Podcasts

Here is an in-depth look into podcasts.

Podcasts are a fairly new thing, but they are really great. They are almost like a radio station except you subcribe to them. So you can pick the ones you want to listen to. The best way to listen to or view podcasts (there are video podcasts) is to use iTunes. Which most of you probably already have, if you have an iPod or you organize your music. Itunes has a section in the music store devoted to podcasts and video podcasts. They are free to subscribe, and they appear in the podcast playlist in the source menu of iTunes. This is what Apple says about podcasts.

podcasts:

"Find your favorite podcasts on the iTunes Music Store — shows from big names such as ABC News, CNN, ESPN, NPR and more — subscribe free and voila! iTunes automatically downloads each new episode as it becomes available. Yes, you heard right. Every podcast on the iTunes Music Store is free. With the click of a button, you get the most recent episode — and all future episodes — automatically delivered directly to your iTunes podcast playlist. To download new episodes, just click the Get button. It’s that easy. Play everything in order or listen to a single episode — Wednesday’s scathing talk show installment, this week’s movie reviews, last month’s weblog entry — whenever you like. View podcast title, category, time, release date and description. You can even add options like rating, category, date added and play count. Everything you want to know about your podcast appears front and center."

Some podcasters put out a podcast weekly or even daily, and will automatically be updated in your podcast playlist. One of the nice things is that if you have a iPod you can put your podcasts on there and listen to them (or view them if you have a iPod video) when you are away from your computer. Itunes also allows you to submit your own podcasts, so if you are a blogger or just want to get your thoughts out to world, iTunes will let you do so.

What makes podcasts so great? Well, they are almost like a TV show, if you find one you really like with people who do a good job. Then you will find that you can't wait until the next episode comes out. There is a podcast for every one, they come in all kinds of different topics, from comedy to technology to news.

Here is a little history about how the term podcast came to be, and goes into a little further detail of what exactly is a podcast.

Wikipedia:

"Podcasting is a term coined in 2004 when the use of RSS syndication technologies became popular for distributing audio content for listening on mobile devices.

Whether a mobile player is used or not, a podcast is a web feed of audio or video files placed on the Internet for anyone to subscribe to. Podcasters' websites also may offer direct download of the files, but the subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming (see below).

While the name was commonly associated with audio subscriptions in 2004, the syndication technique had been used with video files since 2001, long before portable video players became available, with or without the syllable "pod" in their names. Use of "podcast" to describe both media forms seemed natural to many users, while some preferred to reserve it for audio and coin new terms for video podcasts."

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Now you know a little bit more about podcasts. You know what they, how to get them, and how to use them. So go out there and start picking out your podcasts.