Guide to Podcasting and Internet Radio

The two most common questions I am asked by my readers are about two emerging technologies - podcasting and internet radio.

So today I am going to try and answer all of your questions about these two subjects.

Podcasting

This term came from Apple's breakthrough music player, the iPod, but you don't need an iPod to podcast or to listen to podcasts. The word is basically a blanket term for a way to deliver audio or video content to your computer through a "subscription" model where you subscribe to the podcast and new editions are automatically sent to you.

For example, one of my favorite podcasts is called "TWIT: This Week in Tech" (thisweekintech.com). You can visit the TWIT website and click on the subscribe button to automatically get new episodes sent to your computer.

You'll need a podcasting client, and one of the easiest ones to use is Apple's iTunes software that can be downloaded free from apple.com.

TWIT comes out every Monday, and all I have to do is start up iTunes and the content will automatically download so that I can listen to it on my computer, or on an iPod if I had one, on my own time.

Podcasts are becoming more and more popular. You can now download podcasts featuring summaries of your favorite television shows, or even news updates from CNN.

One thing that makes podcasting fun is that anyone can do it. With just a microphone and some free recording software, you can start publishing your own daily, weekly, or even monthly podcast.

Occasionally, I appear as a guest panel member on a popular podcast for leftovers of the TechTV generation called "535 York." For information about that podcast, visit 535york.blogspot.com.

Internet Radio

Internet radio is a slightly older technology, but many are still interested in how they can have an internet radio station or where to find some of the best stations.

I like Winamp. The music player that was popular in the late 1990s is still good for internet radio and broadcasting. Winamp runs "SHOUTcast," one of the web's largest internet radio platforms.

You can just visit shoutcast.com and find a ton of great stations.

Broadcasting a station on SHOUTcast is quite a large task, but it can be done. It can even be done for free.

For information, visit shoutcast.com and click where it says "online docs." They have easy step-by-step instructions for setting up your own internet radio station.