It has been nearly three years since the word Podcast was thought up and today many people are still confused one what a podcast really is. While I would like to think that having wrote the first book on the subject, will qualify me to be and expert on the subject. Thus I will explain to you what I think a podcast really is.
First let’s point out what it isn’t. For years people have been creating and audio and video and putting it online. People have been listening to audio and video online via their computers for just as long. The act of creating, placing and consuming content online is not podcasting. We are missing a very important element and that is the automated downloading of that content.
What a podcast is actually very simple it is the ability to use popular programs like iTunes, Juice Receiver and others to automatically download the same audio and video media people have been putting online, and then automatically place that downloaded media onto a portable media device. The physical act of automatically downloading and auto synchronization is what has caused podcast consumption to explode. To date almost all portable media players can be automatically synchronized with Podcast.
This is what allowed podcast media delivery to become so powerful. Software on your computer can download new content that you have subscribed to while you sleep. Upload it to your media player and allow you to listen to that media the following day. I call this the power of walk away content. The ability to feed your brain with audio and video content that interest you.
The actual process is not important to talk about at this time, but as you time shift your TV watching today you can also time shift your audio listening as well. Sure some people still listen to media in front of their computers like they have for many years. But now you can through a automated process take that media with you, with no hassles.
Lot’s of podcast sites allow you to listen online today, simply listening to a few will get you started in understanding many of the other dynamics of podcasting that I will delve into over the next weeks and months see the second column for a link.
