Information about Podcasts and What They're All About

What is a podcast?

Simply, a podcast is an audio or video file that is downloadable from the Internet. The content of the podcast can be anything - a radio or TV show, news announcements, a lecture, a sermon, a reading of a book, a discussion about movies, music, anything, etc.
 

What's so great about podcasts?

It's like magazine subscriptions and Tivo combined!
 
Your Favorite Content
The beauty of podcasts is the convenience of subscriptions. Think of magazine subscriptions - say you like a certain magazine. For example, you like a magazine called "The Pickle Periodical". It's all about pickles - reviews on the latest pickle brands, how to eat them, how to brine them, how to use them in recipes, the latest pickle cameos in film, etc. Let's say a new issue comes out every two weeks.
 
Through The Convenience of Subscriptions
Now you have the option of either driving down to the local convenience store to pick up the latest copy every two weeks. Or you can take one of those handy dandy subscription cards from its pages, fill it out with your address and mail it, and presto, instead of driving out to the store every two weeks, you will now just receive the magazine every couple weeks in the convenience of your own home.
 
Easily Created and Freely Downloadable
Let's say, the publishing company behind "The Pickle Periodical", in a round of cost-cutting measures, no longer has the budget to print the magazines. And so the editorial staff is let go. But the editor-in-chief, Dillbert Vlassic, will not let a simple layoff douse his passion for pickles. And so he decides to continue offering everything "The Pickle Periodical" offered - reviews, instructionals, etc... in audio format. He purchases a microphone, recording software, and singlehandedly records all the content and puts them onto the Internet for download. "The Pickle Podcast" is now live!
 
So You Can Get'em Whenever
He creates a podcast channel so users can get the latest episode of "The Pickle Podcast" whenever he posts a new one up. Dillbert can continue posting them up every two weeks, or maybe he'll be busy looking for another job, so he'll post them further apart. Or maybe with the red tape from his previous employer removed, he'll be able to post them up more frequently. It doesn't matter to you. An advantage of podcasts is that you will get any new podcasts whenever they become available, no matter how regular or irregular.
 
Using a Podcatcher
The channel is a simple URL that points to a RSS feed. What this URL loads up is a descriptive file that shows what episodes are up and available for download. So what the user can now simply do is load something called a podcast aggregator, or podcatcher for short.
 
For example, iTunes is a podcatcher, as well as Juice or PodNova.
 
What these programs do is take input from you as to which podcast channels to subscribe to. (For example, Praise Church Podcasting channel is http://praise.libsyn.com/rss.) And from the URLs you give it, they will automatically check your subscribed channels at a regular interval of your choosing (weekly, daily, at specific times throughout the day, etc...) and whenever the channel has something new posted, it will automatically download the podcast for you.
 
So whenever you have time, you just go to your computer or your mp3 device where the podcasts have been saved while you were off doing your own thing. You kick back and listen to the podcasts at your convenience, the podcatcher having done all the hard work for you and grabbing all the content that you like and saving them in a single place for your listening/watching pleasure.
 

Other resources:

What is a podcast?
Wikipedia entry on Podcasting
How to Add Podcasts to iTunes