, and even story telling for the blind or for children. You can also choose to listen to sports, comedy shows, podcasting about food, politics, speeches, or just about any topic you can imagine. You not only have an incredible choice of what to listen to but when to listen to it.

Podcasting has taken over the blogging world for sure. It works exactly the same as a standard RSS feed reader would so that people who read your blog would subscribe in exactly the same way but they would receive an audio file instead. Instead of reading the information that the blogger or other website owner would give you, you listen to it on your iPod or computer. Podcasting was named specifically for the iPod but you don’t actually have to have one to listen to it. Any website with clickable links to audio files or websites with the standard RSS feeds have started to support audio enclosures like what you find with podcasting. Essentially it is like an email attachment.

Podcasting first started to be used regularly around 2004 but it is gaining in popularity still every single day. Webmasters are finding more and more creative ways of delivering media rich content because of the lure of the listening audience as well as the aspect of syndication. Podcasting doesn’t have any censorship which people love because almost anyone can say anything they want, and they know people will be listening and wanting more.

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