Podcasting
In short, podcasting involves the recording of internet radio or similar internet audio programs. These recordings are then made available for download to portable digital audio device. You can listen to the podcast internet radio program while you are away from your computer or at a different time than the original program was broadcast. --- Wikipedia
A couple of weeks ago, a friend told me he was podcasting. I thought he meant broadcasting from his iPod with an iTrip. Dismayed that he wasn't running his own pirate iPod station, I didn't investigate any further.
Encountering LUGRadio encouraged me to explore further. After downloading a receiver, I began subscribing to feeds (much like RSS blog feeds). Each feed downloads the latest shows to be transferred onto your iPod. This is actually quite fun. Someone, somewhere recorded 30-40 minutes of themselves chatting in their living room, or wandering around the streets of some far away place. And now I'm listening to them on my iPod.
Note that you can listen to the shows on any device capable of playing mp3/ogg vorbis files; you don't need an iPod to podcast.
Of course you are as free to podcast yourself and your adventures. This should appeal to those personalities fond of their own voices, or who have always wanted to be a DJ.
What I still don't understand is when do these people have time to record a show, and when do people have time to listen to so many?
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Well, speaking for the LugRadio team, we record the shows once a fortnight, so one evening every two weeks isn't that much to give up, especially when it's something fun :-)
Aha! So you've discovered podcasts... I can't see how people can listen to more than one or two daily ones either, particularly if they're half-hour or more shows. I mostly listen to mine after work or just before bed with Winamp on Windows (Amarok is a useful plugin for noting interesting bits or remembering where you left off). The other great time is on the way to/from work. Makes it pass much quicker. Luckily there are some pretty short 'casts around if you don't have a lot of free time. Check out http://www.ipodder.org/ for a start and appropriate software, or google for them. Just like radio shows, some are better than others.