Podcasting is means of using RSS technology to distributie audio content on the World Wide Web.  Think of it as a feed that talks to you.  Podcasting permits end-users to subscribe to a another creator's audio content and even automatically download new content.  In 2005 the New Oxford American Dictionary chose “podcast” as its Word of the Year.  Podcasting has become increasingly well known as a method of sharing information.   Although many podcasts contain only music or a voice recording, most are a creative mix of voice, music, and sound.  Some podcasts can include video or photos images.  There is truly a wide variety of content available on podcast format, such as National Public Radio programming, university lectures, international news updates, the newest music, or an opinion on a political issue.  Podcasts will range in length from anywhere between a few minutes to several hours.

Podcasts are quite portable.  They are accessible by computers and they can be put on MP3 players and taken anywhere.  This is highly valuable because podcasts actively engage students in their own learning.  Podcasting is increasingly popular.  According to Forrester Research, by 2010 podcasting should have about 12.3 million listeners.

Online business operators should think of podcasting as another method of promoting their products and services.  It is a very simple and inexpensive method of syndicating audio files on the Internet.  The podcast experience is a bit more personal than normal web content.  Instead of just reading, like a book, people can now listen to the sound of your voice and you can make a more personal connection.

A Podcast RSS feed is what makes the whole thing work.  To begin with, a podcast is a regular distribution of audio or visual files that are called "episodes", to a users podcast client.  People who use the podcast are called subscribers, and the podcast client is the software tool that allows them to subscribe to a podcast feed. The podcast feed is a machine readable piece of coding that sends information back to the podcast client.  RSS feeds can be used to distribute many kinds of information, and were originally used for blogging and distributing blog posts to subscribers.  Over time a few people got the idea of enclosing information about certain media files within the RSS feed code so that software could be written to find that type of file or information and download the podcast described.

About The Author:

This article was written by J. Mark Soveign who owns and writes for Wertheim Communications LLC as well as for Mooker.Com