Introduction

I discovered podcasting before it had a name. In August 2004, Adam Curry, a former MTV VJ, began producing a daily show from his home in the Netherlands in which he talked about topics that interested him and he played music he felt like sharing.

Others had produced "audio blogs" before, most notably Dave Winer, who created subscription and update standards first for text and later for attachments—including audio—without which podcasting couldn't exist. But it wasn't until both Curry wrote some primitive software and Winer popularized it that summer that something gelled, making podcasting a fad, a trend, and now a part of tens of thousands of Web sites.

When I heard Curry's original show, I was immediately fascinated. I began producing my own show just a few months later. I started podcasting because I've always been something of a sucker for new technologies. My Web log has been continuously active since 1994, making it one of the oldest out there, and I had always dreamed of adding media beyond text and graphics. Podcasting opened that door for me. I wrote this book to open the door for you as well.

A podcast is a downloadable audio file. It could be as simple as a song that a podcaster wanted to share, or it might be a full-blown audio show edited together in the style of a radio program. Most podcasts are free to listeners. Subscription and automatic downloading makes podcasting distinct from audio files linked from Web sites.

An individual podcast, also known as an episode, is typically retrieved using software, sometimes called a podcatcher, that automatically and regularly checks for newer episodes. A podcast file is usually in MP3 or AAC format, though other audio formats can be used as well. The publishing side of podcasting is syndication; the retrieval side is subscription. Most podcasts can also be downloaded manually.

Podcasting combines elements of several disparate technologies—audio recording and editing, content syndication, and Internet file transfers—into a single seamless process that retrieves audio from a Web site onto listeners' computers and, usually, synchronizes it to an external digital audio player. One click on a subscription button can often initiate the whole process.

More Background Info

You can read about the history of podcasting, as well as the basics of subscribing to and listening to podcasts, in a TidBITS article that I wrote called "Podcasting: The People's Radio" (http://db.tidbits.com/article/7986). See also my follow-up article detailing Apple's iTunes podcatching features (http://db.tidbits.com/article/8160).

Creating your own podcasts can be highly rewarding. I enjoy pulling together music, my writings, random thoughts, and interviews with people into a single show. Other people simulate the classic style of old-time radio theater.

Academic institutions such as Stanford University and the Harvard University Graduate School of Education are looking at how podcasts can supplement classroom teaching. Major companies use podcasting as a way to get their content out to a much wider audience.

Podcasts don't need the professional veneer of a commercial radio broadcast. In fact, some podcasters feel it's antithetical to the podcasting spirit to be overly professional. Just start recording. If your content is worthwhile, you'll find an audience. You can always improve your production as you discover what works and what doesn't.

What's in a Name?

You don't need an iPod to listen to podcasts. If another media player were the cool toy everyone had to have, podcasting would be called sandiskcasting or zunecasting. (Okay, no it wouldn't; Apple has a gift for names, but Apple didn't coin podcast.) Some people use the term audio blogging, which doesn't encompass the variety of material found in podcasts, or netcast, which has neither the charm nor the specificity of podcast. There was rumbling at one point about Apple asserting legal rights to the term "pod" and some people worried that calling something a podcast would open them up to litigation. We're several years into the podcasting phenomena and that hasn't happened, so I don't feel a need to re-title this book just yet.