How Podcasting Works 501
From about 6000 search results on Google in 2004, to about 850,000 search results today, podcasting has become an online sensation of immense following.
Having grown with firm steadfastness since the start of the millennium, podcasting has become more than just a passing fancy on the internet. It is reaching audiences like television and radio did in their early days. TV Talk show and radio hosts have podcasts on their websites.
Forum site owners have news podcasts relevant to their forum specialty. Consumer companies make product announcements in their websites. Educators make lesson plans on podcasts. The list can be endless. It is clear that podcasting is not only here to stay but has the potential to further enhance the way information is accessed on the net.
What is really important is how it works. Podcasting is simply making available on your website an audio file in the RSS feed’s enclosure tag. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An enclosure tag is used in RSS feeds to include an image, a data file, a video file, or an audio file. Podcasting specifically contain audio files in their enclosure tag. RSS version 2.0.is created using this specification for current podcasts.
Podcasting benefits users by allowing content of their portable media devices to be in sync with the latest updates on the site for which they have subscription to RSS feeds. They can then listen or watch their media player at a time and a place of their choosing. And while podcasting is not limited to music, it seems to be the area that has received popular acceptance.
What is needed to make a podcast?
Podcasting is basically inexpensive to implement on your website. Investing on a good recorder and microphone to make interviews clear, as well as a good digital camera and handycam to capture images and videos with compelling realism are basic. Some investment in knowledge and experience in audio file conversion, editing and compression software is essential. Also, web space bandwidth and software to create the feed for the podcast is needed.
Publishing Podcasts
Use an existing RSS feed to edit a link to the audio file in the “enclosure” field of an RSS 2.0 feed. Upload it to your website. There are software tools to do this. Then tell the world that a podcast is available, either through forums or emails.
Listening to Podcasts
A downloadable software called aggregator or RSS reader must be run on your PC to support podcasting. Sync a wireless device like an iPod with your computer then enter the URL address of the podcast feed into the aggregator software. As items of interest appear in the aggregator, review the podcasts description and stream those that are of interest.
As popularity of podcasting grows, only some minor investment in basic gears mentioned above, can make anyone a podcaster. If you have something sensible to say to the world, podcasting might just be able to make a difference in how you tell them.