Podcasting for Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. Getting the Scoop on Podcasting

In This Chapter

• Finding out what podcasting is

• Creating a podcast

• Finding and subscribing to podcasts

Sometimes the invention that makes the biggest impact on our daily lives isn't an invention at all, but the convergence of existing technologies, processes, and ideas. Podcasting may be the perfect example of that principle — and it's changing the relationship people have with their radios, music collections, books, education, and more.

The podcasting movement is actually a spin-off of another communications boom: personal Weblogs, commonly referred to as blogs. Blogs sprang up right and left, providing non-programmers and designers a clean, elegant interface that left many on the technology side wondering why they hadn't thought of it sooner. Everyday people could chronicle their lives, hopes, dreams, and fears, and show them to anyone who cared to read. And oddly enough, people did care to read — and still do.

Podcasting combines the instant information exchange of blogging with audio and video files that can be played on a computer or portable media device. When you make your podcast publicly available on the World Wide Web, you are exposing your craft to anyone with a computer and a broadband Internet connection. To put that in perspective, some online sources report the global online population is over 1.2 billion users. In the United States, broadband connections are now more popular than dialup among the 235 million Internet users. And ...