The History and Technology Behind Radio Podcasting

The history of the Podcast goes back a relatively short ways considering its use of newer technologies and ideas. The true beginning of the term "Radio Podcast" as it is used today would have to be February 12, 2004. Bill Hammersley is a British journalist and in one of his articles in The Guardian (A British Newspaper) he referred to the boom of amateur radio and portable audio blogging in many ways, one term he used while describing and examining current portable audio technologies was, "Podcasting."

While this marks the first documented appearance of the word, "Podcast" it does not mark the beginnings of Podcast technology. After all, it is merely a word to describe a sequence of methods used to record, easily distribute and mobilize audio media. In order to delve deeper into the history of Podcasting, further explanation of the technology behind it is needed.

The Technology

Receiving audio media through an automatic tool requires what is now known as a feed reader or aggregator. Distributing media to these readers requires XML files containing the information to read from. These XML formatted files originally contained what is now called RSS (really simple syndication.) This automation of transfer is done through the use of the internet and identified using a uniform resource identifier, most commonly a URL and/or URI. This information is placed inside the feed, usually and initially as an RSS file. Using the uniform resource identifier and internet availability the feed is put online and individuals can obtain (subscribe to) the feed and read its contents through their feed reader.