overview

This page looks at podcasting, the audio spin-off of RSS and blogging.

It covers -

• introduction
• basis and tools
• genres - what people doing with podcasts
• statistics and directories - how many podcasters and how large an audience

The following page covers issues such as censorship, copyright, defamation and economics. It also highlights technical primers and legal guides for the podcast perplexed.

Blogging is discussed in a separate, more detailed profile elsewhere on this site.

    introduction

In essence, podcasting encompasses -

• the creation of wholly original audio content or compilation of existing audio content in an MP3 or similar audio format, with the audio file/s being made available over the web, whether from a personal computer or from a separate server
• access to those audio files by other people with an internet connection, in particular using the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) protocol to automatically receive new files for listening on a personal computer or on a device such as an iPod.

Purists have thus characterised podcasting as "essentially a constantly updated list of links to new MP3 files" - voice and music - with automatic download onto a personal listening device. Others have sought to move beyond audio by podcasting video content.

Podcasting has been described as a mechanism for individuals to create self-published (and non-commercially 'syndicated') radio-style programming, albeit radio that is accessed on demand by the user rather than received by anyone whose receiver is tuned to a specific part of the spectrum. It is distinct from streamed webcast delivery of audio or video content.

Although most attention has centred on individuals, podcasting has also been adopted by some commercial and not-for-profit terrestrial radio broadcasters as a means of promoting their operation, by record companies and by film or other media organisations.

Podcasting has been hyped as the next 'revolution' after blogging, with for example claims that it liberates music, empowers podcasters - every man it seems can be his own radio station (not necessarily a pretty thought) and - as problematically - has been embraced by six million people in the US. The New York Times, belatedly sniffing the zeitgeist in mid-2005, three years after the advent of audio blogging, asked

What do the pope and Paris Hilton have in common? They're both podcasters - and you can be one too.

Blogging pundit Doc Searls argued that

The key virtue of traditional radio is its immediacy: the fact that it's live. They key virtue of this new breed of radio is that it's Net-native. That is, it's archived in a way that can be listened to at the convenience of the listener, and (this is key) that it can be linked to by others, and enclosed in an RSS feed.

Todd Maffin, characterising podcasting as "a vertical revolution", echoed the 'netizen' and 'redemption' themes evident in much early writing about blogging -

Blink and you might miss it. That guy apparently talking to his laptop computer at the coffee shop. Those teens in the basement monkeying with microphones. They are pioneers of a new form of radio that will forever change our industry. They are podcasters: citizen broadcasters who arm themselves with rudimentary recording tools, free software, and a speedy Internet connection. And, like the bloggers before them, they are changing the nature of the medium. Podcasters may indeed revitalize the art of radio itself. And they're hitting it in all four of radio's vanguards: Sound design, talent, revenue, and distribution.

Others have characterised it as a tool for "jumpstarting the Open Media Insurgency".

Wikipedia thus proclaimed that podcasting

has significant advantages over traditional methods of broadcasting due to the egalitarian nature of the technique. In most countries, the radio spectrum is heavily regulated, and personal broadcast licenses are difficult or impossible to obtain. Podcasting allows individuals to easily transmit content worldwide without these difficulties.

There has been less attention to consumer aspects, with RSS allowing listeners to filter available podcast content from across the globe, in principle accessing only the recordings of interest to them at a time of their choice.

The cheerleaders at Forrester saw blue skies ahead for podcasting, reflecting the desire of US consumers

to listen to what they want, when they want, on the device of their choosing.

The NY Times subsequently proclaimed that

podcasting is the platform du jour, the latest form of jailbreak media that has plain old citizens pulling up the microphone and mainstream media running scared. ...

In an effort to walk back the cat - young people are listening to iPods, therefore media should be reiterated in a form that they both use and enjoy - big media is taking a stab at the next big thing. Much of it is awkward and some of it is downright dumb. But it costs almost nothing to experiment with, and this time media organizations are determined not to miss a significant opportunity. ...

The ruling media elite are quickly adopting the methodology and technology of the insurgency, attempting to co-opt something that was meant to tip them over. This time, the revolution will be televised, broadcast and published.
In so doing, major media are attempting to transform a grass-roots movement into an Astroturf replica that resembled the new, new thing, but would still allow them to hold the high ground

In an echo of past enthusiasms for new media it has been embraced by marketers, academics, politicians and others who are keen to show that they are hip (or merely worthy of 15 seconds of media attention).

