Podcasting - What Is It?

What is podcasting?  Have you even heard it remarked upon or is it like Greek to you?

Podcasting is one of the newest phenomena to hit the internet and is seizing a lot of attention.  You may think that the term "podcast" refers to the Apple iPod, that wonderful MP3 player and indeed it does in a way, but you really don't need an iPod so that you can hear a a podcast.

If you're a podcasting newbie, here is a bit of detail as to what a podcast is.

The term "podcasting" actually is an combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcasting", although as I said prevously, you don't actually have to have an iPod to either make or listen to a podcast and neither does the process involve making an on-air announcement.

The process of podcasting is actually dispersing multimedia files (i.e. audio and/or visual) containing music or video by the internet.  Commonly, there would be a series of broadcasts or updates, just like a TV series.  The method is is through an RSS or Atom syndication and the outcome can be played on a PC or MP3 or other media player.

The concept of podcasting was developed during the year 2000 and a year later the technology to podcast was up and running.  Nonetheless, it was some two years after that that podcasting became really popular on the internet as a means of distributing audio-visual information.

To create a podcast is actually very easy.  First create your audio or audio-visual content such as a  video and upload it to a server.  You can then publish your podcast as a news feed using RSS, XML or Atom formats.  You then publicise your feed url and your followers can subscribe to whatever material they want to listen to or watch.  When you publish an update to a particular podcast, your subscribers will automatically receive it through their feed reader.  This is very useful if you have a blog which publishes training material and the likes.

Podcasting has become very popular because it is fun, creative and more personal than the written word.  Again, people who do training find it very useful because it saves typing reams of information; they can just sit in front of their recording equipment and say the words.  Another advantage of this is that the audience can relate to the person delivering the training more easily than just dry words and are more likely to take in what's being said.

Podcasting produces a more individual and intimate relationship with the audience and is a highly convenient method of spreading information about a product, almost along the lines of an autoresponder series.  Now though, people are becoming sick of finding their inboxes stuffed with rubbish, even if they did sign up for it in the first place, whereas when they receive another podcast from someone they have actually seen before, they will probably watch it.

As an advertising medium, podcasting is a great advance and sure to attract buyers to a product, so if you have a blog which sells affiliate products, you may find that podcasting is the thing for you.  If you don't have products which you actually sell yourself, you could sell or rent space to other advertisers.  In fact, there are sure to be other advances in podcasting which will improve your chances of earning from it.