Podcasting a new way to listen to shows

By Tracy F. Harris

There’s TiVO with DVD-R, but where’s the high-tech version of recording a favorite radio show on a cassette? Granted, most people probably don’t have a favorite radio show, but they might if there was a good way to listen to it. Enter podcasting, a combination of “iPod” and “broadcasting,” and a new way to download audio files.

Streaming audio has been available for many radio stations, especially talk show ones, for years. Slow connections have always made streaming audio somewhat obnoxious; even with broadband widely available, quality is often poor and rebuffering interrupts the stream regularly.

Streaming audio has always been glitchy — from slow connections to poor quality. But the biggest problem? You can’t save it on your hard drive for later listening. And you certainly can’t put it on your MP3 player and listen to it on the go.

Podcasting solves that problem. Former MTV VJ Adam Curry worked on his own and with others to develop the concept. According to Curry’s Web site, www.ipodder.org, Dave Winer added the “enclosure” element to Real Simple Syndication after speaking with Curry. RSS allows Web site information to be syndicated through a text feed; the enclosure aspect points the feed to a downloadable file, like an MP3.

In 2004, Curry began developing Ipodder, a program that would automatically check specified RSS feeds for attached MP3 files and download them — and put them on his iPod.

Curry used AppleScript, a programming language for the Mac platform, to create Ipodder. It was released as an open source program so more experienced developers could contribute to it.

Ipodder is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and PocketPC. After downloading and installing the program, you enter the Web addresses for the feeds you want to “subscribe” to. Ipodder will automatically check and download new files whenever you specify it should; these files can then be put on your MP3 player or you can play them on your computer.

What kind of podcasts are available? Well, it is the Internet. You can find a little bit of everything. A March 14 story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at least 3,000 podcasts are available on the most popular directories.

Locally, the Kentucky News Network is making its Kentucky Focus program available as a podcast.

Host Caleb Brown said he decided to use the podcast format because “I’ve been putting my show online since 2000 for download. It’s only been in the past six months that podcasting has become popular, so I just added an RSS feed and turned it into a podcast. It only took about an hour.”

The most popular podcasts, however, are proving to be audioblogs. Like a blog, they’re interesting and easy to make. All you need is a microphone and free recording software, along with some Web space to store the file on. There are also services (including one offered through the Blogger site) that allow you to call a phone number, speak your peace, hang up, and see it online.

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