What is a Podcast?

Series Summary

Think of audio podcasting as broadcasting to computers or ipods from your very own private radio station. You set up that station, which people can subscribe to from internet locations such as the iTunes music site. One someone subscribes (not necessarily in the cash sense of the word, but in the sense of selecting you to provide them with content), whatever you produce for your station--be it music, news or anything else in the form of sound files--automatically shows up on your subscribers computer. They can listen to your files whenever they want. And you can broadcast whenever you want. Selective radio at its finest!

Podcasts are very effective ways to target a very specific audience in a short period of time. For example, during the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, festival goers could subscribe to a daily podcast which provided up-to-the-minute concert updates and previews of bands playing that night.

In this series of free diy podcasting videos, our internet broadcast expert tells you how to set up an audio podcast. He gives you advice on how to record your voice or music, from the right microphone and mixing board to the computer programs you can use to monitor your sound files. Not sure how to publicize your podcast and get the exposure you deserve? Don’t know what an RSS feed is? James A. Donnelly works for a major podcasting site and knows the answers to all of your internet and ipod questions.

Video Transcript

"Hi everybody, how are you doing? I'm J. Donnelly for Expert Village, and today we're going we're going to talk to you about audio podcasts. A podcast, what is podcast? If you go to Wikipedia online, it tells us a podcast is a digital media file, or related collection of such files which are distributed over the internet in syndication feeds for playback on portable media players, and personal computers. Such as the iPod which is very popular, there's an rss feed; this orange icon here. You can play podcasts on your computer; you can play podcasts on your iPod. Next, we will show you how to make one."