john-23things

What is a podcast?

A podcast is an audio file that has identification information attached so that your computer or MP-3 player can go off & find it on its own. I would so be the king of the podcasts already if I had an MP-3 player and access to a fast connection... Wait a minute....

Where do you find podcasts?

You can find podcasts using any of the available podcast services, & most of them will let you add feeds that they haven't cataloged yet. For starters, check out:

• Yahoo Podcasts
• Podcast.Net
• Podcast Directory
  
• PodScope (which searches the words spoken during the podcast)
• AOL Search Podcast Beta (which does the same)
  

I've decided that podcasts are harder to navigate than blogs. It is more difficult to find good quality & interesting content. A blog post usually links to another, related blog post, which leads you to another blog, and so on, until you're familar with a series of topically related blogs & can subscribe to them and keep up to date with them, etc. I'm having a hard time finding similar quality links between podcasts, & recommendations. I agree with Stacey that the most successful means of finding podcasts seems to be searching. I'm going to keep an eye on Podcasting News for a while, & see what I can see in terms of recommendations and repeat mentions.

How do I get into podcasts?

The tricky bit is figuring out the best way to get the content off the web and onto your player, and from thence to your ear. Some services are web based. Others require that you download a "podcatcher" to your PC. Some seem better than others, or at least better suited to your circumstances.

I'm lucky enough to be using a player that's also a flash drive. At the cost of a bit of your player's memory space (& provided you're not planning on using the player for watching video clips, which require special software etc. before they'll work) you can use a "podcatcher on a stick" to grab and download your subscriptions each time you sync your player, independent of the machine you're plugging in to. Podcast Ready provides just such a program, called MyPodder. Here's what to do:

1. Plug your player into your computer. Note the drive letter.
   
2. Sign up for an account at Podcast Ready
3. Download MyPodder to your computer
4. Unzip the MyPodder files
5. Copy the unzipped files & folders across to your player, placing them in the top level folder on the player, & leaving the relationships between them intact.
   
6. Safely remove the player
   
7. Log in to Podcast Ready & browse their available selection of podcasts. Add a few to your subscriptions.
   
8. Plug in your player once more. You should be prompted to run MyPodder, which will sync with Podcast Ready and pull down new episodes of the shows you've subscribed to. Excellent!
   

So now I'm all set to keep up with the Rugby World Cup and BBC radio a whole new way. Cool!