According to Wikipedia (a free internet encyclopedia) "podcasting involves the recording of internet radio or similar internet audio programs. These recordings are then made available for download to your iPod or other 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".

Still confused? A podcast is simply a radio show saved as an mp3 file. That mp3 file can be linked to on a website, making it available for direct download and listening. What makes the mp3 a podcast is when the audio file is included into an RSS feed that is subscribed (free) to by using a feed aggregator to scan the feed and look for and download the audio file. The aggregator downloads the latest audio file available in the feed to your computer and locates it in your iTunes music player, Windows Media Player or other music players library. If you own an iPod or an mp3 player, you sync the player with iTunes or WMP and the audio files are automatically transferred to your mp3 player for you to listen when you want.

The great thing about podcasting is that you do not need an iPod or an mp3 player. The feed aggregators download the file to your computer so you can listen to the podcasts on your computer whenever you want.

The history of podcasting is very short. The beginnings can be and usually are disputed. But what is not disputed is who really got podcasting out of the lab and into the near mainstream. On August 13, 2004 Adam Curry, a former MTV VJ, produced his first podcast called "Daily Source Code". It was Adam Curry, with limited developing skills, who created software that could scan an RSS feed for an enclosed audio file and download it to your computer. He put the code on the internet asking for help to make the software more user friendly. After a month or so the first podcast catcher was available called iPodder, the cross-platform podcast receiver. Since then many receivers have been developed and they are being fine-tuned everyday.

The number of podcasts have really grown since late 2004. Since then a number of new aggregators have popped up as well as directories. We hope that Podcasting World will be THE only place on the web you will need to find the best that podcasting has to offer.