What is podcasting? How do I do it? Is it naughty?

As a bit of background most people know that it is relatively easy to listen to music and other sound recordings on your computer. These sound files are stored on your hard disk and accessed when you open them in a program like iTunes. Audio files can then be copied onto a device like an iPod or burnt onto a CD.

Podcasting is a technology which makes use of many of the same tricks but has a few main exceptions. Podcasts are pre-recorded radio shows which are recorded by people all around the world. These recordings are saved into an audio file in the same way as a song ripped from a CD. This audio file is then made publicly available over the internet. When you setup a program like i-Tunes to download a podcast, it regularly checks the internet site where that podcast is stored to see if there are any newly released episodes of the show. If there are, it automatically downloads them onto your computer. Once downloaded you can either listen to them on your computer, burn them to CD or copy them onto an iPod to listen to while you are out and about.

The revolutionary feature of podcasting and its main advantage – or disadvantage, depending on how you look at it – is that is allows people all over the world to have their say on a wide range of issues. Anyone can make a podcast – all you need is a microphone, computer and something to talk about. As a result the quality and content of podcasts varies immensely – this is part of the fun! You have to find podcasts that interest and entertain you. You can subscribe to podcasts that you like and every time a new one is made available it is delivered to your computer in a similar way to an email.

There are quite a few ways to find podcasts but for the purposes of this tutorial we’ll just cover how to find them in iTunes as most people are comfortable using it.

How to use Podcasts in i-Tunes:

Firstly open iTunes and then click on the ‘Music Store’ icon in the top left. Once the Music Store opens click on the Podcasts link which will come up in the music store (not the one in the very top left). Doing this will take you to a page where you can browse a large number of podcasts.

To subscribe to a podcast click on the name of the podcast you are interested in and then click on the ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button.

The podcast feed is now in your Podcast directory which is found below your Library icon. Simply click the ‘Get’ button to get new files or change the download settings in your iTunes options section (Edit > Preferences > Podcasts).

As with anything online you will have to use your discretion when subscribing to podcasts (or when allowing your children to use them). There are podcasts on literally every subject. Using iTunes allows you to police this better than using Google or other sites to find podcasts because most podcasts you will find through the iTunes Music Store will be labeled with an “Explicit” label if they contain swearing or adult themes. These are relatively easy to guard against.