Podcasting 101

TiVo For Your iPod

Justin Williams Skip to comments 5 Comments (Comments Closed Closed)

Tired of the same drab content on the radio? Podcasting releases you from the shackles and lets you listen to fresh content direct to your iPod. Justin Williams shows you how to take advantage of this new technology and the applications that make it possible!

If you have ever heard the term podcasting, but wondered what it was all about, read on. In this article, I will cover the history of podcasting, explain how to listen to podcasts and share a podcasting few resources that might prove useful to you.

At the D: All Things Digital Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the next revision of iTunes, version 4.9, will include support for podcasting. While you may have heard the term podcasting mentioned in the mainstream media, there may be some confusion as to what it actually is.

Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle Simply put, podcasting is TiVo for your iPod. Using an RSS aggregator or podcatching client, you can subscribe to online radio shows that will automatically download into iTunes and sync with your iPod. This allows you to have fresh content on your iPod all the time.

The technology that enables podcasting is RSS. Yes, same technology that enables you to subscribe to your favorite news sites and Weblogs also allows you to download audio content automatically. This content is embedded in an <enclosure> tag in your RSS file.

These podcasts are usually created by amateurs who have an interest in a certain topic. There are shows dedicated to music, sports, general talk, religion and a vast array of other topics. With all of the exposure podcasting has been receiving over the past 12 months, several big name broadcasters are beginning to jump on the bandwagon. Syndicated talk show host Rush Limbaugh announced that he will begin offering a podcast feed for his show beginning June 1. Limbaugh’s show is syndicated to over 350 radio stations across the country.

Another exciting milestone for the podcasting revolution is the Podfather, Adam Curry, inking a 4-year deal with Sirius Satellite Radio to broadcast a 4-hour show every weeknight highlighting the best of podcasting. This new outlet gives podcasters an opportunity to gain even more exposure for their work. Sirius has over 1.5 million subscribers who all have the ability to listen to Adam Curry’s Podshow.

As this is a relatively young technology, things are changing at a rapid pace. Shows are now joining together as networks. These networks hope that as a group they can attract advertisers to their respective shows. One of these networks, for example, is the Tech Podcasts Network. It has shows on podcasts that discuss the Macintosh, video games, Linux and programming. There are even some heathens that are discussing Windows.

iPodderX Logo We have talked about what podcasting is and about its short history. Next, let’s discuss how we can take advantage of this new technology. As podcasting grows there is a need for podcasting clients. These clients must keep up with the speed of podcasts, thus the area is experiencing great growth. One of the biggest leaps podcasting clients have made is that they are beginning to converge with regular RSS aggregators. iPodderX, for example, began solely as a podcatching client. With its 3.0 release, the application now has the ability to read regular RSS feeds such as our site’s feed. NetNewsWire, as of version 2.0, is also capable of understanding RSS enclosures and downloading podcasts as well as maintaining its ability to read text-only feeds. As the technology blossoms, people will want a single client to read their Weblogs and download their podcasts. As is evident from iPodderX 3 and NetNewsWire 2, the convergence has begun.

Fetching Your Podcasts

As I said earlier, you can subscribe to podcasts using a dedicated podcatching client. There are several solutions available for the Mac, but my favorite dedicated client is iPodderX. iPodderX is developed by August Trometer (Purdue grad) and Ray Slakinski. The team just released a new version of the application that includes several excellent features. Some of them include:

iPodderX is not the only application that supports podcasting. As I mentioned earlier, NetNewsWire 2.0 has support as well. It is not nearly as feature-complete as the iPodderX version, but for basic downloading needs it will work in most cases. I will cover how to listen to podcasts in both iPodderX and NetNewsWire so that you can get an understanding of the benefits and shortcomings of each application. If you find that neither of these applications work for you, you may want to try one of the other solutions such as iPodder Lemon, PlayPod or PoddumFeeder.

Using iPodderX

Once you have downloaded iPodderX and launched it the first time (it takes a while to launch so be patient) you will be shown a list of default podcasts. These are the iPodderX Top Picks. To find a new podcast, click on the Directory in the source list on the left. Once loaded, the Directory will initially have a listing of other top picks. From there you can select a category you may be interested in. Each category lists all of the podcasts and a brief description of the content covered. If one seems interesting, click on its name, and you will be taken to another page that lets you see notes on previous shows and even preview the latest show.

iPodderX 3

If the show is interesting, click Subscribe to this Feed. This will add it to your iPodderX subscriptions. Find a podcast, and subscribe to it.

Next, we are going to want to set some options for the podcast. To do that, double-click on its title in the Source list. This will expose the Info sheet. From here, you can modify the feed’s title, set automatic download options or use the feed with NewsCaster (iPodderX’s ability to convert a text feed to speech using Tiger’s built-in Text2Speech technology). I set most of my feeds to automatically download.

Next, click the Downloads tab in the Info sheet. If you have the horsepower (a G5 for instance) and want to create AAC files, select the options. Since I do have a G5, I convert all of my podcasts to AAC Bookmarkable. This ensures that my spot is saved when I turn off my iPod. While not nearly as beneficial on a short podcast like The Skinny On Sports, it is awesome if you listen to something that is an hour or longer. If you so desire, you can set your custom genre, a playlist name for iTunes and keywords. Set your Genre to be ‘Podcast’ and leave the rest of the fields blank.

