About

A podcast is an audio file. The audio can be anything. An announcement, a song, a radio-style show. It really can be anything. What makes it a podcast is the ability for listeners to register an interest and get new audio delivered to their computer for them.

Potential listeners don't have to register, or subscribe, to a podcast to listen to it. They can visit the podcast web page and download the audio directly from there when they want to.

An RSS feed is what makes a podcast subscribable. The listener subscribes by putting the location of this RSS feed [which looks just like a web page address] into an RSS aggregator, or podcatcher, or a 'Live Bookmark'. Then, whenever a new audio file is published on the web, the listener's computer automatically downloads it. The listener can then choose when they wish to listen to it and how, eg. on their mp3 player

There are various free RSS aggregators, or podcatchers, available to listeners on the internet. LittleSmasher recommends 'Juice'. iPod users are advised to use their iTunes software which has podcast downloading functionality already built in.