Podcasting is the next big thing among the techie community. But what exactly is podcasting? The word itself was derived from a combination of Apple’s “i-Pod” and broadcasting, and it’s a way of publishing files, mostly audio, to the internet that can be then downloaded by anyone around the world.
You can easily think of a podcast as a radio show on demand. As it consists of a series of individual episodes that you can listen to when ever you want either on your computer, MP3 player, or just directly from your web browser.
However, podcasting is more than a radio show. Podcasts can be easily downloaded automatically, usually for free, using software capable of reading feed formats such as the RSS feeds. In simple words, when you subscribe to a podcast, you actually subscribe to a reader’s feed which supplies the podcaster, author of a podcast, a link to that feed. As a result the reader can then check the user's subscribed feeds to see if any of those feeds have new content since the last time it checked and if so, retrieve that content and present it to the user. The only difference between podcasting and a typical RSS feed is that the former contains an audio file in it.
Therefore, listeners can benefit from podcasting as it allows them to be always up to date since the RSS feeds makes the process of monitoring audio updates much more efficient.
But what’s even more interesting about podcasting is that anyone with a microphone, a computer and an internet connection can publish audio shows that can be listened to by people anywhere in the world. And although it was established in 2004, it is rapidly becoming a popular way for people to share audio shows primarily because of its very low barriers to entry.
Podcasting offers to both its listeners and users a great range of categories that can be used for. Podcasting examples include the creation of personal audio blogs, interviews for enhancing news coverage, music shows, audio tour guides, educational content that depends on audio, or even in-house news updates of a company. Therefore, whether you are an individual or a company it makes no difference, as if you have a brilliant idea about a podcast, you might as well do it!
Check out:http://podcastalley.com/what_is_a_podcast.php
3 comments:
Hi Eleni!
Do you remember me? I'm the one that you were trying to convince in the afternoon to make a podcast, but was looking in the microphone as she has never seen one in her life!
I have to admit that I first heard the term podcasting, some weeks ago, when the module in PR and technology started. And I didn't have a clue about what podcasting is, until I read that post.
The last weeks I feel overloaded with tech-information, about advances, that I didn't have any idea that exist, and that tend to (if haven't done it yet) alter the character of the PR profession.
Podcasting indeed seems so useful for someone to promote himself, his ideas and products, and it's also...exciting! Who could imagine that the Queen uses podcasting to address the public?
PR practitioners have a new tool in their hands, as podcasting is today an indispensable part of blogs and websites, and it is used for a variety of reasons: from sharing ideas to building brand image.
Thanks a lot Eleni, for reminding me that I still have a lot to learn in order to be able to meet the requirements of PR world!!
Evi
Hi Eleni,
I really enjoyed your presentation and learned lots about something I didn't have a clue about before (a bit like everything we do in this class!). I also loved making our own podcast, albeit I didn't actually know it was being recorded at the time! Just as well my language was (relatively) clean!
I can't believe how easy it is to do. It's a brilliant tool for PR, one which the industry has already started to embrance successfully. It's one aspect of technology that I was a bit unsure about, but I'm definitely coming round to it now, due to its fantastic potential.
Hi eleni,
Good to see a new voice in the industry. good luck with the new blog.
Sam
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