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Podcasting for newbies

Written by Marie-Chantale Turgeon,
protected by a Creative Common license.

This post collect information about podcasting, and since podcasting is evolving, this entry is revised every now and then. Hope this get you going with the new buzz.

From I love radio: How Podcasting Will Save Radio
“They are podcasters: citizen broadcasters who arm themselves with rudimentary recording tools, free software, and a speedy Internet connection. And, like the bloggers before them, they are changing the nature of the medium. Podcasters may indeed revitalize the art of radio itself.”

From Wikipedia: Podcasting
“The term podcasting plays upon the terms broadcasting and webcasting and is derived from the name of the iPod portable music player, the playback device of choice of many early podcast listeners. While not directly associated with Apples iPod device or iTunes jukebox software, the company did contribute both the desire and the technology for this capability. (…)

In short, podcasting involves the recording of internet radio or similar internet audio programs. These recordings are then made available for download to your iPod or other portable digital audio device. You can listen to the podcast internet radio program while you are away from your computer or at a different time than the original program was broadcast. (…)

The term podcasting was invented by Ben Hammersley in the article “Audible Revolution” from the February 12 2004 edition of The Guardian, used in context by Dannie J. Gregoire and made popular by former MTV VJ and Dutch weblogger Adam Currys original ipodder script.”

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Some FAQ about podcasting:

What is podcasting in words that i can understand?
Think of podcasting in terms of broadcasting on the web: say you record a show on your computer, something like a music mix with or without spoken word, about 20 minutes long. You save it as an mp3 and put it on your webpage (best is to put it on your weblog if you have one so it can read your podcast via the RSS feed).

Users will then use a software, such as ipodderx, allowing them to receive podcast they subscribe to (hopefully yours!) and will know when a new mp3 podcast is available from you.

They can then download the mp3 of the show on their mp3 reading device, or listen to it on their computer. See? as simple as this!

What are the best podcast shows right now?
Podcasting is pretty new (that is why you asked me to explain you in simple words what it is, remember?). The rumour is that Adam Curry, former MTV vj, is the one who together with Dave Winer made the whole thing so popular some months ago by developing Ipodder - we are talking here of febuary 2004. His show, the daily source code, which is mostly about evangelizing podcasting and geek stuff, is pretty cool - a good exemple for a podcast show if you ask me.

audio.weblogs.com list podcasts that were put online in the last hours, and ipodderx also list plenty of podcast by topics, from entertainment, sports, to politics, theres about everything covered up there.

Otherwise, directory such as Podcast.net will emerge in numbers in the next weeks.

I dont wanna podcast but still dont want to miss the boat, what should i do?
Get a podcast aggregator (the software wich allows you to subscribe to different podcasts) and get into listening to podcasts until you find cool ones you like.

What is the iPodder application?
iPodderx is a media aggregator - a program called an aggregator collects news from various websites and provides it to you in a simple form - which automatically downloads podcasts to your computer or portable device. All you do is specify some feeds and wait to get yourself the podcasts. All you have to do is decide what your going to listen.

I do f***g want to get into it, where should i start from?

Some people explain it better than i:

* loads of documentation on ippoder.org,
* much info about podcasting form mac osx,
* how to get podcast and also make your own,
* howtopodcast.org,
* Poor mans podcasting
* learn to podcast using Skype.