On-Demand Radio: Podcasting

With the recent popularity of mobile, digital audio players such as the Apple iPod, Podcasting has become a new method to deliver audio content over the web. Because podcasts can be created by anyone with Internet access, there are a myriad of types or categories of podcasts. Most podcasts are free.

A podcast can be downloaded and taken with you on your digital audio player, downloaded and played from your computer, or recorded to an audio cd to listen to in your car. There are also a couple of ways to find and download podcasts: 1) search the web, or 2) install client software such as iTunes, which can automatically download new podcasts as they become available.

Some of my favorite podcasts include TWiT (This Week in Tech), and .NET ROCKS!. I listen to these audio shows on my computer while I am at work. While writing this post I downloaded and installed iTunes. It has the largest collection of podcasts that I have seen so far, and allows you to listen to the podcasts by double-clicking on the listing, without having to download and open the files.

Conclusion: Podcasting allows you to listen to audio broadcasts on your own time, and listen as many times as you like. The nice thing about audio content (i.e. radio and podcasts) is that you can listen to it while performing another task, while video (TV) and written content (websites) requires your complete attention.