Podcasting In Education Article

The Little Known History of the Podcast

You are probably familiar with the term pod cast and you have probably even used a few of them yourself, but do have any idea where the pod cast came from? Pod casting began as a means of distributing and sharing MP3 audio files for the Apple iPod. The Apple iPod came into being as a music player, but it has evolved into so much more since its introduction into mainstream society. When Apple released the iPod, it became an instant hit with all music lovers.

Later on, it was discovered that with a few alterations and certain tweaks to the operating system, the iPod could do more than hold just music. It was also discovered that by using the RSS feeds that were currently available, it was possible to distribute files very easily among users. Since many web sites and blogs had already incorporated RSS feeds into their sites to keep subscribers up-to-date on the latest posts and changes to the site, it was just a matter of embedding links to desired files within the feed. This would allow users to download the file quite easily into their iPod for them to review at a later time, or any time they wished

Once the idea caught on to use RSS feeds as a means of distributing files, pod casting became a veritable overnight phenomenon. True pod casting had been born, and users could have been happier. Users looked at pod casting as a way for them to become a radio host or Internet disc jockey. Podcasts started popping up everywhere on the Internet, with almost any type of programming you can imagine. With the popularity of pod casting continuing to rise, special software was written and released which could automatically check and RSS feed and extract the link to a pod cast and download all of the files associated with it. They specially made programs were referred to as pod cast clients.

Eventually pod casting outgrew its dependence on the iPod, and pod casting took on a new face. With the release of the PlayStation portable gaming system, a new door was opened for the pod cast world. Even though it was harder to download pod casts in this way, many more people caught onto the idea, and started to depend on pod casts for their entertainment, news, and music needs.

There currently aren’t as many loyal fans of pod casts as there once were, due in part to the popularity of blogs and other Internet media. Since fast internet connections are now standard, and almost every home has a computer, more and more people are starting to download what they need from the internet.