September 1st, 2005
Subscribe and listen in three easy steps
If you haven’t yet tuned into a podcast, we’ll show you how in three easy steps.
1: What it is
Podcasts, like other audio files, can be manually downloaded by clicking on links provided by the publishers of the audio. (Like this episode of ZDNet’s The Dan and David Show.) But podcasts differ from other downloadable audio in one important regard: Listeners can subscribe to podcasted audio in such a way that the audio is automatically loaded onto their computers or portable media players as soon as the publisher makes the audio available online. Since the subscription mechanism is based on the RSS protocol, podcasts represent the marriage of downloadable audio to RSS.
(If you want to create your own podcasts, CNET has a good primer.)
2: What you need
To start listening to podcasts, all you need is a computer with an Internet connection and a portable media player. Strictly speaking, even the portable media player is optional, since you can listen to podcasts right on your computer.
To subscribe to podcasts for automatic downloads and to sync the audio files to your portable media player, you’ll need to use podcatching software. iPodder is a free, open-source client that is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
3: What to do
Go to the iPodder site to download and install the latest version of iPodder.
Launch iPodder and you will see a picklist of podcast feeds that you can subscribe to. (Feeds are text descriptions of podcast shows, and they give iPodder or other podcatching software the information it needs to know when new podcasts are available.) You’ll want to add feeds for shows that you’re interested in, and delete the others. IPodder also allows you to manually enter the URL of an RSS feed to which you want to subscribe. Here is the feed for ZDNet’s IT Matters series of podcasts. ZDNet Podcasts is a good place to find other podcasts.
When iPodder is done downloading, it will create a playlist in iTunes, listing the podcasts you’ve downloaded. Click on the play button, and you can listen to the podcast on your computer. Now that the podcast is copied into iTunes, you can use it like any other audio content.
Here’s more information about podcasts and podcasting:
