Podcasting - the Wave of the Future is Now!

Where the Internet and Mobile Tech Converge..

Much of the technology associated with Podcasting has been around for nearly seven years. Because other Internet-related technologies and emergent mobile technologies changed so rapidly, it was only a matter of time before podcasting became what it now is today – a crucial and fast-growing link in the larger Internet-Mobile Convergence universe.

Where did it all begin?

And just what is Podcasting?. The following is a universally accepted definition. The source is the highly acclaimed computer dictionary site – Whatis.com:

•Podcasting is the preparation and distribution of audio files to the computers of subscribed users utilizing RSS (or Really Simple Syndication ). These files may then be uploaded to digital music or multimedia players like the iPod, other MP3 devices or any of the new generation of Smart Phones. A podcast can be easily created from a digital audio file. The podcaster first saves the file as an MP3 and then uploads it to the Web site of a service provider. The MP3 file gets its own URL, which is inserted into an RSS XML document as an enclosure within an XML tag.

What makes podcasting distinct from other digital audio and video deliverables is the use of syndication feed enclosures. This concept was initially proposed in a draft by Tristan Louis in October, 2000, and implemented in somewhat different form by Dave Winer, a software developer and an author of the RSS format. Winer included the new functionality in RSS 0.92, by defining a new element called “enclosure”, which would simply pass the address of a media file to the RSS aggregator . Winer demonstrated the feature by enclosing a Grateful Dead song in his Scripting News weblog on January 11th, 2001.