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A Podcast By Any Other Name ?
Autocasting (automatic generation of podcasts from text) Godcasting (religious podcasts) Javacast (podcasting to mobile phones using J2ME Midlets) Learncasting (delivering instructional content by RSS) Media RSS (media file syndication used by Yahoo!) Mobilecasting (podcasting to mobile phones) Palmcasting (podcasting to Palm OS based devices) Punchcasting (punching podcasts directly into smartphones.) Skypecasting (recording Skype text, voice, or video conversations) Sound-seeing tours (podcast of the museum tour variety) Vodcasting or Vidcasting (podcasts using video) Podcatching and Listening to Podcasts OK, so where do I find some cool podcasts to listen to? Podcasts are generally ‘resident’ as URLs; ‘uniform resource locators’, which means effectively they simply live on (or arguably are) Web pages. But there is nothing to obviously distinguish a Webpage that is (or contains) a podcast from one that doesn’t, any more than a URL will tell whether a page is a store, a photo gallery, or only text. Since podcasts are not yet .everywhere, you may wonder how to get started listening to them, where to find them, what hardware and software you might need (or want) and so forth. The short answer is that to listen you don’t need any special software other than a program capable of playing mp3 formats such as Windows Media Player on your computer. You do need special software to find, download and organize your subscription feeds. A whole class of podcast-oriented software has been developed, and if you are not planning to use an iPod and limit yourself to the one-click options available for synchronized download from iTunes itself, you may want to look into this. The category of software is sometimes called a ‘podcatcher’ but increasingly the more generic receiver is in use and often the software is called a retriever, it does just what it sounds like! ‘Retriever’ software As subsets of specialized podcasts become more popular, you may hear or come across these and maybe more. This software is designed to allow the podcast ‘feed’ to be directly downloaded, usually automatically with parameters you set, to your PC or other listening device. All of these software types are basically aggregators, which is the opposite of ‘syndication’. Syndication is the distribution of material to various channels. Aggregation is the retrieval of material from various channels. Many podcasts require subscriptions (some charge, some don’t) in order to be able to download and listen to any single entry or episode. If so, the retriever / receiver software can be set up to accept all of your subscriptions, which in most cases is as easy as dragging and dropping in a list and then you can choose among the titles and episodes as you would choose among songs on a CD or mp3 player. If particular podcasts dont require subscriptions, and you’re interested in finding certain content or episodes, some retriever/receiver software can be set to actually search the Internet for the material you want, and either download it or ask if you want it. All in all, it’s a pretty cool way to get and manage this programming. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Dave Clark has many years experience writing articles, he has also written many books, and is well known in the industry. Dave currently has many projects he is working on, he is also on the board of directors for Cushy Sofa a manufacturer and online retailer of Memory Foam Pillows, Memory Foam Sofas, Memory Foam Toppers, Buy your Memory Foam Sofa Beds, direct from the manufacturer |
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