Podcasting: Disruptive and Exciting

Podcasting, a buzz word around the technical crowd, has been making headlines lately.  Most recently, Sam Whitmore authored an article for Forbes.com entitled Podcasting: Making Waves.  In my opinion Sam hit on what many of us are thinking, "just when we've grasped what blogging was all about, along came podcasting, which in some ways is even more disruptive and exciting than blogging."  Podcasting is still in an early growth stage and as Sam points out there's already disruption within the podcasting community itself.  But with the growth of blogs and RSS feeds making it easier to self publish audio files, podcasting is not going away any time soon. 

To go back to the basics, Wikipedia defines podcasting as a way of publishing files to a website that allows users to subscribe to the site and receive new files as they are posted.  Most podcasts are spoken word audio created by individuals, often on a particular theme such as technology or movies.  Because new files are downloaded automatically by subscribers, podcasting allows individuals to have a self-published, syndicated radio show.

Users subscribe to podcasts using podcast reader software, which periodically checks for and downloads new content. It can then sync these to the user's portable music player (hence Apple's "iPod" and "broadcasting.") However, podcasting does not require an iPod: any digital audio player or computer with the appropriate software can play podcasts.

The main advantage of podcasting appears to be convenience for the listener.  Unlike traditional radio or even streaming media, listeners control when they wish to hear the recording.  Also podcasting allows individuals to easily transmit content worldwide. 

A few sites come to mind if you're interested in learning more on podcasting or downloading podcasts such as iPodder and Podcast411.  Also, For Immediate Release is a weekly podcast for professional communicators from Shel Holtz, ABC and Neville Hobson, ABC.  And Corante, described as the worlds first blog media company authors its own blog dedicated to podcasting.