Get Ready for Podcasting
You heard it here first: the technology word of the year for 2005 will be “podcasting.” Definitions vary (which is typical for a brand new phenomenon) but the basic idea is this: people (whether amateurs or professional broadcasters) create audio files that Internet users can download directly to computers and thence to their iPods or other digital audio players.
Such a file could be a recording of a blogger reading his latest blog entries. It might be a garage band that wants to disseminate its music without having to deal with the music industry. It might be an author who has produced his own audio book. Or it might be a recording of an actual news broadcast, so that you could time-shift your listening. NPR’s On the Media already offers free MP3 downloads of its shows for just this purpose.
What’s especially cool about podcasting is that software developers are blending it with other types of many-to-many technology such as blogs and RSS syndication. One program called iPodder lets you set up automatic subscriptions to your favorite online audio sources, then listen to them on your iPod (or any other MP3 player) whenever you like. Think of it like TiVo for Internet radio.
To me, it’s all just one more sign of “the big story” in information technology, the one that is at or near the heart of nearly everything Technology Review writes about IT: the blending of computing, communications, and mobility into one seamless technology. Podcasting shows once again how a commercial technology invented for a specific purpose – in this case, the digital music player, which reached its pinnacle in the Apple iPod – can be creatively repurposed to more democratic ends by independent software developers using open technologies like RSS and XML.
For your entertainment, here are a few links to discussions of podcasting and directories of available podcasts:
http://tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/01/04/Podcasting
http://www.ipodder.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting
http://www.podcasting.net/
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build
“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”
ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it
The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.
Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives
The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.
Learning to code isn’t enough
Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.