You’ve heard about podcasting and may have wondered just what it is, how to enjoy it, or how to take advantage of it.
In its simplest definition, podcasting is the publishing of audio programming to be distributed by the Internet and listened to at the listener’s discretion.
A slightly more comprehensive definition would be:
Podcasting is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, that allows users to subscribe to a regularly updated feed of new files. Podcasting is unlike most other online media because of its subscription model.
Podcasting usually uses a feed (such as RSS) to deliver an enclosed file, although not all podcasts require subscription.
Podcasting enables independent producers to make syndicated "radio shows,"and gives broadcast radio programs a new distribution method but it also offers much more.
While named for the iPod, any digital audio player or computer with audio-laying software can play podcasts.
The same technique can deliver video files as well although this use is not yet popular (we’ll see what happens when Apple introduces the video-capable iPod model!).
The Fastest-Growing Media Format in Eons
“Podcasting” is one of the hottest technology and marketing buzzwords today, and it has leapt from total obscurity to media headlines in the span of less than 18 months!
In its essence, podcasting is a method of disseminating information, usually but not always audio information like music and spoken word materials, through a method similar to RSS, or “really simple syndication,” which regular readers of our reports already are familiar with.
Though discussed as far back as 1999 as a programming concept for Compaq’s first hard-disk audio file player (Personal DJ and Personal Jukebox), Podcasting
Discover How to Boost Your Online Profits With Podcasting as it is now known was actually pioneered in June 2003 by an Internet publisher and radio programmer.
The programmer used RSS methods to grab a collection of audio files, aggregate them into a “program” and make this available for download in an mp3 type of format. A global phenomenon was born.
By fall of 2003 the methodology spread to the world of blogging and universities, and shortly thereafter the word was coined and Internet “radio,” which had been around in various formats for a decade, was about to be completely transformed along with the music business due to the instant success and near-ubiquity of the Apple iPod.
By late 2004 Podcasting – a portmanteau combining “iPod” and “broadcasting” – was all the rage, with everyone from media companies to small entrepreneurs to Apple itself trying to get on the bandwagon.
As much a misnomer as a made-up word, podcasting (the word) is unlikely to be displaced anytime soon – but as Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name...
