The term “Podcast” (or Podcasting) doesn’t come from iPod, as many could think, but is the abbreviation of Personal Option Digital Casting and it indicates an innovative system to obtain text (usually news), audio and video files posted on internet. Usually audio and video files consist in news, radio programs, fictions divided in episodes but also music files and movies.

With the podcasting system, there is no need to visit a website at a certain time or looking for files to download one by one, in fact, using the podcasting is more or less like subscribing to a newspaper or a magazine; the contents land directly in the computer where they are saved and stored to be read, listened, distributed or copied in a portable MP3 reader (the most famous is the iPod from Apple). Some sources, that are websites that post contents for podcasting, sort files in topics that are called channels. In this way, if the entire content of the website is not interesting to the podcaster, he can subscribe just a channel rather than the whole content.

The functioning of podcasting is easy; all it takes is a specific software (usually downloadable for free) called “feed reader” (the most famous and used is iTunes). Once that the software has been installed in the computer, the user has to address it toward the channels (topics) that he subscribed, the sources (websites) where the content is posted and the frequency.

After this set up, the software will log into the internet at regular intervals of time and will check which new audio, video or text files have been posted in the websites that the podcaster subscribed. If the software finds some new files it downloads them automatically in the computer for the user’s convenience.

From my point of view podcasting has a tremendous potential and might be a very useful means for companies that want to market themselves. In fact, since today almost everyone has a MP3 player and downloads files from internet, podcasting represents a huge channel through which masses can be reached with commercials, promotions or news about a particular product or about the company itself. Podcasting can be used in an uncountable number of different ways and for spreading every kind of content. This extreme versatility of podcasting allows virtually every business to make a wide use of it at a very low cost and give to the customer time utility (files are automatically downloaded and the user can listen, watch or read them anytime, everywhere), which is maybe the real value added of podcasting.