We have been able to stream radio shows onto our computers for quite a few years now. Using our computers to stream these shows live has helped us get to content that is from overseas, making the world smaller. It has also helped us get local stations if we live in a location with bad reception or if we are just outside the range of the stations signal coverage. This is called webcasting.

Podcasts are the next step in this evolution. Podcasts are not streamed live but that opens us up to many more listening options. We are no longer limited to radio shows as many websites are now offering their genre and news in the form of a Podcast, releasing regular episodes for free to the public. The information you can get covers as many genres as there are websites. Some of the content is produced professionally and others are very amateur.

The Podcast software which you need to install on your computer, downloads the content for you so you can listen to at your own convenience at a later time. Using Podcasts is very quick and easy and I want this article to encourage the use of this fairly new technology as it is getting more and more popular.

This article will look at some of the software you can use to get Podcasts onto your computer. Podcasts work the same as RSS feeds as it is also syndicated content, only this time for audio. We can set Podcasts to download automatically to our computers without needing to go to the website to get the Podcast audio files manually. This article is in no way comprehensive. It is for people who have not yet experienced listening to Podcasts on their computer and want to give it a go.

Here’s an analogy to describe how Podcast feeds work: Think of it as a radio station that you listen to when you want to, only delivering you the shows you like to listen to. You don’t have to wait for you shows time slot.

Subscribing

The term subscribing refers to adding a feed to your Podcast software. Once you have added a Podcast feed to your software so you receive updates, you have subscribed to that feed.

The majority of the software we will look at have a catalogue of the more popular Podcast feeds, allowing you to sift through them and select which ones you want to install in your software. Once it is in your software, you can select to download all episodes or specific episodes.

Podcast software/aggregators

To get access to Podcasts we first need to download a feed reader or aggregator. Podcast software and aggregators are the same thing. They scan the podcast feed you have subscribed to for updated content and then deliver the Podcasts to you.

Below is a quick rundown of some worthwhile Podcast Aggregators, including advantages and disadvantages of each.

iTunes: This is probably the most popular Podcast aggregator of all that are available. iTunes is sort of where the whole Podcast phenomena started as Podcasts were designed to be able to be transferred to portable devices such as an iPod.

You can go into the directory and load up a plethora of Podcasts, which iTunes will then download for you. You also have the option of subscribing to feeds that are not in the directory.

iTunes has quite a nice interface and is easy to use. You can play all of your downloaded media within iTunes, making it a complete package for your Podcasting needs. With regular updates, you won’t go wrong with this. Available for free through Apple.

Juice: is another popular piece of Podcast software. It has a simple interface and does the job. Yet again you have the directory to find Podcast feeds and you can schedule your downloads.

This system is very bare bones, without an inbuilt video player. Instead it will load your downloaded Podcasts into another player on your computer such as Winamp or Windows Media Player.

This is a good way to go if you want a small package to get your Podcasts.

This is available for free from http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/.

The list of available Podcast software is very long and you can have a search around the web for many more pieces of software that will look after your podcasting needs.These applications are a good place to start.

Once you have the files on your computer, many portable devices will be able to play the file formats podcasts come in. Transfer the file to your devices storage card and try playing it.

If you are on an internet plan which has download limits, take caution when downloading podcasts as they can make quite a large dent in a limited internet package quickly, and could result in excess usage charges.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and hope it has cleared up what Podcasting is for you, getting you started in the podcasting world. Please feel free to check out some more articles at Inspect My Gadget.