The Podcast experience

For the uninitiated, podcasting is like a radio show that you regularly subscribe to, the podcasting software that you use downloads the mp3s of the show for you so that you can listen to it whenever/wherever you like. The difference is that anybody can start a radio show and anybody can subscribe. That’s right, just like blogs.

I updated iTunes to 4.9 to get the latest podcast subscriptions feature. There was also a software update for the iPod player for podcasting as well.

The first thing I did was click on this tab called ‘Podcasting’ and in the ‘Podcast directory’, it shows a iTunes Store-like interface for podcasts. I subscribed to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code with a single click and it was downloaded and ready for listening in iTunes. To have even more fun, I connected my iPod and it was updated to have a Podcasts menu.

On the way to work today, I was listening to the 200th episode of the Daily Source Code, recorded live at Gnomedex(1). It was fun… no wonder podcasting has become such a rage. And yes, I did pay attention to traffic.

I wish NDTV or Tehelka had a regular podcast that I could listen to on a daily basis. Now, that would be cutting-edge…

P.S. iPodder is another great podcast receiver software. It works on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

(1) still have to find out what that conference was all about…