Question: What the heck is a ...

Question: What the heck is a Podcast?!?!?!?!?!? — Katie

Ausiello: Podcasting is a way of publishing sound files to a website that allows users to subscribe to the site and receive new files as they are posted. Most podcasts are spoken-word audio created by individuals, often on a particular theme such as technology or movies. Because new files are downloaded automatically by subscribers, podcasting lets individuals have self-published, syndicated radio shows.

Users subscribe to podcasts using reader software that periodically checks for and downloads new content. It can then sync these to the user's portable music player, hence the portmanteau of Apple's "iPod" and "broadcast." However, podcasting does not require an iPod: any digital audio player or computer with the appropriate software can play podcasts.

Podcasting can be thought of as an audio magazine subscription, in that a subscriber receives programs without having to get them, and can listen to them at their leisure. It could also be described as the Internet equivalent of timeshift-capable digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo, which let users automatically record and store television programs for later viewing. (Courtesy Wikipedia)