Bricklin on Technology

6.7. Podcasting

Another form of personal publishing grew out of blogging called podcasting. With podcasting, a digital audio file of an interview (like the ones in the previous chapter), speech, commentary, variety show, traditional radio or TV program, or whatever is posted on a web site. In addition, a computer-readable notice of that posting is made available through RSS, and a human-readable posting is usually made to a blog. Listeners can retrieve the recording manually, or they can use special automatic "podcatching" software to await new recordings from producers of their choice and then automatically download them for listening. Most podcatching software is set to automatically load new recordings onto an MP3 player.

The net effect is that you can "subscribe" to "channels" of your choice, pull an MP3 player out of its charging stand each morning, and have the latest recordings that were downloaded overnight ready to listen to during a commute or exercise session.

Creating a podcast is relatively easy. You can start with a $10 microphone, or the one built into most laptops, some free or inexpensive software, and a web site that costs just a few dollars a month. You can use anything up to full professional-level equipment to improve the sound or the range of situations you can record.

Once the basic ideas and software tools of podcasting were developed (with the involvement of people like Dave Winer, Adam Curry, and many others) many people experimented with the medium, ...