With the change in RSS feeds, ipod podcast took off, and podcasting became a popular way to share files. Users saw podcasting as a way to become radio hosts, or dj’s, and a variety of podcasts began popping up. Software was written to automatically check the RSS feeds, extract the links to the podcast episodes, and download the files. These programs became known as
podcast clients.

By this time, podcasting had moved beyond the ipod, and they were not simply making an ipod podcast anymore. Some people had figured out how to use even the PlayStation Portable gaming console as a podcast player. It was more difficult that downloading podcasts to the ipod, since the PSP used a different format for it’s files, but PSP podcasts began popping up. In addition, podcasting made inroads to the wider audience of people without iPods, who simply saw podcasting as an extremely convenient way to receive news, music, and entertainment over the internet.

Today, while the iPod podcast type still exists, fewer people subscribe to podcasts as a way of gaining portable media files they can listen to anywhere. Although that is still an attractive part of podcasting, it seems to be eclipsed by the ease with which podcasting has become a content delivery system. Now, podcasting has become tied up with the rising number of audio and video blogs, where blogging is done not by post, but through media files uploaded to the blog. These blogs, and podcasting in general, take advantage of the shrinking cost of broadband internet connections, and the rising number of people with high speed access to offer a picture of the internet rich with multimedia files.

More sites than CNET are finding that podcast news is an expoitable technology. The British Broadcasting Corporation podcasts some of it’s programs, as well as the US radio network NPR. The NPR, because its work is created by a variety of different groups, treats podcasts differently from show to show. The NPR show “This American Life” distributes a podcast of the show through a site called audible.com, which allows feed listeners to subscribe to the feed for a small fee and download the show . The NPR Hourly News show, on the other hand, shares a short 5 minute broadcast that summarizes the news for free. Since the NPR is taking a radio show and converting it into a file that is downloadable by the user, little is lost in the translation.

The sound is designed to convey the entire story, and so podcast subscribers are able to treate the podcast as nothing more than TIVO for the radio. ABC’s podcast of the news show Nightline, on the other hand, is simply the sound track from the television show. This has been one of the criticisms of the Nightline podcast, because by merely stripping the sound from what is designed as a television show, much information is not given to the users. Listeners have problems telling who is who because they miss the visual cues that were supposed to be there, and there is no truly easy way to convert the shows. For this reason, some news shows have been moving from audio podcasts to video ones. They can take the video information directly from the show that is broadcast, lower the visual resolution to shrink the file, and distribute it online as a podcast.

The first thing required is a domain name where the site will be located. Many domain registrars are available who will help one register a domain name for a small fee. Once the domain is registered, hosting is required, and again there are many different companies willing to do the hosting for a small fee. One of those is bluehost.com, but many others are available. When looking for a host, the most important thing is to make sure that a lot bandwidth and storage space is available and cheap. Since podcasting deals with large media files, a lot of disk space will be taken up storing the files and bandwidth will be eaten quickly when they are downloaded by the subscribers.

After podcast hosting has been acquired, it needs to be used and the site needs to be set up. The DNS addresses of the site need to be set to the addresses that the host provides you so that the servers that underlie the internet will know where your site is. DNS addresses can be set by going to the domain registrar that was used to acquire the domain and inputting the addresses provided by the host. After that is done, it will take a few days before the master list the domain registar updates will be shared throughout the internet and all name servers know where to find your specific domain.You can then go about setting up your own podcast.

Using the podcast hosting you now have, you will need to look at the disk space allocated to the site using something called and FTP browser. The host may provide one as part of their hosting plan, but if not there are many available free to choose from. Using the FTP browser, log on to the host and upload a file called dircaster.php after editing it to fit the specifics of the site. Dircaster.php is an easy to find piece of coding that generates a feed file by looking at the contents of its directory or folder. The individual episodes to be podcasted can then be uploaded to the same folder as dircaster.php for cataloging. Make sure that all the meta data, or information about the mp3 file is correct before doing so.

The podcast hosting you now have will allow you to distribute a podcast. It would be best to upload more to the site, such as an index page that tells visitors about the podcast and provides the address of the file dircaster.php on your site. When they subscribe to that file, the podcast client thy use will access it and receive information about the latest podcasts available.

These computers will be told where the domain is located on the internet; what host it is that holds the domain’s information. In order to give them that information, the name servers that are held by the host need to be associated with the domain. Once the domain is in place, a good host should be found. The host that is chosen should offer a large amount of both disk space and a much larger amount bandwidth. Disk space is neccessary because the site which holds the podcast will be storing large media files; audio or video files that take up a lot of space and are difficult to compress. The large bandwidth is necessary because transferring these large files many times to many different people will use up the quota quickly. A good amount of diskspace would be several GigaBytes, bandwidth should be in the tens or hundreds of Gigabytes. Once the host is set up, it should offer you a couple of addresses called nameservers. Inputting these server addresses into the site where the domain was registered will complete the domain setup and allow the site to be found on the internet.

The next step for people who want to know how to make a podcast is installing the software necessary to maintain the podcast. A small piece of coding called dircaster.php can be used to set up a basic level of podcast. Dircaster.php can be found easily by searching for it in any search engine. Once it is located, it should be edited to reflect the particulars of the domain and uploaded to the site. Dircaster.php will generate an RSS file, or feed, that tells the subscriber about the new files available for downloading. To begin podcasting, create the audio files that should be podcast, fill in the information about the file such as date, author, etc, and upload them to the same directory that contains dircaster.php. You now have a podcast, and all that is needed is to publicise the address of the file dircaster.php. To update the podcast with new information, just upload the new files. Other things to make the podcast better might be a site that contains information about the podcast, but it isn’t necessary.