As a final step, let’s open iPodderX’s preferences. Ensure that Check Subscriptions even when iPodderX is not running is enabled. This allows the application to run in the background and search for new podcasts. Without it, you would have to launch the application each time to check for new content. If you want to set some of the other preferences as well, go ahead. We won’t need them for this basic setup.

As new podcasts are retrieved, iPodderX will add them to iTunes in their own separate playlist. If you own an iPod Shuffle, you will probably want to be able to have all of your podcasts in a single playlist. This makes it easy to perform an Autofill to get new content on your iPod. I accomplish this with a Smart Playlist.

From the iTunes menu, select File >New Smart Playlist. For the criteria match the screenshot below.

Podcast Friendly Smart Playlist

Basically, I have created a list that has any file with the Genre of Podcast that has never been played. Now I can always have new podcasts on my Shuffle.

By no means have I covered all of the features of iPodderX. This is just a basic setup to get you started. I encourage you to visit the Web site to learn about all of the great features in version 3.

How about NetNewsWire?

Many of you are already using NetNewsWire. If you are using the Pro version, version 2 adds support for podcasting (sorry Lite users). Any RSS feed that has an enclosure embedded can download it. For example, if you subscribe to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code feed, each time he posts a new show, an enclosure view will be displayed at the bottom of of the content area. If it’s an audio file, you can download it to iTunes or just download it to the folder you specified in the preferences.

One of the features I enjoy about NetNewsWire over iPodderX is that there is a system-wide preference for setting the genre and playlist for all podcasts. I found it tedious to initially have to set that data for each feed I had subscribed to.

The features I miss most from NetNewsWire’s podcast support is the built-in torrent support for BitTorrent files and the ability to convert podcasts to AAC Bookmarkable.

For what it’s worth, I use NetNewsWire rather than iPodderX since I am so accustomed to having all of my text and podcast feeds in a single application.

Resources? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Resources.

We’ve covered what podcasting is and how to listen to podcasts so far. iPodderX provides a great resource in with their built-in podcast directory, but what about other resources? There are several Web sites for podcast listeners. One we have already mentioned is iPodder.org. Run by Adam Curry, it is one of the best resources to find new podcasts and podcatching clients. It is also a great place to get a history of the technology. It is the original and most comprehensive database on the Web. The iPodder.org site is broken into several small nodes that are maintained by volunteers. These volunteers ensure that the content of their respective category fits.

Podcast Alley One of the biggest resources is Podcast Alley. Anyone that has listened to a wide array of podcasts has no doubt heard people plugging this Web site during their podcast. This is done because Podcast Alley allows listeners to rate the podcasts they listen to. Listeners can vote for their favorite show once a month as well as leave comments about the show. It’s the MacUpdate of podcasts. The Alley has a listing of all podcasts available today, a top ten listing and interviews with the people that are creating the shows you are listening to.

Podcast Shuffle is a Web site that will give you a random podcast from the their own directory. This is a great way to be exposed to the wide array of content available. While many of the shows I listen to on this are not of interest to me, it has really helped me find a few gems. There is also a Dashboard widget associated with this site that lets you search for new podcasts based on the keywords you enter.

If you are looking at creating a podcast of your own, be sure to check out Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro. They have posted a short tutorial on using the application for podcasting.

So what are you listening to, Justin?

While I make no claim to be the best judge of content in terms of what I listen to, here’s a list of a few shows I am subscribing to right now. I try to listen to a wide variety of shows, but many that I do subscribe to are technology related. The list below includes a link to the show’s Web site as well as an RSS feed you can click on and have it added to your podcatching client. If you would like to subscribe to all of the shows I listen to, download this OPML file and import it into your client.

If you have any other podcasts that you are listening to that readers might enjoy, post a link in the comments. If you have your own podcast, tell us about it as well. We love to find new content.

Justin WilliamsJustin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at

Reader Comments (5)

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1 Mustang remarks:
#1) On June 7, 2005 7:33 PM

Podcasting 101 is a misleading title. I was expecting an article on creating podcasts. Very disappointed. Not a mistake I’d expect from MacZealots.

2 Justin Williams remarks:
#2) On June 7, 2005 7:34 PM

The title is not misleading. If you would have read the synposis or even the first paragraph you would have realized what the article was about.

3 hadag nachash remarks:
#3) On June 16, 2005 5:04 AM

you left out iPodder - the opensource, free podcast collecting client. why pay for a copy of the original? it’s available at ipodder.sourceforge.net. support free and open source.

4 Daryl Kulak remarks:
#4) On August 17, 2005 5:29 PM

I found the title misleading too. I did a search on “Podcasting 101” and has to read through the entire article here to find out it wasn’t what I wanted. I had high hopes, because I have a PowerBook, so I thought there might be Mac-specific podcasting publishing info.

Just offering feedback.

5 Justin Williams remarks:
#5) On August 17, 2005 5:35 PM

As I said before it’s not misleading.

In other news, I have a how to make a podcast tutorial on my radar. I will link to it from here when its ready.