Podcasting & Video Blogging

See sections below for History & Context, Podcast Tools, Media Mentions

A quick definition: Podcasting is a method of offering listeners subscriptions to audio (or video) over the Internet through websites that offer amateur or professional programs as digital files. As the name suggests, "podcast" software also can put the downloaded shows on a listener's iPod or other portable audio player. Less-mobile listeners may do all the subscribing and listening on their computer. (Some people call receiving podcasts "podcatching," although the word seems as unnecessary as "radio-receiving" or "TV-ceiving," which we usually call "listening" and "watching.")

• For the podcaster, podcasting is like having a personal broadcast transmitter.
  
  
• For listeners, it's like having a free VCR or TiVo for audio or for Web video -- a way to listen or watch programs at any time. As a bonus, because podcast programs can download overnight, users are spared some of the network buffering problems of "streaming" live or archived programs.
  

• The "receive" side of podcasting ("podcatching" if you insist) is for anyone who wants something new to listen to, generally for free, or for people who would rather synchronize an iPod than synchronize their lives to broadcast station schedules.
  
  
• The "send" side of podcasting is most useful for folks who plan to publish audio files regularly -- frustrated DJs or talk-show hosts, or people who are addicted to exploring new media. Public radio stations became "early adopters" of podcast technology, using it to reach listeners in cities that didn't carry a particular program, such as WGBH's Morning Stories and WNYC's On the Media, or who found both the fixed-time broadcast schedule and streaming-audio on a computer inconvenient.

Onward

History & Context

• Mid-1980s -- The Macintosh and the laser printer make amateur print publishing easy.
• 1992-94 -- Publishing -- and multimedia -- come to the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee's invention, the World Wide Web, makes it easy to share text and pictures online. In October 1993 he talks about it on Carl Malamud's Geek of the Week show, a series of audio files on an server. Within a year, university radio stations like WXYC are figuring out ways to put live signals on the Web.
  
• Late-1990s -- Weblog programs with hosting services and online Edit this Page editing make many-to-many text-and-pictures publishing even easier.Various streaming multimedia technologies spread to public radio, commercial radio, television, educational and business applications.
  


• 1999-2000 -- RSS (Really Simple Syndication) adds a workable subscription model to Web publishing and survives having two approaches using the same abbreviation. RSS developer Dave Winer titles a blogging program Radio, even though audio isn't the point... yet.
  
  
• 2001-2002 -- Winer adds the ability to attach large media files to RSS feeds in 2001, citing Adam Curry as his inspiration. Userland Radio, his company's combination blog-editor and RSS-aggregator program, adds the ability to send and receive attachments. Blogging, audioblogging and RSS pick up steam.
  
  
• 2003 -- In Canada, educational technologist Stephen Downes uses RSS aggregation to collect audio files for his Ed Radio project. Winer brings blogging to Harvard's Berkman Center, where one of his colleagues, former NPR talkshow host Christopher Lydon, uses his blog to offer downloadable audio interviews, large (10 megabyte or more) MP3 files. After a few months, Winer creates a special RSS feed for the Chris Lydon interviews, which are very professional chats about blogging, culture and presidential campaign politics. In October, Winer organizes a BloggerCon gathering at Harvard, where Adam Curry and Lydon meet. Curry, who had experimented with attachments in the past, becomes a Lydon fan and loads his iPod with Lydon's MP3 enclosures. He and various programmers, including Kevin Marks and Werner Vogels, experiment with an audio feed Curry calls SyncPod and scripts to automate the Web-to-iTunes-to-iPod process.
  

• 2004 -- Winer and Curry create a podcast of their transatlantic conversations, called "Trade Secrets." Curry inspires & promotes programs (e.g., iPodder) that not only subscribe to and download audio attachments, but also transfer them to MP3 player software or hardware.
  • Ben Hammersly of the Guardian interviews Lydon and gives podcasting its name.
  • Back in Massachusetts, another Berkman regular, Andrew Grumet, joins the open-source team writing iPodder Lemon, later renamed Juice -- presumably to get out of the way of Apple lawyers.
  • Winer includes audio while blogging from the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
  • Dannie Gregoire starts the directory podcast.net and spreads the words "podcaster" and "podcasting."
  • Other software, directories and resources appear, including podcastcentral.com,  podcastalley.com, podcastdirectory.com .
    
  • Feedburner lets bloggers and others add podcasts to their RSS feeds.
  • Technology-oriented programs including Web Talk Radio and IT Conversations add podcast feeds to their downloadable or streaming audio. Radio stations get involved, including KOMO in Seattle,  WGBH  (Morning Stories ) in Boston,  WNYC  (On the Media)  in New York, and the BBC.
    
    
• 2005 -- Fans of video bloggers, who have been sharing downloadable movies for a couple of years, get their own ipodder-like subscription software, ANT, created by friends of the Rocketboom video blog team. Meanwhile podcasting-for-profit becomes a goal for many. A few broadcasters charge for their podcast feeds; others solicit advertising.  Curry and Lydon try different approaches to incorporating podcasting into radio programs. In a burst of enthusiastic hyperbole, GarageBand.com begins offering a Podcast Garageband Studio, telling readers, "All you need to do next is field calls from radio stations offering you a job." Apple announces an iPodder-like function for iTunes, then it not only delivers, it adds its own directory of thousands of free podcasts at its online music store, along with tutorials on how to create podcasts with Apple tools. Venture capital firms shortly discover podcasting, and developments get increasingly difficult to keep up with... which is why this article fades out here.
  
  
• For more recent developments, see Wikipedia's podcasting page, but cautiously check its "history" tab for any recent "who did what first" debates or signs of vandalism. (Follow page links to corroborating information.)  Example: After their initial collaboration, Winer and Curry went their separate ways as podcasting evangelists, Curry forming a commercial company without Winer. Partisans in their disputes, or people who just like to fan the flames, have been known to "rewrite history" at Wikipedia. And fans (or operators) of various podcasts and  services appear on the Wikipedia page from time to time, adding promotional links, which other Wikipedians usually remove before long.
• Meanwhile, if you see any errors on this page, drop me a line.
  

Create Your Own Podcast: Tools & Techniques

News Media Coverage of Podcasting & Video blogs

© Copyright 2009 Bob Stepno. Last update: 7/27/09; 3:57:33 AM.