Podcasting

The Introduction of the iPod in 2001 opened the door for a new type of media broadcasting. The concept of podcasting or distributing media for these new portable media players gained wide popularity in subsequent years.

The best way to describe a podcast might be to compare it a standard radio broadcast. National Public Radio (NPR) is widely available in the U.S. due to the large number of physical radio stations located throughout the country. Broadcasts from NPR were once only available via the radio. NPR now offers much of their programming as a podcast as well. People can access the radio shows via an internet connection to NPR.

The ease with which podcasts can be developed and distributed has resulted thousands of podcasts becoming available. While the quality of these may be uneven, the shear quantity has expanded the reach of niche content providers in a very important way. No longer is it necessary for a program to be of interest to millions of people before it can be produced and distributed.

The most common way people are introduced to podcasting is through the purchase of an mp3 player. By far, the most common mp3 players are of the iPod variety from Apple. iPods, by default, use iTunes (also from Apple) to manage the content. The podcast section of iTunes includes a directory of podcasts.

Although Apple is often closely associated with podcasts, they are merely providers of media players and a third-party distributer/aggregator of media. Players made by companies such as Creative and SanDisk and distributor/aggregators such as Yahoo!Podcast and Odeo work equally well.

Once you've found a podcast it can be regularly updated on your player through the use of RSS feeds. This is great for these regular shows as you will thus always have fresh content available.