podcast
04 July, 2005
podcast wtf
A podcast is an mp3 file. Anyone with a recorder of some kind and a computer can make one. Nothing new about that.
What is new is that you can tell your computer to download stuff you like automatically, copy it onto your mp3 player and listen to it any time you like. This is about 40 million times better than having to manually download every mp3 file you want.
This is done using a format called RSS, and a piece of software called a 'podcatcher'. If you find a website providing podcasts you like, you can subscribe to the podcasts by putting the address of the RSS file (or feed) into your 'podcatcher'. Everything else is done for you.
Here's some resources about podcasting:
University of Calgary wiki
Wikipedia on podcasting
Dave Winer on podcasting at ipodder.org
Engadget howto on podcasting
What bloggers are saying about podcasting
XML wtf?
