What is Podcasting

So What the Hell is 'Podcasting'?

Podcasting are basically radio shows or even television shows you download from the internets and put on your phone, iPod or MP3 player and listen to at your convenience. The same way some people listen to audio books (what? don't know what those are? visit audible.com) during their car, bus or train commute, loads of people listen to podcasts every day.

Many people start with the gateway drug of podcasting: edited-down versions of their favorite radio programs that are made available on the radio station website. KROQ in Southern California do this, Radio 1 in the UK do the same - it kind of depends how forward-thinking the station is and what copyright issues might come up regarding songs, etc., that are played.

What kinds of shows can I find?

If you want to see just how varied podcasts can be, just check out the Podcasts section in the iTunes program on your computer. Comedy, music, celebrity news, radio drama, fitness, food, world and national news and way more - it's all there, and goons are making some of these shows!

How do I get started listening to a podcast?

The easiest way is to simply go to a site from a Gooncaster's page on this site and click on their web page link. Most gooncasters have some way to listen to their latest shows right from their home page, or at least download the show to your computer.

If you like what you hear, subscribe to the show! Most podcasts are updated weekly, some have new shows every day, and others have less frequent updates, like every 2-4 weeks.

Subscribing with iTunes and iPhones/iPods

An even easier way to sample a Gooncast is to have iTunes installed on your computer (like most computer users do) and visit the iTunes link for any podcast you want to listen to - there's a 99% chance they'll have an iTunes link - then click 'View in iTunes'. This will open up the iTunes program, then you can check them out and subscribe right there.

Subscribing without iTunes (using the RSS feed)

Without an iThing, subscribing can take many turns because there are so many other options available.

Download to computer

Using a program

If all you want to do is subscribe on your computer, so you can listen to shows on your computer or transfer them to an MP3 player, Juice is an easy to use program that's available for Windows and Linux (even Mac!) computers. Click here to get it.

To use Juice:

  1. download it
  2. install it
  3. run it
  4. then go to the website for the podcast you want to subscribe to. Look for the orange and white RSS icon, it looks like this: RSS-02.png Usually this links directly to their RSS feed (almost always an XML file)
  5. Right-click on the RSS icon and copy the location to get the RSS link for that show
  6. find the Add Podcast button in Juice and paste in the RSS link

That will add it to your podcast list and the episode will get updated automatically when you refresh your podcasts in Juice. From there, you'll be able to download episodes and listen to them straight from the program.

Using Google Reader

Google Reader is a great browser-based news reader that consolidates web page updates from various websites, including podcasts. Sites like Lifehacker, Kotaku, Engadget and more (even Something Awful!) use RSS to 'push' updates to people too busy to visit every website they read - using Google Reader lets you visit one site to see updates from EVERY site you follow in one place, without having to visit every single site.

To subscribe to podcasts using Google Reader:

  1. You'll need a Google account
  2. Once you have one just go to the Reader main site
  3. then go to the website for the podcast you want to subscribe to. Look for the orange and white RSS icon, it looks like this: RSS-02.png Usually this links directly to their RSS feed (almost always an XML file)
  4. Right-click on the RSS icon and copy the location to get the RSS link for that show
  5. in Reader, click 'Add Subscription' (near the top left of the Reader main page) and paste in the RSS link

Reader will add the name of the podcast to the bottom of your list of RSS feeds.

To easily manage your podcasts, right-click on the podcast name and select 'New Folder' then name the folder. 'Podcasts' will do for now, but if you add lots of podcasts in different categories you will save a lot of confusion if you put them into groups like News, Comedy, Radio, Entertainment, History, etc.

Now that you've subscribed with Google Reader, you can click on the podcast name, see which episodes are new and listen to them right in your browser. You can also download the shows from Reader and read whatever show notes the podcast creators have added to enhance the listening or viewing experience.

Subscribe to and listen from Android device

The app of choice for Android phones is BeyondPod. When you install it, you get the full-version app for a week, then it downgrades itself to the 'lite' version. The full version is definitely worth it, since you can schedule all your downloads to automatically happen at night, over wifi, every few days. Or however often you want. The full (paid) version allows multiple downloads at a time, and scheduling, the 'lite' version only allows downloading one at a time, and probably without allowing them to be scheduled.

There are other pod 'catcher' apps, but this is the one most goons on Android use. You can subscribe to podcasts individually or even import them from your Google Reader folder (see above), which doubles the coolness of using Reader as your podcatcher.

Don't use Google Listen, it hasn't been updated in ages by the Google team.