UK academic Bill Ashraf announced in 2006 that he would eliminate "traditional" lectures from his biochemistry course: they would be replaced with podcasts, with students submitting questions via SMS messages and answers being provided on his blog. He reportedly commented that "some lecture classes have 250 students, so I question the effectiveness of a didactic lecture for an hour". In response one might question the effectiveness for some students of a shorter or longer podcast.

    basis

Podcasting is based on two technologies.

The first is audio compression and editing technology, centred on the MP3 format. That technology allows the creator of a podcast to copy a musical recording, albeit with some loss of quality, from a compact disk or other source. Audio commentary can be added using editing software such as Adobe's Audition or iPodcast Producer; some podcasts emphasise music created by the podcaster or the spoken word, useful for those who want to be shockjocks but are worried about the FCC or ACMA and cannot get a gig at a station.

The second technology is RSS aggregator or podcatching software such as iPodder or Doppler, significant because it allows the user to program identification and downloading of new audio files on the net. RSS draws on a podcast feed, essentially a list of links updated by the publisher of the files. Australian radio station Triple J explains that podcasting is

a way that triple j can automatically send you some of our radio programming to your portable device. To do this, you subscribe to the podcast by downloading a small piece of software that manages all of your podcast subscriptions. When connected to the internet, the software searches for the latest edition of the program on our website, and will download it to a folder on your computer, ready for when you next plug in your iPod or other portable device. This means that you don't have to manually search & download for new programs to download on this website. It happens automatically!

Some podcasts feature basic metadata (such as dates, titles, and brief descriptions) although it is unclear whether much use is made of that information.

    genres

Podcasting encompasses any 'genre' that involves a music or voice recording.

As of mid-2005 major uses appeared to be -

• audio-blogging - spoken versions of blogs, whether replacing or supplementing text blogs
• music programs - compilations, with or without spoken content by the podcaster as disk jockey, of live or previously-recorded music
• 'sound seeing' - narrations of a podcaster's travels, with or without background environmental sounds such as waves breaking on the shore or the hoot of sirens as the narrator walks along a beach or dodges the traffic in Beijing
• academic lectures and conference presentations
• 'authorised' or unauthorised museum guides - audio tours of institutions or particular exhibitions
• 'Godcasting', including the inevitable "weekly dose of the Bible in Klingon".

    statistics and directories

How many people and organisations are podcasting? What is the size and shape of the podcast audience.

The answers are unclear and some of the more triumphalist statistics, such as claims by the Pew Internet & American Life project, are contentious.

One indication of podcast production is listings on online directories such as iPodder.org, Podcast.net, Podcasting News and Podcast Alley.com and via pod search engines such as PodNova.

As yet there have been no major academic studies of podcasting. It is likely to follow the same trajectory as blogging, with

• discovery by early adopters equipped with enthusiasm and internet publishing skills
• attention by specialist and subsequently mass media reinforcing propagation among those without those technical skills (and underpinning development of tools for creating, publishing and managing podcasts)
• normalisation of the podcasting population amid workshops and release of books on 'how to podcast', with many people creatng podcasts on a non-recurrent basis and few people becoming dedicated consumers of podcasts

For the moment, detailed demographics about the audience for podcasts are uncertain. Pew famously announced in April 2005 that "more than 6 million American adults have listened to podcasts", claiming that the US audience was predominantly under 29 years. The research was criticised for extrapolating from a tiny and arguably unrepresentative sample with overly broad survey questions.

Forrester more modestly - but perhaps with equal authority, given past projections - forecasts that the US audience for satellite radio and podcasting will grow to 12.3 million households by 2010.

The number of video podcasters (and their audience) is unknown but, as at mid 2005, the enthusiasm of particular advocates did not appear to have translated to large sizes.

In January 2008 UK radio metrics service Rajar claimed that 8.1 million people in the UK listen to web-based radio services every week. 75% reportedly did not listen to less live radio, with 50% tuning into new shows as a result. The same was true of podcasting, with one-fifth of respondents saying they listen to more live radio and nearly one-third saying they listen to new radio shows after sampling them via podcasts. 8% of those surveyed said they listened to less radio because of the availability of podcasts. Of 4.3 million who have downloaded podcasts, around 1.87 million people supposedly listen to at least one podcast per week, with two-thirds subscribing via iTunes. Of these, 80% of that cohort listened via their computers; 61% copied podcasts to MP3 players. Rajar claimed that its survey indicated that a free, advertising-supported format would be accepted by most listeners (58% expressed interest); less than one-third said they would subscribe to a paid-for service without advertisements.