Contains material from PodcastingNews.com

Q: What's podcasting?

A: According to Wikipedia , "Podcasting is the practice of making audio files available online in a way that allows software to automatically detect new files and download them." Technically, this is accomplished using RSS 2.0 news feeds to provide information about a collection of audio files in MP3 format. In common use, podcasting is often used to refer to independent audio shows that can be downloaded from the Internet.

Q: What's cool about podcasting?

A: (...) Podcasts are free and can be automatically downloaded to portable media players, so you can listen to them whenever it's convenient.

Q: Do I need to have an iPod to listen to podcasts?

A: No. The first podcast clients were designed to subscribe to audio shows, automatically download them and sync them to iPods. As podcasting has evolved, podcast clients have become available that work with most portable digital audio players. Many podcast sites support downloading shows directly from the site, and many directories support playing podcasts directly.

Q: Do I need special software to listen to podcasts?

A: No. Many podcasters and directories let you listen to podcasts as streaming media, directly from the site. Podcasting clients are used to streamline downloading podcasts and copying them to portable media players.