The Advent of the Podcast
When the word podcast finds its way into a conversation, most people still do a bit of a double take—pod-what? Mia Littlejohn tells you what podcasting is and how it is relevant to your world.
Podcasts are radio-style audio programs you can download from the Internet and listen to whenever and wherever you want. Podcasts are used to educate, inform, and entertain. The subjects can vary from discussions on a favorite hobby or area of professional expertise to a guided tour of a public space like Chicago’s Millennium Park to a wannabe DJ spinning his or her favorite tracks.
In addition to content created exclusively as a podcast, the technology can also be used as a means to redistribute content that exists in another setting in order to expand its availability and the scope of its audience. Thus, a podcast can be a traditional radio show made available online or a recording of an event, such as a keynote address from a graduation, a religious service, or a course lecture.
What makes podcasting attractive is its convenience and portability. Planning a summer holiday to Europe? Download a podcast with French phrases for tourists and listen to it on your flight overseas. Missed your favorite NPR show? Subscribe to the podcast; once you “subscribe” to a specific podcast, your computer keeps in touch with that podcast (through what’s called an RSS Feed) and automatically retrieves new episodes as they become available.
Subscription is mediated by podcast-catchers (a.k.a. aggregators), such as the iTunes Music Store or Yahoo’s Podcast Directory. These aggregators organize the thousands of available podcasts into a number of searchable, subject-based categories and provide rating systems and feedback forums that simplify the task of finding the best podcasts.
Podcasting is still gathering momentum and finding its footing in the media world. The technology itself is only a year and a half old, and although podcast was named 2005’s Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, most of the world has yet to hear about it, let alone embrace it.
As a member of the publishing industry, you are a part of a community that has long filtered the content that finds its way into the hands of the public. As control shifts to empower individuals to consume media that fit their specific interests and needs, the function of those who used to control content creation and distribution must also evolve.
Mia Littlejohn is Director of Marketing, Development, and Press for Eat Feed, which won the first Podcast of the Year Award. She lives, writes, and cooks in Chicago.