What in the World is Podcasting?

Podcasting is a new internet technology that allows individuals to subscribe to audio content which they can listen to whenever they want on iPods or other mp3 players, or on their computer.

One major feature is timeshifting. It's similar in concept to TiVo. You select what you want to listen to, and internet technology delivers it to the device you want to listen on.

But what is probably more revolutionary is that anyone can produce podcasts, and do so quite inexpensively. So like blogs have become a door allowing virtually anyone to publish text and photos to which others can subscribe, podcasting allows virtually anyone to publish audio.

From a listener's standpoint, the technology is pretty simple. The first thing you need is a free piece of software called iPodder. iPodder allows you to subscribe to podcasts, and downloads the audio files for the podcasts you subscribe to. If you have an iPod, then you already have iTunes, and iPodder moves the downloaded podcasts into iTunes. When you sync up your iPod with iTunes, the podcasts are downloaded to the iPod. (If you have a different mp3 player, check your software instructions for how this works.) You can also choose to listen to the podcast on your computer using iTunes (which is also a free download if you don't have it).

There are currently about 3000 podcasts being produced. Some are pretty good -- some are awful. You might find the ones done by Godcast interesting to listen to as a sample of some of the better stuff. iPodder also has a catalog of podcasts from which to choose, and there are several other catalogs readily available.

This is a technology that has the potential to radically change the way we receive information in the future. There is even potential to provide not only audio to devices like mp3 players, but also text (including web links) and powerpoint information that is viewed in the iPod window.

Production of podcasts is a little more difficult, but I managed to produce a test podcast today that downloaded to my iPod flawlessly. I'll write about how I did that in a future article. And I expect to begin producing a podcast or two in the near future, as well as helping a few organizations get some of the audio (like sermons) available as podcasts.