"More than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and 29% of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web so that they could listen to audio files at a time of their choosing."
- Pew Internet

Sarah McNabb
DePaul Class Presentation on Social Networking
May 5, 2010

Covering Chapter 1 of Tara Hunt's book, The Whuffie Factor. Social capital in online communities such as blogs, Facebook Twitter, etc. is discussed along with the importance of creating social capital, i.e. "whuffie".
DOWNLOAD MP3 or listen to this show now:

 

In a Nutshell: Radio is the mother of Podcasting. "Podcast" = ipod + broadcasting.

Author Bill McKibben points to radio being the single type of communication mode that easily integrates into new digital technology, such as the Internet, expanding one's world of radio communication consumption. Marshall McLuhan popularized the term "global village" with regard to TV, but McKibben applies this term to radio: "The Internet, combined with radio, offers the possibility of a different model - many communities you can look in on from time to time." He goes on to point out that while film and television have become more costly to produce in attempts to try to appeal to everyone, radio has become cheaper to produce. Radio can be created for a local or niche audience and, by accessing cheap software, virtually anyone can produce and reach a global audience through the Internet by creating their own radio broadcast.

Definition of Podcasting

In a Nutshell: A series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication. Source

 

History of Podcasting

2000 - MyAudio2Go.com enabled users to download episodic news, sports, entertainment, weather, and music in audio format for listening on a PC.MTV DJ Adam Curry and Dave Winer proposed using RSS feeds to upload new episodes, make episodes more immediately accessible.

2001 - Winer demonstrated the RSS enclosure feature by enclosing a Grateful Dead song in his Scripting News weblog.

2003 - Stephen Downes started first RSS Feed aggragate in his Ed Radio application, demonstrating that it could collect RSS feeds of MP3s.The proponents and developers began teaching the public about podcasts through different events and demos.

Between 2004 - 2009 - Ben Hammersly came up with name podcast = ipod + broadcasting, iTunes started including podcasts in the iTunes store, "Podcast" becomes Word of the Year in New Oxford American Dictionary, Volomedia receives podcast patent and Adam Curry and Dave Winer argue that they came up with it 2 years earlier. Source

 
Examples of Podcasting    
The Benefits of Podcasting (Producing or Consuming)
  • If you have an iPod and therefore use iTunes you have the option to "subscribe" to a podcast, which means that anytime you hook up your iPod to your computer and access iTunes - if there is a new episode of the podcast you subscribed to, the latest episode will automatically download to iTunes. You do not have to revisit the podcast's site or page to manually download it. How convenient!
  • If one would like to become more connected with the world and cultures around them through listening to podcasts, all one need do is browse through the thousands of free podcasts on iTunes or any other podcast aggregate website.
  • With equipment you probably already own and for very little cost, your podcast could be online in just hours
  • Quickly gain a very focused audience
  • You're in control of what you podcast, when you podcast and for how long
  • It's a convenient, automatic and inexpensive way to reach your audience or customers
  • The human voice adds a personal connection to your content
  • Become a recognized expert or celebrity in your chosen niche
  • Make money by offering valuable information or promoting your business to a focused market
  • Podcasting is a uniquely intimate experience as it is someone's voice entering directly into the listener's ears, essentially speaking directly to them on a topic in which they are interested.

 
The Negatives
  • Podcasting is basically a one-way conversation. Receiving feedback and reaction to one's podcast will typically only manifest itself in the form of e-mails, or if one mentions more specific means of contacting them.
  • If one has a lengthy podcast with high production value, editing the sound (taking out the 'ums', inserting sound samples, etc) can be time consuming.
  • Because podcasting is not as widely used by the general public like other social media (Facebook, Twitter) one might feel discouragement if they see that there are not thousands of downloads of their podcast, but that simply requires adjusting one's expectations and understanding the growing popularity of this medium.

 
The Basics of Setting Up Your Own
More Resources

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Sarah McNabb - CMNS 545: Communication & Technology - 2010