What are Podcast Feeds?

So what’s the big deal about the much-talked about podcast feeds? The hype is that the feeds are the very backbone of the podcast revolution—without those feeds, nobody can upload and download these files. Those millions of music videos and video highlights? They’d be gone, buried in the computers of the people who created them, but inaccessible to everyone else on the web.

So how do podcast feeds work? They are a way of sharing files over the internet. Podcast feeds makes use of a small, machine readable file, that updates the users of any changes like new additions to the list.

If you go through the file, you’ll see addresses imbedded into the code. These “share” the locations of the files to the readers, so they know where to look. (The files are usually read-only or share-only media files). Originally podcasts concentrated on music files like mp3s, but recent developments have paved the way for sharing video files too. Who knows what other kinds of information the future “feeds” will bring?

Each individual feed is called an episode, and can be about a number of things: a the latest routine from a stand-up comedian, a song by an aspiring country singer, a lecture on the best California wines, or announcements about a game and a sneak b\preview of its graphic capabilities. In fact, the types of feeds have grown considerably as more and more groups have identified the capabilities and marketing opportunities within podcasts.

To subscribe to a feed, users need to get an aggregator. An aggregator is piece of software that lets you “subscribe” to an RSS feed. iIt then automatically pulls the files/shows you have subscribed to and automatically inserts them into your favourite desktop music player whether it Windows Media Player or Apple iTunes. Once the audio file has been added to your music library, the next time you dock and sync your portable music player the files are automatically moved over ready for you to listen to on next time you leave the house.

While choosing aggregators, check what types of feeds they can manage. Some don’t just deal with audio files. You can find a few aggregators that will handle feeds from text based only blogs as well as audio and video blogs. Do a bit of research and you will be sure to find one that matches your needs.

In the future, podcast feeds may be used for a number of purposes besides simply sharing media files In fact, the newer innovations in podcast feeds—the vlog, or videoblog—have become more and more popular. Even media greats such as BBC have used it to share some of its news content. Some analysts predict that the feed system could also be used to share software updates, or any of a myriad of other file types. For now, however, podcasting is dominated by small audio and video files, but with the increasing popularity and interest in this new medium, it will be interesting to see what kind of innovations we will see in the next few years.

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