It's kind of like RSS for blogs, only with audio files instead of text.
Or, if you don't know what RSS is...
Basically a listener gets a little piece of software, and subscribes to what's called a "feed." Whenever the feed's author uploads an mp3 file, it is automatically downloaded by the subscribers' software.
So, I'm subscribed to the feed for "The Treatment," a film talk show based on KCRW in Santa Monica. Each time they put up a new show, my software, Ipodder, downloads it to my computer automatically.
And if you happen to use Itunes, the most popular client software automatically integrates with Itunes, which means that your newly received podcasts can be automatically transferred to your Ipod.
But of course, you can listen to podcasts you've received on your computer, or burn them to a CD, or put them on a non-ipod mp3 player as well.
There are a lot of how-to-podcast pages out there that can explain how to do it. I use a little script called dircaster.php. All I do is record my show, encode it as an mp3 file, then upload it to a folder in my FTP server that contains dircaster.php. Dircaster creates the feed automatically... then I run it through a neat thing called feedburner, which makes sure it's neat and clean and gives me a counter on subscribers. Then... I'm done.
I don't podcast myself... but I host the "XtremeBitz" podcast for MadAltRadio.com on one of my webservers. Their podcast is available at http://archives.madaltradio.com/
IndustryRule4080
San Francisco, CA
December 2002
MAR 08, 2005 06:47 PM