podcast
 

ok, I'm about to make a total ass of myself. Please take pity on me. The truth is... I have no idea what a "podcast" is. I've been running around nodding my head pretending like I know what the damn thing is, when I have very little idea. I googled it, and got no worthwhile results... help me out here, someone :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

its really just a talk show that you can subscribe to it by a podcatcher program to receive the latest show automatically

an easy-ish explanation of podcasting....

i am tech for an online radio station, and i also have a couple of shows. so, lets say you wanted to listen to my show. im on late at night in the uk (11pm till 1am) so you miss my show :( but we can make it available as a podcast. basicly, you can subscribe (with your podcast software) to the radio's feed, that will show you all the podcasts available from us. you then download my show to your media-player so you can listen to it whenever you want. so rather than downloading your single tunes, you download the entire show.

thats basicly all there is to podcasting. its audio or video streams that you can download. think of it as TiVo fo your ipod. (ipod + broadcast == podcast)

a good analogy is the rss news feed. you subscribe to the newsfeed and get updates on the headlines. you can then choose to view a story. with podcasts, you subscribe to the podcast feed and get 'headlines' (details about the show) and then choose to 'read the story' by downloading the show to your player-thingie (ipod, mp3 player, video player, pc, whatever).