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January 16, 2006

Informatio: , ,

Rant ~ What you have posted is not a Podcast!

Don’t worry. This will be a short one…

From the :

Subscribing to podcasts allows a user to collect programs from a variety of sources for listening or viewing offline at whatever time and place is convenient to the user. In contrast, traditional broadcasting provides only one source at a time, and the time is broadcaster-specified…
And…
What makes podcasting unique from other digital audio and video delivery is the use of syndication feed enclosures.
iPod If you post an MP3 on your website of Weblog, it is not a Podcast!

Don’t call it a Podcast. Don’t refer to anything pertaining to that MP3 file as a Podcast. Don’t even think about typing anything resembling “Podcast” into the subject line of your Blog post.

So, what is a Podcast exactly?

If you didn’t pick that up from the above, quoted text, a Podcast is an audio file that is enclosed within an XML feed and can be directly, and automatically, downloaded into an audio application (such as ) or a news aggregator (such as the desktop client, , or the online site, ).

If the audio file that you post on you your website must be manually downloaded, clicked to play, et cetera, it is not a Podcast!

That is all.

(Read the entire Wikipedia entry for Podcast here.)

Oh… And if you must continue to incessantly post audio files on your Blog and call them Podcasts, please consider trying out a blogging app like — it will allow you to post your audio as real, honest-to-goodness Podcast files. Ok?

Posted at 3:13 pm

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Comments (5):
Amen and amen. I have an actual RSS feed for guys putting out a “podcast” on making movies. The only thing is, the mp3’s aren’t enclosed in the RSS, so I can’t just automatically receive them. So not a podcast… I should unsubscribe to their blog out of principle :D

Alan Hartung () (URL) - January 16, 2006 at 3:55 pm

But will you forgive us if we create our podcast using a blog so that a user can subscribe through RSS or visit the site and click and download it?

john () (URL) - January 16, 2006 at 4:16 pm

I get the impression that you feel rather strongly about this one, Tim. :)

Rodney Olsen () (URL) - January 16, 2006 at 4:39 pm

My, aren’t we the technology literalist?

By the way, the tab order on your comment form is wrong. :)

Not a podcaster in any way,

daniel () (URL) - January 16, 2006 at 11:28 pm

Alan ~ Yeah. Stick it to those losers! :-p

John ~ You’re totally safe. You have a feed that we can subscribe to in iTunes, etc. The clickable MP3s on your site are just extras — and even cool to have. The important part is that you have the feed.

Rodney ~ No comment. ;-)

Daniel ~ Not to mention the blatantly invalid code that this site is designed with (but, thankfully, you didn’t check my source). I’m always so lazy when it comes to my own stuff.

timsamoff () (URL) - January 17, 2006 at 08:05 am

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