What is a podcast - and why should you care?
One of the most common questions I get asked is “What is a podcast?” or “What is podcasting?” Let me tell you a story… don’t worry, it’ll be short 
In my earlier days I used to belong to an organisation which required us to learn a lot of new stuff very quickly so we could make immediate use of it. The way they used to facilitate this was by means of cassette tapes. We used to get these tapes about once a week - they were crammed full of information straight from the experts on the topics we needed to know about.
Now the great thing about this was that we could listen to these tapes in dead time. What is dead time I hear you ask. It’s that time where you can’t really do anything useful - like driving, waiting in a queue, waiting in a doctors waiting room etc. So, for example, when we were driving, we used to just plug these tapes in, one after the other. In fact we got to the stage where we used to measure distances in terms of tapes rather than miles. The amazing thing was, we learned an incredible amount of useful stuff, very quickly using this technique. Einstein, I feel, was correct when he said that if you study something for just 15 minutes a day, you can become an expert within a year (if, indeed he did say that).
Fast forward to about a year ago…
Here’s Andy in 2005, the tapes and that old organisation are a distant memory. But I still needed to learn stuff - fast! So I got to thinking what could replace tapes in the modern age. I didn’t have to look very far before I discovered podcasts (which had actually been realistically available since 2003).
Just like tapes, podcasts contain audio content, and can be listened to at a time convenient to the listener. But unlike tapes, podcasts are computer files and can be published and subscribed to over the Internet. They are played either directly on a computer or downloaded and played on any MP3 player such as the Apple iPod, the Creative Technology Creative Zen or the iRiver while you are on the move - or in a queue, or in a doctor’s waiting room, or…
So I found myself subscribing and listening to many podcasts about the subjects that I needed to know about, and stay informed about …but something else was also happening. After listening to these podcasts, I found myself visiting the websites and looking for further information about the companies that were on them. I was so impressed with the information that had been freely given, that I wanted to contact them, email them, look at their websites. I even struck up some friendships with some of the podcasters. So after a little more investigating - it became clear to me that a growing number of organisations where using podcasting as part of their marketing strategy.
So, lets summarise how podcasts could be useful:-
- They allow you to obtain information very effectively during dead time
- If you are an organisation, they can be a very good way of getting information out to your workforce
- If you are a company, they can be a good tool for gaining visibility and kudos and gaining the reputation as the expert in your field
Podcasting, however, has only one problem - many people associate it with technical stuff and don’t fully understand it. This is especially true for the process of subscribing to podcasts. Happily this is slowly changing, and I shall describe exactly how to find and subscribe to podcasts in a later post.
Find out how people are making money from podcasting.
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July 18th, 2006 at 8:36 am 362
I have been talking with Andy regarding producing a series of podcasts for our business. We specialise in helping owner/managers of small to medium sized business to “get rich” by showing them how to work less and earn more! This is done through a process of preparing their business for sale and then successfully selling it for hopefully a high price !
Although we are currently concerntrating on written PR material, we saw Podcasting as an opportunity to get our message across in what we hope will be an interesting and informative series which our clients and potential clients can listen to at their leisure.
Andy has been extremely helpful in explaining how podcasts work and offering his services in producing them. I only had a vague understanding of them before and very much look forward to getting production underway!
7a5July 18th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Andy
Does this work for language learning which I’d be really interested in!
Sally
September 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 am
Yes - you can learn languages using podcasts.
Go into iTunes (you can download it from http://www.apple.com/itunes/), go the the music store and type a language such as Spanish, French or German into the search box top right. You will be spoilt for choice - subscribe and learn!