What’s so Hip About Podcasting 500
While Podcasting is still much of a novel feature on the internet, podcasting is getting quite a popular following as a communication and entertainment medium. There’s no stopping it, nor is it just another fleeting fad. Podcasting is essentially audio-on-demand that allows subscribers to listen to their podcasts anywhere and anytime they want.
Podcasting is broadcasting on the net via RSS feeds that can deliver audio, video, text and graphic files of interest to a site’s particular audience. Popular forums have them. So does news websites, music exchange sites and just about every other site that values user interaction and information delivery. Podcasting has emerged to open up a new horizon in marketing and communication opportunities for businesses and industries, amateurs and professional.
For sure, technical savvy geeks are behind every podcasts on the net. It’s relatively simple to do. Once a webmaster has the materials for online publication, creating podcasts can be pretty much straightforward for those in the know. And businesses that plan on riding with the latest craze on the net have no qualms hiring the people to do podcasts on their websites. Amateur web publishers can invest some learning time to do likewise. After all, it’s not rocket science.
Unlike traditional radio on cable and over-the-air broadcast, podcasting gives the subscriber the freedom to decide what content to receive. The material, once downloaded, can be listened to on wireless handhelds anytime anywhere allowing subscribers to utilize time more efficiently.
Topic-specific talk shows with commentaries, product announcements and demos, plays and concerts can now be heard at a time and place of the listener’s choosing. Educational tutorials and foreign language instructions can be listened after office commute. Supplementary lectures and ebooks read aloud for the visually impaired or elderly only scratch the surface of what can be done with podcasting.
Only a few years old, podcasting still has a long way to go. Technologically, there are refinements down the road. And as far as usefulness is concerned, it is limited only by your imagination. It is said that the success or failure of a feature, whether in consumer products or online services, rest on fulfilling market demand.
There’s definitely a lot going for podcasting. The demand is there. For sure not all podcasts tickle a subscriber’s fancy. But as media-on-demand made possible with an increasingly pervasive internet, podcasting promises to be the next communication and entertainment media to watch.
With nearly a million returns when you google search on the topic, podcasting’s popularity has grown over the years. The technology is still in infancy and like the internet when it first flew in the mid-90s, podcasting is opening doors to entrepreneurs, educators, professionals, entertainers and politicians everywhere. As it further evolves, new webmasters will find more creative applications for it to deliver. The low barrier to entry makes it accessible to amateurs and enthusiasts as well. What we’re seeing really is radio and television in their pioneering days all over again.