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PODCASTING:
THE NEXT BIG THING?
It
seems as though there is new technology in town and one that
I have yet to learn about. So, I'm going to use one of my
own strategies and write an article about what I've learned
on Podcasting today.
Quikonnex,
the RSS publishing system that I use just offered publishers
the ability to do "Pod Casts" in our articles.
There's just one problem for me...what the heck are pod casts?
I
imagine that almost all of you already know what an I-pod is,
but just in case you've never heard of them, let me explain
what they are first. I-pods were made by Apple Computer
geared toward the younger generation. They allow folks to download
.mp3 files for easy listening on the go. They are small and
very convenient and fun to use.
Pod
Casting was in part created by Adam Curry, the former MTV deejay.
Funny thing, he also attended the same college as I did..what
a small world, eh? Adam wanted to develop a way for audio
content to be automatically downloaded to his I-pod. He met
up with a guy named David Winer who created RSS enclosure tags
that allows audio files to be attached to RSS feeds and
their web site I-podder and concept Pod Casting was born.
Well,
it seems that Podcasting is the hottest craze - even hotter
then RSS publishing. Since you are reading my RSS channel,
I'm hoping you are somewhat familiar with the RSS concept already.
If not, go back and read the past half dozen of my articles
on RSS publishing or even read my eBook RSS Ad Secrets.
The
reason I say this is because Pod Casting works quite similar
to how RSS feeds work and in fact, use RSS to a certain extent.
If you read a lot of RSS articles, then you probably have a
news reader (otherwise known as an aggregator). If you do, you'll
be able to better grasp the concept of Pod Casting and how it
relates.
So
let's think about how that news aggregator works:
The
RSS news aggregator takes control and keeps track of all of
the news feeds that you have subscribed to. It re-visits each
feed to look for updates, additions, and so forth and then notifies
you instantly. Aggregators make it convenient for you to keep
track of your RSS subscriptions.
Pod
Casting works the same way, with one small exception: Instead
of reading the new RSS content on your computer screen, you
listen to it on an i-Pod or a listening device similar to i-pod!
To get audio feeds, users simply connect their MP3 player to their computer, go
online, and subscribe to feeds they want the podcasting service to provide.
Audio content is then pushed from the original source to an aggregator and then
to the subscriber. In Other words, in pod casting, the end user does not have
to go to a web site and manually choose audio files to download.
With pod casting, it's done automatically - just like RSS subscriptions.
The
future of pod casting looks great! We are just now starting
to see radio shows delivered via pod casts and I'm sure we'll
see many new innovations down the road. Certainly, this is going
to make things really interesting for webmasters :)
From
what I understand, you do not have to have
an I-Pod to take advantage and listen to Pod Casts on my RSS
channel or any other Q-channel. Q provides all of
us a way to offer and listen to pod-casts without any other
software requirement! However, if you want to do or listen
to pod casts away from Quikkonex, you'll need an I-pod or other
such listening device.
I-podder.org
- What I-podder does:
A
web site that a lot of webmasters are talking about these days
is I-podder.org.
I-podder.org offers the I-podder software which brings the automatic
subscription process in to play. Using I-podder, you can automatically
subscribe to podcast feeds and receive your audio downloads
straight to your mp3 player without having to manually download
them.
I-podder
was develeoped and the web site is maintained by Adam Curry.
You can download a version of I-podder across a variety
of different platforms including Windows, MAC, Linux, Pocket
PC, Smart Phones, Aggregators, and Projects.
Now,
if you want to start pod casting and listening to files, then
you can visit any Q channel in the system as we publishers can
now offer pod casts with no extra software required.
If
you want more, You
can see a full list of Most Recent Pod Casts from Audio Web
Logs Here.
Make
sure you subscribe to my RSS channel because soon I will be
adding a technical article on creating pod casts in your RSS
channel and how to ping audio.weblogs.com! If you publish
an RSS feed, you simply won't want to miss this article! Heck,
I may even create a software tool to help create your pod casts!
To subscribe to my channel, look for the DeskView logo on the
right panel.
If
you'd like to download my DeskView application while getting
a feel for what pod casting looks like on my RSS Channel, click
here to go to the DeskView article and click on the Pod Cast
button to download the software right away!
This article is (c) Copyright 2005 by Michelle Utter
Michelle is an innovator and a mainstay in the Internet
Marketing Field. You can visit her new website at:
http://ebookadvertising.biz
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